Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/790

Rh 766 ROME [HISTORY. le nsul, - .receiving the two Spains and Africa, and Oassus Syria. 1 The coalition now divided between them the control of the empire. For the future the question was, how long the coalition itself would last. Its duration proved to be th of short. In 53 Crassus was defeated and slain by the assus, Parthians at Carrhae, and in Rome the course of events ~*^ 01< slowly forced Pompey into an attitude of hostility to 0. Caesar. The year 54 brought with it a renewal of the riotous anarchy which had disgraced Rome in 58-57. Conscious of its own helplessness, the senate, with the eager assent of all respectable citizens, dissuaded Pompey from leaving Italy. His provinces were left to his legates, and he himself remained at home to maintain order by the weight of his influence. It was a confession that the republic could not stand alone. But Pompey 's mere presence proved insufficient. The anarchy and confusion grew worse, and even strict constitutionalists like Cicero talked of the necessity of investing Pompey with some impey extraordinary powers for the preservation of order. 2 At last in 52 he was elected sole consul, and not only so, but his provincial command was prolonged for five years more, and fresh troops were assigned him. 3 The role of " saviour of society " thus thrust upon Pompey was one which flattered his vanity, but it entailed consequences which it is probable he did not foresee, for it brought him into close alliance with the senate, and in the senate there was a powerful party who were resolved to force him into heading the attack they could not successfully make without him upon Caesar. It was known that the latter, '5. whose command expired in March 49, but who in the ordinary course of things would not have been replaced by his successor until January 48, was anxious to be allowed to stand for his second consulship in the autumn oposed of 49 without coming in person to Rome. 4 His opponents 3411 of in the senate were equally bent on bringing his command sar ' to an end at the legal time, and so obliging him to dis- band his troops and stand for the consulship as a private person, or, if he kept his command, on preventing his 13-704. standing for the consulship. Through 51 and 50 the discussions in the senate and the negotiations with Caesar '5. continued, but with no result. On 1st January 49 Caesar made a last offer of compromise. The senate replied by requiring him on pain of outlawry to disband his legions. Two tribunes who supported him were ejected from the senate house, and the magistrates with Pompey were authorized to take measures to protect the republic, esar Caesar hesitated no longer ; he crossed the Rubicon and ossesthe invaded Italy. The rapidity of his advance astounded i 7o^' an( ^ bewildered his foes. Pompey, followed by the consuls, by the majority of the senate and a long train of nobles, abandoned Italy as untenable, and crossed into Greece. 5 At the end of March Caesar entered Rome as the master of Italy. The story of the civil war which followed, down to the victory at Munda in the spring of )9. 45, has been told elsewhere. 6 We are concerned here with the work which Caesar achieved in the brief intervals 1 Livy, Epit., cv. ; Dio Cass., xxxix. 31. For Cicero's views, see Ep. Ad Fam., i. 9 ; Ad AH., iv. 5. 2 A dictatorship was talked of in Rome; Plut., Pomp., 54 ; Cic. Ad Q. FT., iii. 8. Cicero himself anticipated Augustus in his picture of a " princeps civitatis" sketched in a lost book of the De Republica, written about this time, which was based upon his hopes of what Pompey might prove to be ; Ad Alt., viii. 11 ; August., De Civ. Dei, v. 13. 3 Plut., 56 ; App.,. C., ii. 24. Caesar and the senate, see Mommsen, Rechtsfrage zw. Csesar und d. Senat ; Guiraud, LeDifferend entre Cesar et le Stnat (Paris, 1878). 8 Cicero severely censures Pompey for abandoning Italy, but strategically the move was justified by the fact that Pompey's strength lay in the East, where his name was a power, and in his control of the sea. Politically, however, it was a blunder, as it enabled Caesar to pose as the defender of Italy. 6 See arts. CSAR, CICERO, and POMPEY. of rest allowed him during these stormy years, and with the place which his dictatorship holds in the history of Rome. The task which Caesar had to perform was no easy one. Die It came upon him suddenly ; for there is no sufficient ship oi reason to believe that Caesar had long premeditated CsKSa *> revolution, or that he had previously aspired to anythiug - Q g i more than such a position as that which Pompey had already won, a position unrepublican indeed, but accepted by republicans as inevitable. 7 War was forced upon him as the alternative to political suicide, but success in war brought the responsibilities of nearly absolute power, and Caesar's genius must be held to have shown itself in the masterly fashion in which he grasped the situation, rather than in the supposed sagacity with which he is said to have foreseen and prepared for it. In so far as he failed, his failure was mainly due to the fact that his tenure of power was too short for the work which he was required to perform. From the very first moment when Pompey's ignominious retreat left him master of Italy, he made it clear that he was neither a second Sulla nor even the reckless anarchist which many believed him to be. 8 The Roman and Italian public were first startled by the masterly rapidity and energy of his movements, and then agreeably surprised by his lenity and moderation. No proscriptions or confiscations followed his victories, and all his acts evinced an unmistakable desire to effect a sober and reasonable settlement of the pressing questions of the hour ; of this, and of his almost superhuman energy, the long list of measures he carried out or planned is sufficient proof. The " children of the proscribed " were at length restored to their rights, 9 and with them many of the refugees 10 who had found shelter in Caesar's camp during the two or three years immediately preceding the war ; but the extreme men among his supporters soon realized that their hopes of " novae tabulae " and grants of land were illusory. In allotting lands to his veterans, Caesar carefully avoided any disturbance of existing owners and occupiers, 11 and the mode in which he dealt with the economic crisis produced by the war seems to have satisfied all reasonable men. 12 It had been a common charge against Csesar in former days that he paid excessive court to the populace of Rome, and now that he was master he still dazzled and delighted them by the splendour of the spec- tacles he provided, and by the liberality of his largesses. But he was no indiscriminate flatterer of the mob. The popular clubs and guilds which had helped to organize the anarchy of the last few years were dissolved. 13 A strict inquiry was made into the distribution of the monthly doles of corn, and the number of recipients was reduced by one half; 14 finally, the position of the courts of justice was raised by the abolition of the popular element among the judices. 15 Nor did Caesar shrink from the attempt, in which so many had failed before him, to mitigate the twin evils which were ruining the prosperity of Italy, the concentration of a 7 On this, as on many other points connected with Caesar, divergence has here been ventured on from the views expressed by Mommsen in his brilliant chapter on Caesar (R. G., iii. 446 sq. ). Too much stress must not be laid on tha gossip retailed by Suetonius as to Ccesar's early intentions. 8 Cicero vividly expresses the revulsion of feeling produced by Caesar's energy, humanity, and moderation on his first appearance in Italy. Compare Ad Att., vii. 11, with Ad Att., viii. 13. 9 Dio, xli. 18. 10 App., ii. 48 ; Dio, xli. 36. 11 Plut., Cass., 51 ; Sueton., 37, " adsignavit agros, sed non con- tinuos, ne quis possessorum expelleretur." Cf. App., ii. 94. 12 For the "lex Julia de pecuniis mutuis," see Sueton., 42 ; Caesar, B. C., iii. 1 ; Dio, xli. 37 ; App., ii. 48. The "foeneratores ".were satisfied ; Cic., Ad Fain., viii. 17. But the law displeased anarchists like M. Ccelius Rufus and P. Cornelius Dolabella. 13 Suetou., 42. 14 Suetou., 41 ; Dio, xliii. 21. 15 Sueton., 40 ; Dio, xliii. 25.
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