CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS (102-44 B.C.), the great Roman
soldier and statesman, was born on the
12th of July 102 B.C.[1]
His family was of patrician rank and traced a
legendary descent from Iulus, the founder of Alba
Longa, son of Aeneas and grandson of Venus and
Anchises. Caesar made the most of his divine ancestry and built
a temple in his forum to Venus Genetrix; but his patrician
descent was of little importance in politics and disqualified
Caesar from holding the tribunate, an office to which, as a leader
of the popular party, he would naturally have aspired. The
Julii Caesares, however, had also acquired the new nobilitas,
which belonged to holders of the great magistracies. Caesar's
uncle was consul in 91 B.C., and his father held the praetorship.
Most of the family seem to have belonged to the senatorial
party (optimates); but Caesar himself was from the first a
popularis. The determining factor is no doubt to be sought
in his relationship with C. Marius, the husband of his aunt
Julia. Caesar was born in the year of Marius's first great victory
over the Teutones, and as he grew up, inspired by the traditions
of the great soldier's career, attached himself to his party and
its fortunes. Of his education we know scarcely anything. His
mother, Aurelia, belonged to a distinguished family, and Tacitus
(Dial. de Orat. xxviii.) couples her name with that of Cornelia,
the mother of the Gracchi, as an example of the Roman matron
whose disciplina and severitas formed her son for the duties of a
soldier and statesman. His tutor was M. Antonius Gnipho, a
native of Gaul (by which Cisalpine Gaul may be meant), who is
said to have been equally learned in Greek and Latin literature,
and to have set up in later years a school of rhetoric which was
attended by Cicero in his praetorship 66 B.C. It is possible
that Caesar may have derived from him his interest in Gaul and
its people and his sympathy with the claims of the Romanized
Gauls of northern Italy to political rights.
In his sixteenth year (87 B.C.) Caesar lost his father, and
assumed the toga virilis as the token of manhood. The social war
(90-89 B.C.) had been brought to a close by the enfranchisement
of Rome's Italian subjects; and the civil war which followed it
led, after the departure of Sulla for the East, to the temporary
triumph of the populares, led by Marius and Cinna, and the
indiscriminate massacre of their political opponents, including
both of Caesar's uncles. Caesar was at once marked out for
high distinction, being created flamen Dialis or priest of Jupiter.
In the following year (which saw the death of Marius) Caesar,
rejecting a proposed marriage with a wealthy capitalist's heiress,
sought and obtained the hand of Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna,
and thus became further identified with the ruling party. His
career was soon after interrupted by the triumphant return of
Sulla (82 B.C.), who ordered him to divorce his wife,
and on his
refusal deprived him of his property and priesthood and was
induced to spare his life only by the intercession of his aristocratic
relatives and the college of vestal virgins.
Released from his religious obligations, Caesar now (81 B.C.)
left Rome for the East and served his first campaign under
Minucius Thermus, who was engaged in stamping out the
embers of resistance to Roman rule in the province of Asia,
and received from him the “civic crown” for saving a
fellow-soldier's life at the storm of Mytilene. In 78 B.C. he
was serving under Servilius Isauricus against the Cilician
pirates when the news of Sulla's death reached him and he at
once returned to Rome. Refusing to entangle himself in the
abortive and equivocal schemes of Lepidus to subvert the Sullan
constitution, Caesar took up the only instrument of political
warfare left to the opposition by prosecuting two senatorial
governors, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (in 77 B.C.) and C. Antonius
(in 76 B.C.) for extortion in the provinces of Macedonia and
Greece, and though he lost both cases, probably convinced the
world at large of the corruption of the senatorial tribunals. After
these failures Caesar determined to take no active part in politics
for a time, and retraced his steps to the East in order to study
rhetoric under Molon, at Rhodes. On the journey thither he was
caught by pirates, whom he treated with consummate nonchalance
while awaiting his ransom, threatening to return and
crucify them; when released he lost no time in carrying out his
threat. Whilst he was studying at Rhodes the third Mithradatic
War broke out, and Caesar at once raised a corps of volunteers
and helped to secure the wavering loyalty of the provincials of
Asia. When Lucullus assumed the command of the Roman
troops in Asia, Caesar returned to Rome, to find that he had been
elected to a seat on the college of pontifices left vacant by the death
of his uncle, C. Aurelius Cotta. He was likewise elected first of
the six tribuni militum a populo, but we hear nothing of his
service in this capacity. Suetonius tells us that he threw himself
into the agitation for the restoration of the ancient powers of the
tribunate curtailed by Sulla, and that he secured the passing of a
law of amnesty in favour of the partisans of Sertorius. He was
not, however, destined to compass the downfall of the Sullan
régime; the crisis of the Slave War placed the Senate at the mercy
of Pompey and Crassus, who in 70 B.C. swept away the safeguards
of senatorial ascendancy, restored the initiative in legislation to
the tribunes, and replaced the Equestrian order, i.e. the
capitalists, in partial possession of the jury-courts. This judicial
reform (or rather compromise) was the work of Caesar's uncle,
L. Aurelius Cotta. Caesar himself, however, gained no accession
of influence. In 69 B.C. he served as quaestor under Antistius
Vetus, governor of Hither Spain, and on his way back to Rome
(according to Suetonius) promoted a revolutionary agitation
amongst the Transpadanes for the acquisition of full political
rights, which had been denied them by Sulla's settlement.
