Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/708

636 triumph by the senate, and while he added to the riches of the state, was careful to render his own fortune more secure. He was a candidate for the consulship in the following year, and would gladly have conducted his canvass by proxy, while he kept his army outside the gates in readiness for his promised triumph. But Cato and the senate would not permit this violation of the law. Caesar at once obeyed, surrendered his triumph, and obtained the consulship. He formed at this time an alliance with Pompeiua and Crassus, which is generally known as the first triumvirate. It was merely a political union for common purposes, and Avas not, like the second triumvirate, an organized form of government. Pompeius and Crassus had been enemies, and were now reconciled by Caesar. Cato, the champion of the senate, could not be included in this alliance, and Cicero was too vacillating in his policy and too weak in character to command the confidence of either of his former friends. The objects of the coalition were not so much to secure the personal aggrandizement of its members, as to form a strong and united front against those who wished to maintain a form of government which had become impossible, and was therefore hurtful to the state. It is possible that both Pompeius and Caesar foresaw that under a new constitution Rome would be subject to a single head, while Crassus was not reluctant to join himself to two men, one of whom must be the ruler of the future. The democracy which raised Caesar to power wished to obtain for its favourite the command of an army which would ensure the preponderance of his counsel in coming changes. Caesar himself, conscious of the pressing need of important measures, and the inability of the senate to provide them, was ready with the frankest generosity to work with any one whose ideas were on this point coincident with his own. The alliance was cemented by the marriage of Pompeius to Julia, Caesar s daughter, while Caesar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso. Caesar s colleague in the consulship was M. Bibulus, the devoted servant of the senate, who both as redile and praetor had submitted as a foil to set off the greatness of his companion. He offered a vain opposition to Caesar s measures, and when he found that he could not prevent their being carried by the use of the political machinery in his power, he retired to his house and announced his intention of &quot; observing the heavens&quot; during the rest of his consulship, a process which ought technically to have rendered invalid all acts passed during that time. We do not posses3 a full account of the laws carried by Caesar while he stood at the head of the state, but we know enough to show us that he used his opportunities to enforce the same political principles which he had always con sistently professed. He ordered the proceedings of the senate to be published, and so rendered its deliberations amenable to public opinion. He passed an agrarian law similar to that of Rullus, but without the defects which had procured its rejection. He carried a measure of just relief for the equites or capitalists, not so much with a view of gaining their support as to make a fair concession to an important class of the community. He declared Ptolemy, king of Egypt, and Ariovistus,the German, friends of the Roman people. He made regulations for the better government of the provinces, and remedied the worst abuses under which the provinces groaned. He was the author of a great measure for the suppression of bribery and corruption amongst public functionaries, which were at that time a stigma on the state. Other resources of a similar tendency were carried by his subordinates. The senate had intended that Caesar, on laying down his office, should be rendered as harmless as possible, and for that reason had assigned to the consuls the charge of woods and forests in Italy. The people, however, were able to protest successfully against the injustice. The tribune Vatinius obtained the passing of a law which gave to Caesar the province of Cisalpine Gaul or Northern Italy for five years, with three legions ; and the senate of its own accord added the charge of Gaul and the Alps with an additional legion. Caesar thus obtained a field of action worthy of his genius. He stayed near the city just long enough to secure the election of his friends as consuls, and to provide against the repeal of the measures which he had passed, and then set out for the country which has ever since been identified with his name. It is not our object to describe in detail the marvellous work which occupied Caesar for the next eight years. No part of his life has been written with greater fulness, nor is there any for which we possess more abundant material. It must suffice to give a short sketch of the masterly campaigns by which a free and chivalrous people were reduced to absolute obedience, new countries were opened up to the knowledge and cnterprize of Rome, and a form was given to the development of the civilization of France, of which she has preserved the main features to the present day. In his first campaign (58 B.C.) Caesar gained two important victories. He defeated at Autun the Helvetii who were leaving Switzerland with the intention of settling themselves on the fertile seaboard of the Atlantic, and forced the greater number of them to return to the homes which they had left. He attacked a nobler foe in the Germans under Ariovistus, the friend of the Roman people, and in the neighbourhood of Miihlhausen cut them to pieces, and drove the few survivors across the Rhine. This mighty stream now became the boundary of the Roman empire. All central Gaul was quelled by his bold attack, and the Germans were cowed into quietude, but the Belgae, a mixed race of warlike qualities, remained unsubdued. In the next year (57 B.C.) Caesar marched against them, and scattered their confederacy to the winds. The Nervii made a better stand, and Caesar was forced to expose his life, and to fight like a common soldier. But they, too, sustained a crushing defeat, and the submission of the Veneti and the coast cantons to Publius Crassus left only the northern tribes, such as the Morini andMenapii, independent of the Roman rule. The work of Crassus had been imperfectly performed, and in the following year (5G B.C.) the Veneti threw off the yoke. The whole coast from the Loire to the Rhine joined the insurrection. Caesar hurried from Italy, and taking measures for the security of the north and south, prepared to attack the Veneti by sea. Victorious by sea as by land by new and skilful devices, he disabled their powerful fleet, and sold the defeated captives into slavery to a man. The Morini and Menapii alone remained unconquered, protected more than any thing else by the natural strength of their country. Caesar marched against them, but was forced to desist from the attack. With this exception, the whole of Gaul had been reduced to obedience in three campaigns. Caesar now turned his arms against the Germans. He cut to pieces the Usipetes and Tenchteri, who had crossed the lower Rhine, after treacherously depriving them of their leaders, who had come of their own free will into his camp. There is no excuse for this violation of international law, which was very properly rebuked by Cato in the senate ; but Caesar might have replied that the precedents of Roman history had not inculcated a spirit of fairness or forbearance towards alien enemies. He built a bridge across the Rhine, and remained eighteen days on the other bank. The same year (55 B.C.) witnessed his first expedition to Britain, whither he was led partly from curiosity, and partly by a desire to detach from the Celtic confederacy a land which was the sure asylum of political refugees. The islanders made a brave resistance, and Caesar was compelled to retreat, Hq 