Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/789

Rh CJESAE.] ROME 765 endeavoured to organize. Bankrupt nobles like himself, Sullan veterans and the starving peasants whom they had dispossessed of their holdings, outlaws of every descrip- tion, the slave population of Rome, and the wilder herdsmen-slaves of the Apulian pastures, were all enlisted under his banner, and attempts were even made to excite disaffection among the newly-conquered people of south- ern Gaul and the warlike tribes who still cherished the memory of Sertorius in Spain. In Etruria, the seat and centre of agrarian distress and discontent, a rising actually took place headed by a Sullan centurion, but the spread of the revolt was checked by Cicero's vigorous measures. Catiline fled from Eome, and died fighting with desperate courage at the head of his motley force of old soldiers, peasants, and slaves. His accomplices in Rome were arrested, and, after an unavailing protest from Caesar, the senate authorized the consuls summarily to put them to death. The Catilinarian outbreak had been a blow to Caesar, whose schemes it interrupted, but to Cicero it brought, not only popularity and honour, but, as he believed, the realization of his political ideal. The senate and the equestrian order, the nobles of Rome and the middle class in the country, had made common cause in the face of a common danger ; and the danger had been averted by the vigorous action of a consul sprung from the people, under the guidance of a united senate, and backed by the mass of good citizens. But Pompey was now an his way home, 1 and again as in 70 the political future seemed to depend on the attitude which the successful general would assume ; Pompey himself looked simply to the attainment by the help of one political party or another of his immediate aims, which at present were the ratification of his arrangements in Asia and a grant of land for his troops. It was the impracticable jealousy of his personal rivals in the senate, aided by the versatility of Caesar, who pre- sented himself not as his rival but as his ally, which drove Pompey once more, in spite of Cicero's efforts, into the camp of what was still nominally the popular party. In 60, on Caesar's return from his proprsetorship in Spain, the coalition was formed which is known by the some- what misleading title of the first triumvirate. 2 Pompey was ostensibly the head of this new alliance, and in return for the satisfaction of his own demands he undertook to support Caesar's candidature for the consulship. The wealth and influence of Crassus were enlisted in the same cause, but what he was to receive in exchange is not clear. Cicero was under no illusions as to the significance of this coalition. It scattered to the winds his dreams of a stable and conservative republic. Pompey, whom he had hoped to enlist as the champion of constitutional government, had been driven into the arms of Caesar. The union between the senate and the equestrian order had been dissolved, and the support of the publicani lost by an untimely quarrel over the price to be paid for collecting the taxes of Asia, and, to crown all, both his own personal safety and the autnority of the senate were threatened by the openly avowed intentions of Catiline's friends to bring the consul of 63 to account for his unconstitutional execution of Catiline's accomplices. His fears were fully justified by the results. The year 59 saw the republic powerless in the hands of three citizens. C&sar as consul procured the ratification of Pompey's acts in Asia, conciliated the publicani by granting them 1 For the history of the next eighteen years, the most important ancient authority is Cicero in his letters and speeches. 2 Misleading, because the coalition was unofficial. The "trium- virs" of 43 were actual magistrates, ' ' niviri reipublicae constituendae causa." the relief refused by the senate, and carried an agrarian law of the new type, which provided for the purchase of lands for allotment at the cost of the treasury, and for the assignment of the rich "ager Campanus." 3 But Caesar aimed at more than the carrying of an agrarian law in the teeth of the senate or any party victory in the forum. An important military command was essential Caesar to him, and he judged correctly enough that in the West comm* there was work to be done which might enable him to inGai win a position such as Pompey had achieved in the East. An obedient tribune was found, and by the lex Vatinia he was given for rive years the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, to which was added by a decree of the senate Transalpine Gaul also. 4 It was a command which not only opened to him a great military career, but enabled him, as the master of the valley of the Po, to keep an effective watch on the course of affairs in Italy. Early the next year the attack upon himself which Banisl Cicero had foreseen was made. P. Clodius as tribune ment ' brought forward a law enacting that any one who had put a g 3. 08 * 1 Roman citizen to death without trial by the people should 53-57 be interdicted from fire and water. Cicero finding him- 696-7. self deserted even by Pompey left Rome in a panic, and by a second Clodian law he was declared to be outlawed. 5 With Caesar away in his province, and Cicero banished, Clodius was for the time master in Rome. But, absolute as he was in the streets, and recklessly as he parodied the policy of the Gracchi by violent attacks on the senate, his tribunate merely illustrated the anarchy which now inevitably followed the withdrawal of a strong controlling hand. A reaction speedily followed. Pompey, bewildered and alarmed by Clodius's violence, at last bestirred himself. Cicero's recall was decreed by the senate, and early in August 57 in the comitia centuriata, to which his Italian supporters flocked in crowds, a law was passed revoking the sentence of outlawry passed upon him. Intoxicated by the acclamations which greeted him, Renew; and encouraged by Pompey's support, and by the salutary of the. effects of Clodius's excesses, Cicero's hopes rose high, r^f ^ and a return to the days of 63 seemed not impos- sible. 6 With indefatigable energy he strove to reconstruct a solid constitutional party, but only to fail once more. Pompey was irritated by the hostility of a powerful party in the senate, who thwarted his desires for a fresh com- mand and even encouraged Clodius in insulting the conqueror of the East. Caesar became alarmed at the reports which reached him that the repeal of his agrarian law was threatened and that the feeling against the coali- tion was growing in strength ; above all he was anxious for a renewal of his five years' command. He acted at once, and in the celebrated conference at Luca (56) the 698. alliance of the three self-constituted rulers of Rome was renewed. Cicero succumbed to the inevitable and with- drew in despair from public life. Pompey and Crassus became consuls for 55. Caesar's command was renewed 699. for another five years, and to each of his two allies import- ant provinces were assigned for a similar period Pompey 3 For the lex Julia Agraria and the lex Campana, see Dio Cass., xxxviii. 1; App., B. C., ii. 10; Suet., Caesar, 20; Cic. Ad Att. t ii. 16, 18. 4 Suet, C&sar, 22; Dio Cass., xxxviii. 8; App.,. C., ii. 13; Plut., Cass., 14. 5 Both laws were carried in the "comitia tributa." The first merely reaffirmed the right of appeal, as the law of Gaius Gracchus had done. The second declared Cicero to be already by his own act in leaving Rome " interdicted from fire and water, " a procedure for which precedents could be quoted. Clodius was within the letter of the law. 6 Cicero's speech Pro Sestio gives expression to these feelings ; it contains a passionate appeal to all good citizens to rally round the old constitution. The acquittal of SesMus confirmed his hopes. See Ad Q. Fr., ii. 4,