Caesar was now best known as a man of pleasure, celebrated
for his debts and his intrigues; in politics he had no force behind
Opposition to
the Optimates.
|
him save that of the discredited party of the populares,
reduced to lending a passive support to Pompey and
Crassus. But as soon as the proved incompetence of the
senatorial government had brought about the mission
of Pompey to the East with the almost unlimited powers conferred
on him by the Gabinian and Manilian laws of 67 and 66
B.C. (see Pompey),
Caesar plunged into a network of political
intrigues which it is no longer possible to unravel. In his public
acts he lost no opportunity of upholding the democratic tradition.
Already in 68 B.C. he had paraded the bust of Marius at his
aunt's funeral; in 65 B.C., as curule aedile,
he restored the
trophies of Marius to their place on the Capitol; in 64 B.C., as
president of the murder commission, he brought three of Sulla's
executioners to trial, and in 63 B.C. he caused the ancient
procedure of trial by popular assembly to be revived against the
murderer of Saturninus. By these means, and by the lavishness
of his expenditure on public entertainments as aedile, he acquired
such popularity with the plebs that he was elected pontifex
maximus in 63 B.C. against such distinguished rivals as Q.
Lutatius Catulus and P. Servilius Isauricus. But all this was on
the surface. There can be no doubt that Caesar was cognizant of
some at least of the threads of conspiracy which were woven
during Pompey's absence in the East. According to one story,
the enfants perdus of the revolutionary party —
Catiline, Autronius
and others — designed to assassinate the consuls on the 1st of
January 65, and make Crassus dictator, with Caesar as master
of the horse. We are also told that a public proposal was made
to confer upon him an extraordinary military command in Egypt,
not without a legitimate king and nominally under the protection
of Rome. An equally abortive attempt to create a counterpoise
to Pompey's power was made by the tribune Rullus at the close
of 64 B.C. He proposed to create a land commission with very
wide powers, which would in effect have been wielded by Caesar
and Crassus. The bill was defeated by Cicero, consul in 63 B.C.
In the same year the conspiracy associated with the name of
Catiline came to a head. The charge of complicity was freely
levelled at Caesar, and indeed was hinted at by Cato in the great
debate in the senate. But Caesar, for party reasons, was bound
to oppose the execution of the conspirators; while Crassus, who
shared in the accusation, was the richest man in Rome and the
least likely to further anarchist plots. Both, however, doubtless
knew as much and as little as suited their convenience of the
doings of the left wing of their party, which served to aggravate
the embarrassments of the government.
As praetor (62 B.C.) Caesar supported proposals in Pompey's
favour which brought him into violent collision with the senate.
This was a master-stroke of tactics, as Pompey's return was
imminent. Thus when Pompey landed in Italy and disbanded
his army he found in Caesar a natural ally. After some delay,
said to have been caused by the exigencies of his creditors, which
were met by a loan of £200,000 from Crassus, Caesar left Rome for
his province of Further Spain, where he was able to retrieve his
financial position, and to lay the foundations of a military
reputation. He returned to Rome in 60 B.C. to find that the
senate had sacrificed the support of the capitalists (which
Cicero had worked so hard to secure), and had finally alienated
Pompey by refusing to ratify his acts and grant lands to his
soldiers. Caesar at once approached both Pompey and Crassus,
who alike detested the existing system of government but were
personally at variance, and succeeded in persuading them to
forget their quarrel and join him in a coalition which should
put an end to the rule of the oligarchy. He even made a generous,
though unsuccessful, endeavour to enlist the support of Cicero.
The so-called First Triumvirate was formed, and constitutional
government ceased to exist save in name.
The first prize which fell to Caesar was the consulship, to
secure which he forewent the triumph which he had earned in
Spain. His colleague was M. Bibulus, who belonged to the
straitest sect of the senatorial oligarchy and, together with
his party, placed every form of constitutional obstruction
Coalition with
Pompey and Crassus.
|
in the path of Caesar's legislation. Caesar, however,
overrode all opposition, mustering Pompey's veterans
to drive his colleague from the forum. Bibulus became
a virtual prisoner in his own house, and Caesar placed himself
outside the pale of the free republic. Thus the programme of the
coalition was carried through. Pompey was satisfied by the
ratification of his acts in Asia, and by the assignment of the
Campanian state domains to his veterans, the capitalists (with
whose interests Crassus was identified) had their bargain for the
farming of the Asiatic revenues cancelled, Ptolemy Auletes
received the confirmation of his title to the throne of Egypt (for
a consideration amounting to £1,500,000), and a fresh act was
passed for preventing extortion by provincial governors.
It was now all-important for Caesar to secure practical
irresponsibility by obtaining a military command. The senate,
in virtue of its constitutional prerogative, had assigned
as the provincia of the consuls of 59 B.C. the supervision
of roads and forests in Italy. Caesar secured the
passing of a legislative enactment conferring upon himself the
government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria for five years, and
exacted from the terrorized senate the addition of Transalpine
Gaul, where, as he well knew, a storm was brewing which
threatened to sweep away Roman civilization beyond the Alps.
The mutual jealousies of the Gallic tribes had enabled German
invaders first to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Rhine,
and then to obtain a predominant position in Central Gaul.
In 60 B.C. the German king Ariovistus had defeated the Aedui,
who were allies of Rome, and had wrested from the Sequani a
large portion of their territory. Caesar must have seen that the
Germans were preparing to dispute with Rome the mastery of
Gaul; but it was necessary to gain time, and in 59 B.C. Ariovistus
was inscribed on the roll of the friends of the Roman people. In
58 B.C. the Helvetii, a Celtic people inhabiting Switzerland,
determined to migrate for the shores of the Atlantic and demanded
a passage through Roman territory. According to Caesar's
statement they numbered 368,000, and it was necessary at all
hazards to save the Roman province from the invasion. Caesar
had but one legion beyond the Alps. With this he marched to
Geneva, destroyed the bridge over the Rhone, fortified the left
bank of the river, and forced the Helvetii to follow the right
bank. Hastening back to Italy he withdrew his three remaining
legions from Aquileia, raised two more, and, crossing the Alps by
forced marches, arrived in the neighbourhood of Lyons to find
that three-fourths of the Helvetii had already crossed the Saóône,
marching westward. He destroyed their rearguard, the Tigurini,
as it was about to cross, transported his army across the river
in twenty-four hours, pursued the Helvetii in a northerly direction,
and utterly defeated them at Bibracte (Mont Beuvray).
Of the survivors a few were settled amongst the Aedui; the
rest were sent back to Switzerland lest it should fall into
German hands.
The Gallic chiefs now appealed to Caesar to deliver them from
the actual or threatened tyranny of Ariovistus. He at once
demanded a conference, which Ariovistus refused, and on hearing
that fresh swarms were crossing the Rhine, marched with all haste
to Vesontio (Besançon) and thence by way of Belfort into the
plain of Alsace, where he gained a decisive victory over the
Germans, of whom only a few (including Ariovistus) reached the
right bank of the Rhine in safety. These successes roused natural
alarm in the minds of the Belgae — a confederacy of tribes in the
north-west of Gaul, whose civilization was less advanced than that
of the Celtae of the centre —
and in the spring of 57 B.C. Caesar
determined to anticipate the offensive movement which they
were understood to be preparing and marched northwards into
the territory of the Remi (about Reims), who alone amongst
their neighbours were friendly to Rome. He successfully
checked the advance of the enemy at the passage of the Aisne
(between Laon and Reims) and their ill-organized force melted
away as he advanced. But the Nervii, and their neighbours
further to the north-west, remained to be dealt with, and were
crushed only after a desperate struggle on the banks of the
Sambre, in which Caesar was forced to expose his person in the
mêlée. Finally, the Aduatuci (near Namur) were compelled to
submit, and were punished for their subsequent treachery by
being sold wholesale into slavery. In the meantime Caesar's
lieutenant, P. Crassus, received the submission of the tribes of
the north-east, so that by the close of the campaign almost the
whole of Gaul — except the Aquitani in the south-west —
acknowledged
Roman suzerainty.
In 56 B.C., however, the Veneti of Brittany threw off the yoke
and detained two of Crassus's officers as hostages. Caesar, who
had been hastily summoned from Illyricum, crossed the Loire
and invaded Brittany, but found that he could make no headway
without destroying the powerful fleet of high, flat-bottomed
boats like floating castles possessed by the Veneti. A fleet was
hastily constructed in the estuary of the Loire, and placed under
the command of Decimus Brutus. The decisive engagement
was fought (probably) in the Gulf of Morbihan and the Romans
gained the victory by cutting down the enemy's rigging with
sickles attached to poles. As a punishment for their treachery,
Caesar put to death the senate of the Veneti and sold their
people into slavery. Meanwhile Sabinus was victorious on the
northern coasts, and Crassus subdued the Aquitani. At the close
of the season Caesar raided the territories of the Morini and
Menapii in the extreme north-west.
In 55 B.C. certain German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteri,
crossed the lower Rhine, and invaded the modern Flanders.
Caesar at once marched to meet them, and, on the pretext
that they had violated a truce, seized their leaders
who had come to parley with him, and then surprised
and practically destroyed their host. His enemies in
Rome accused him of treachery, and Cato even proposed that he
should be handed over to the Germans. Caesar meanwhile
constructed his famous bridge over the Rhine in ten days, and
made a demonstration of force on the right bank. In the remaining
weeks of the summer he made his first expedition to Britain,
and this was followed by a second crossing in 54 B.C. On the
first occasion Caesar took with him only two legions, and effected
little beyond a landing on the coast of Kent. The second
expedition consisted of five legions and 2000 cavalry, and set
out from the Portus Itius (Boulogne or Wissant; see T. Rice
Holmes, Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar, 1907,
later views in Classical Review, May 1909, and H. S. Jones, in
Eng. Hist. Rev. xxiv., 1909, p. 115). Caesar now penetrated
into Middlesex and crossed the Thames, but the British prince
Cassivellaunus with his war-chariots harassed the Roman
columns, and Caesar was compelled to return to Gaul after
imposing a tribute which was never paid.
The next two years witnessed the final struggle of the Gauls
for freedom. Just before the second crossing to Britain,
Dumnorix, an Aeduan chief, had been detected in treasonable
intrigues, and killed in an attempt to escape from Caesar's
camp. At the close of the campaign Caesar distributed his
legions over a somewhat wide extent of territory. Two of their
camps were treacherously attacked. At Aduatuca (near Aix-la-Chapelle)
a newly-raised legion was cut to pieces by the
Eburones under Ambiorix, while Quintus Cicero was besieged
in the neighbourhood of Namur and only just relieved in time by
Caesar, who was obliged to winter in Gaul in order to check
the spread of the rebellion. Indutiomarus, indeed, chief of
the Treveri (about Trèves), revolted and attacked Labienus,
but was defeated and killed. The campaign of 53 B.C.
was marked by a second crossing of the Rhine and by the
destruction of the Eburones, whose leader Ambiorix, however,
escaped. In the autumn Caesar held a conference at Durocortorum
(Reims), and Acco, a chief of the Senones, was convicted
of treason and flogged to death.
Early in 52 B.C. some Roman traders were massacred at
Cenabum (Orléans), and, on hearing the news, the Arverni revolted
under Vercingetorix and were quickly joined by other
tribes, especially the Bituriges, whose capital was Avaricum
(Bourges). Caesar hastened back from Italy, slipped past
Vercingetorix and reached Agedincum (Sens), the headquarters
of his legions. Vercingetorix saw that Caesar could not be
met in open battle, and determined to concentrate his forces in
a few strong positions. Caesar first besieged and took Avaricum,
whose occupants were massacred, and then invested Gergovia
(near the Puy-de-Dôme), the capital of the Arverni, but suffered
a severe repulse and was forced to raise the siege. Hearing that
the Roman province was threatened, he marched westward,
defeated Vercingetorix near Dijon and shut him up in Alesia
(Mont-Auxois), which he surrounded with lines of circumvallation.
An attempt at relief by Vercassivellaunus was defeated after
a desperate struggle and Vercingetorix surrendered. The
struggle was over except for some isolated operations
in 51 B.C.,
ending with the siege and capture of Uxellodunum (Puy d'Issolu),
whose defenders had their hands cut off. Caesar now reduced
Gaul to the form of a province, fixing the tribute at 40,000,000
sesterces (£350,000), and dealing liberally with the conquered
tribes, whose cantons were not broken up.
In the meantime his own position was becoming critical.
In 56 B.C., at the conference of Luca (Lucca), Caesar, Pompey
Break-up of
the Coalition.
|
and Crassus had renewed their agreement, and Caesar's
command in Gaul, which would have expired on the
1st of March 54 B.C., was renewed, probably for five
years, i.e. to the 1st of March 49 B.C.,
and it was enacted
that the question of his successor should not be discussed until
the 1st of March 50 B.C., by which time the provincial commands
for 49 B.C. would have been assigned, so that Caesar would
retain imperium, and thus immunity from persecution, until
the end of 49 B.C. He was to be elected consul for 48 B.C., and,
as the law prescribed a personal canvass, he was by special
enactment dispensed from its provisions. But in 54 B.C. Julia,
the daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey, died, and in 53 B.C.
Crassus was killed at Carrhae. Pompey now drifted apart
from Caesar and became the champion of the senate. In 52 B.C.
he passed a fresh law de jure magistratuum which cut away the
ground beneath Caesar's feet by making it possible to provide
a successor to the Gallic provinces before the close of 49 B.C.,
which meant that Caesar would become for some months a private
person, and thus liable to be called to account for his unconstitutional
acts. Caesar had no resource left but uncompromising
obstruction, which he sustained by enormous bribes. His
representative in 50 B.C., the tribune C. Scribonius Curio, served
him well, and induced the lukewarm majority of the senate to
refrain from extreme measures, insisting that Pompey, as well
as Caesar, should resign the imperium. But all attempts at
negotiation failed, and in January 49 B.C., martial law having
been proclaimed on the proposal of the consuls, the tribunes
Antony and Cassius fled to Caesar, who crossed the Rubicon
(the frontier of Italy) with a single legion, exclaiming “Alea
jacta est.”
Pompey's available force consisted in two legions stationed
in Campania, and eight, commanded by his lieutenants, Afranius
and Petreius, in Spain; both sides levied troops in
Italy. Caesar was soon joined by two legions from
Gaul and marched rapidly down the Adriatic coast,
overtaking Pompey at Brundisium (Brindisi), but failing to
prevent him from embarking with his troops for the East, where
the prestige of his name was greatest. Hereupon Caesar (it is
said) exclaimed “I am going to Spain to fight an army without
a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without
an army.” He carried out the first part of this programme
with marvellous rapidity. He reached Ilerda (Lerida) on the
23rd of June and, after extricating his army from a perilous
situation, outmanœuvred Pompey's lieutenants and received
their submission on the 2nd of August. Returning to Rome,
he held the dictatorship for eleven days, was elected consul for 48
B.C., and set sail for Epirus at Brundisium on the 4th of January.
He attempted to invest Pompey's lines at Dyrrhachium (Durazzo),
though his opponent's force was double that of his own, and
was defeated with considerable loss. He now marched eastwards,
in order if possible to intercept the reinforcements which
Pompey's father-in-law, Scipio, was bringing up; but Pompey
was able to effect a junction with this force and descended into
the plain of Thessaly, where at the battle of Pharsalus he was
decisively defeated and fled to Egypt, pursued by Caesar, who
learnt of his rival's murder on landing at Alexandria. Here
he remained for nine months, fascinated (if the story be true)
by Cleopatra, and almost lost his life in an émeute. In June
47 B.C. he proceeded to the East and Asia Minor, where he
“came, saw and conquered” Pharnaces, son of Mithradates
the Great, at Zela. Returning to Italy, he quelled a mutiny
of the legions (including the faithful Tenth) in Campania, and
crossed to Africa, where a republican army of fourteen legions
under Scipio was cut to pieces at Thapsus (6th of April 46 B.C.).
Here most of the republican leaders were killed and Cato
committed suicide. On the 26th to 29th July Caesar celebrated
a fourfold triumph and received the dictatorship for ten years.
In November, however, he was obliged to sail for Spain, where
the sons of Pompey still held out. On the 17th of March 45 B.C.
they were crushed at Munda. Caesar returned to Rome in
September, and six months later (15th of March 44 B.C.) was
murdered in the senate house at the foot of Pompey's statue.
It was remarked by Seneca that amongst the murderers of
Caesar were to be found more of his friends than of his enemies.
We can account for this only by emphasizing the
fact that the form of Caesar's government became
as time went on more undisguised in its absolutism,
while the honours conferred upon him seemed designed
to raise him above the rest of humanity. It is explained elsewhere
(see Rome: History, Ancient)
that Caesar's power was
exercised under the form of the dictatorship. In the first instance
(autumn of 49 B.C.) this was conferred upon him as the only
solution of the constitutional deadlock created by the flight
of the magistrates and senate, in order that elections (including
that of Caesar himself to the consulship) might be held in due
course. For this there were republican precedents. In 48 B.C.
he was created dictator for the second time, probably with
constituent powers and for an undefined period, according to
the dangerous and unpopular precedent of Sulla. In May 46 B.C.
a third dictatorship was conferred on Caesar, this time for ten
years and apparently as a yearly office, so that he became
Dictator IV. in May 45 B.C. Finally, before the 15th of February
44 B.C., this was exchanged for a life-dictatorship. Not only
was this a contradiction in terms, since the dictatorship was by
tradition a makeshift justified only when the state had to be
carried through a serious crisis, but it involved military rule
in Italy and the permanent suspension of the constitutional
guarantees, such as intercessio and provocatio, by which the
liberties of Romans were protected. That Caesar held the
imperium which he enjoyed as dictator to be distinct in kind
from that of the republican magistrates he indicated by placing
the term imperator at the head of his
titles.[2] Besides the dictatorship,
Caesar held the consulship in each year of his reign except
47 B.C. (when no curule magistrates were elected save for the
last three months of the year); and he was moreover invested
by special enactments with a number of other privileges and
powers; of these the most important was the tribunicia potestas,
which we may believe to have been free from the limits of place
(i.e. Rome) and collegiality. Thus, too, he was granted the sole
right of making peace and war, and of disposing of the funds
in the treasury of the state.[3]
Save for the title of dictator,
which undoubtedly carried unpopular associations and was
formally abolished on the proposal of Antony after Caesar's
death, this cumulation of powers has little to distinguish it from
the Principate of Augustus; and the assumption of the perpetual
dictatorship would hardly by itself suffice to account
for the murder of Caesar. But there are signs that in the last
six months of his life he aspired not only to a monarchy in name
as well as in fact, but also to a divinity which Romans should
acknowledge as well as Greeks, Orientals and barbarians. His
statue was set up beside those of the seven kings of Rome,
and he adopted the throne of gold, the sceptre of ivory and the
embroidered robe which tradition ascribed to them. He allowed
his supporters to suggest the offer of the regal title by putting
in circulation an oracle according to which it was destined for
a king of Rome to subdue the Parthians, and when at the
Lupercalia (15th JanFebruary 44 B.C.) Antony set the diadem on
his head he rejected the offer half-heartedly on account of the
groans of the people. His image was carried in the pompa
circensis amongst those of the immortal gods, and his statue
set up in the temple of Quirinus with the inscription “To the
Unconquerable God.” A college of Luperci, with the surname
Juliani, was instituted in his honour and flamines were created as
priests of his godhead. This was intolerable to the aristocratic
republicans, to whom it seemed becoming that victorious commanders
should accept divine honours at the hands of Greeks
and Asiatics, but unpardonable that Romans should offer the
same worship to a Roman.
Thus Caesar's work remained unfinished, and this must
be borne in mind in considering his record of legislative and
administrative reform. Some account of this is
given elsewhere (see Rome: History, Ancient),
but it
may be well to single out from the list of his measures
(some of which, such as the restoration of exiles and
the children of proscribed persons, were dictated by political
expediency, while others, such as his financial proposals for the
relief of debtors, and the steps which he took to restore Italian
agriculture, were of the nature of palliatives) those which have a
permanent significance as indicating his grasp of imperial
problems. The Social War had brought to the inhabitants of
Italy as far as the Po the privileges of Roman citizenship; it
remained to extend this gift to the Transpadane Italians, to
establish a uniform system of local administration and to
devise representative institutions by which at least some voice
in the government of Rome might be permitted to her new
citizens. This last conception lay beyond the horizon of Caesar,
as of all ancient statesmen, but his first act on gaining control
of Italy was to enfranchise the Transpadanes, whose claims he
had consistently advocated, and in 45 B.C. he passed the Lex
Julia Municipalis, an act of which considerable fragments are
inscribed on two bronze tables found at Heraclea near
Tarentum.[4]
This law deals inter alia with the police and the sanitary arrangements
of the city of Rome, and hence it has been argued by
Mommsen that it was Caesar's intention to reduce Rome to the
level of a municipal town. But it is not likely that such is the
case. Caesar made no far-reaching modifications in the government
of the city, such as were afterwards carried out by Augustus,
and the presence in the Lex Julia Municipalis of the clauses
referred to is an example of the common process of “tacking”
(legislation per saturam, as it was called by the Romans). The
law deals with the constitution of the local senates, for whose
members qualifications of age (30 years) and military service
are laid down, while persons who have suffered conviction for
various specified offences, or who are insolvent, or who carry on
discreditable or immoral trades are excluded. It also provides
that the local magistrates shall take a census of the citizens at
the same time as the census takes place in Rome, and send the
registers to Rome within sixty days. The existing fragments
tell us little as to the decentralization of the functions of government,
but from the Lex Rubria, which applies to the Transpadane
districts enfranchised by Caesar (it must be remembered that
Cisalpine Gaul remained nominally a province until 42 B.C.) we
gather that considerable powers of independent jurisdiction
were reserved to the municipal magistrates. But Caesar was
not content with framing a uniform system of local government
for Italy. He was the first to carry out on a large scale those
plans of transmarine colonization whose inception was due to the
Gracchi. As consul in 59 B.C. Caesar had established colonies
of veterans in Campania under the Lex Julia Agraria,
and had even then laid down rules for the foundation
of such communities. As dictator he planted numerous colonies
both in the eastern and western provinces, notably at Corinth
and Carthage. Mommsen interprets this policy as signifying
that “the rule of the urban community of Rome over the
shores of the Mediterranean was at an end,” and says that
the first act of the “new Mediterranean state” was “to atone
for the two greatest outrages which that urban community
had perpetrated on civilization.” This, however, cannot be
admitted. The sites of Caesar's colonies were selected for
their commercial value, and that the citizens of Rome should
cease to be rulers of the Mediterranean basin could never have
entered into Caesar's mind. The colonists were in many cases
veterans who had served under Caesar, in others members of the
city proletariat. We possess the charter of the colony planted
at Urso in southern Spain under the name of Colonia Julia
Genetiva Urbanorum. Of the two latter titles, the first is derived
from the name of Venus Genetrix, the ancestress of the Julian
house, the second indicates that the colonists were drawn
from the plebs urbana. Accordingly, we find that free birth is
not, as in Italy, a necessary qualification for municipal office.
By such foundations Caesar began the extension to the provinces
of that Roman civilization which the republic had carried to the
bounds of the Italian peninsula. Lack of time alone prevented
him from carrying into effect such projects as the piercing of the
Isthmus of Corinth, whose object was to promote trade and
intercourse throughout the Roman dominions, and we are told
that at the time of his death he was contemplating the extension
of the empire to its natural frontiers, and was about to engage in a
war with Parthia with the object of carrying Roman arms to the
Euphrates. Above all, he was determined that the empire
should be governed in the true sense of the word and no longer
exploited by its rulers, and he kept a strict control over the
legati, who, under the form of military subordination, were responsible
to him for the administration of their provinces.
Caesar's writings are treated under Latin Literature.
It is sufficient here to say that of those preserved to us the
seven books Comntentarii de bello Gallico appear to
have been written in 51 B.C. and carry the narrative
of the Gallic campaigns down to the close of the
previous year (the eighth book, written by A. Hirtius, is a
supplement relating the events of 51-50 B.C.), while the three
books De bello civili record the struggle between Caesar and
Pompey (49-48 B.C.). Their veracity was impeached in ancient
times by Asinius Pollio and has often been called in question
by modern critics. The Gallic War, though its publication
was doubtless timed to impress on the mind of the Roman
people the great services rendered by Caesar to Rome, stands
the test of criticism as far as it is possible to apply it, and the
accuracy of its narrative has never been seriously shaken. The
Civil War, especially in its opening chapters is, however, not
altogether free from traces of misrepresentation. With respect
to the first moves made in the struggle, and the negotiations
for peace at the outset of hostilities, Caesar's account sometimes
conflicts with the testimony of Cicero's correspondence or implies
movements which cannot be reconciled with geographical facts.
We have but few fragments of Caesar's other works, whether
political pamphlets such as the Anticato, grammatical treatises
(De Analogia) or poems. All authorities agree in describing him
as a consummate orator. Cicero (Brut. 22) wrote: de Caesare
ita judico, illum omnium fere oratorum Latine loqui elegantissime,
while Quintilian (x. 1. 114) says that had he practised at
the bar he would have been the only serious rival of Cicero.
The verdict of historians on Caesar has always been coloured
by their political sympathies. All have recognised his commanding
genius, and few have failed to do justice to his
personal charm and magnanimity, which almost won the
heart of Cicero, who rarely appealed in vain to his clemency.
Indeed, he was singularly tolerant of all but intellectual opposition.
His private life was not free from scandal, especially in his
youth, but it is difficult to believe the worst of the tales which
were circulated by his opponents, e.g. as to his relations with
Nicomedes of Bithynia. As to his public character, however,
no agreement is possible between those who regard Caesarism
as a great political creation, and those who hold that Caesar by
destroying liberty lost a great opportunity and crushed the
sense of dignity in mankind. The latter view is unfortunately
confirmed by the undoubted fact that Caesar treated with scant
respect the historical institutions of Rome, which with their
magnificent traditions might still have been the organs of true
political life. He increased the number of senators to 900 and
introduced provincials into that body; but instead of making
it into a grand council of the empire, representative of its various
races and nationalities, he treated it with studied contempt,
and Cicero writes that his own name had been set down as the
proposer of decrees of which he knew nothing, conferring the
title of king on potentates of whom he had never heard. A
similar treatment was meted out to the ancient magistracies of
the republic; and thus began the process by which the emperors
undermined the self-respect of their subjects and eventually
came to rule over a nation of slaves. Few men, indeed, have
partaken as freely of the inspiration of genius as Julius Caesar;
few have suffered more disastrously from its illusions. See further
Rome: History, ii.
“The Republic,” Period C ad fin.
Authorities. —
The principal ancient authorities for the life of
Caesar are his own Commentaries, the biographies of Plutarch and
Suetonius, letters and speeches of Cicero, the Catiline of Sallust,
the Pharsalia of Lucan, and the histories of Appian, Dio Cassius
and Velleius Paterculus (that of Livy exists only in the Epitome).
Amongst modern works may be named the exhaustive repertory of
fact contained in Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iii. (new ed. by
Groebe, 1906, pp. 125-829), and the brilliant but partial panegyric
of Th. Mommsen in his History of Rome (Eng. trans., vol. iv., esp.
p. 450 ff.). J. A. Froude's Caesar; a Sketch (2nd ed., 1896) is equally
biased and much less critical. W. Warde Fowler's Julius Caesar
(1892) gives a favourable account (see also his Social Life at Rome,
1909). On the other side see especially A. Holm, History of
Greece (Eng. trans., vol. iv. p. 582 ff.), J. L. Strachan Davidson,
Cicero (1894), p. 345 ff., and the introductory Lections in
Prof. Tyrrell's edition of the Correspondence of Cicero, particularly
“Cicero's case against Caesar,” vol. v. p. 13 ff. Vol. ii. of
G. Ferrero's
Greatness and Decline of Rome (Eng. trans., 1907) is largely devoted
to Caesar, but must be used with caution. The Gallic campaigns
have been treated by Napoleon III., Histoire de Jules César (1865-1866),
which is valuable as giving the result of excavations, and in
English by T. Rice Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (1901), in
which references to earlier literature will be found. A later account
is that of G. Veith, Geschichte der Feldzüge C.G. Julius Caesars (1906).
For maps see A. von Kampen. For the Civil War see Colonel
Stoffel (the collaborator of Napoleon III.), Histoire de Jules César:
guerre civile (1887). There is an interesting article, “The Likenesses
of Julius Caesar,” by J. C. Ropes, in Scribner's Magazine, Feb. 1887,
with 18 plates.
(Henry Stuart Jones)
Medieval Legends.
In the middle ages the story of Caesar did not undergo such
extraordinary transformations as befell the history of Alexander
the Great and the Theban legend. Lucan was regularly read in
medieval schools, and the general facts of Caesar's life were
too well known. He was generally, by a curious error, regarded
as the first emperor of Rome,[5]
and representing as he did in the
popular mind the glory of Rome, by an easy transition he became
a pillar of the Church. Thus, in a French pseudo-historic romance,
Les Faits des Romains (c. 1223), he receives the honour of a
bishopric. His name was not usually associated with the
marvellous, and the trouvère of Huon de Bordeaux outstepped
the usual sober tradition when he made Oberon the son of Julius
Caesar and Morgan la Fay. About 1240 Jehan de Tuim composed
a prose Hystore de Julius Cesar (ed. F. Settegast, Halle,
1881) based on the Pharsalia of Lucan, and the commentaries
of Caesar (on the Civil War) and his continuators (on the Alexandrine,
African and Spanish wars). The author gives a romantic
description of the meeting with Cleopatra, with an interpolated
dissertation on amour courtois as understood by the trouvères.
The Hystore was turned into verse (alexandrines) by Jacot
de Forest (latter part of the 13th century) under the title of
Roman de Julius César. A prose compilation by an unknown
author, Les Faits des Romains (c. 1225), has little resemblance
to the last two works, although mainly derived from the same
sources. It was originally intended to contain a history of the
twelve Caesars, but concluded with the murder of the dictator,
and in some MSS. bears the title of Li livres de César. Its
popularity is proved by the numerous MSS. in which it is preserved
and by three separate translations into Italian. A
Mistaire de Julius César is said to have been represented at
Amboise in 1500 before Louis XII.
See A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nella imaginazione del medio
evo, i. ch. 8 (1882-1883); P. Meyer in Romania, xiv. (Paris, 1885),
where the Faits des Romains is analysed at length; A. Duval
in Histoire littéraire de la France, xix. (1838); L. Constans in
Petit de Jullevilles' Hist. de la langue et de la litt. française, i.
(1896); H. Wesemann, Die Cäsarfabeln des Mittelalters (Löwenberg,
1879).
(Margaret Bryant)
[1]
In spite of the explicit statements of Suetonius, Plutarch and
Appian that Caesar was in his fifty-sixth year at the time of his
murder, it is, as Mommsen has shown, practically certain that he
was born in 102 B.C., since he held the chief offices
of state in regular
order, beginning with the aedileship in 65 B.C., and
the legal age for
this was fixed at 37-38.
[2]
Suetonius, Jul. 76, errs in stating that he used the title
imperator
as a praenomen.
[3]
The statement of Dio and Suetonius, that a general cura legum
et morum was conferred on Caesar in 46 B.C.,
is rejected by Mommsen.
It is possible that it may have some foundation in the terms of the
law establishing his third dictatorship.
[4]
Since the discovery of a fragmentary municipal charter at
Tarentum (see Rome),
dating from a period shortly after the Social
War, doubts have been cast on the identification of the tables of
Heraclea with Caesar's municipal statute. It has been questioned
whether Caesar passed such a law, since the Lex Julia Municipalis
mentioned in an inscription of Patavium (Padua) may have been
a local charter. See Legras, La Table latine d'Héraclée (Paris, 1907).
[5]
Brunetto Latini, Trésor: “Et ainsi Julius César fu li premiers
empereres des Romains.”
Britannica Index
Reminiscences of Carl Schurz