Julius Caesar (5 page)

In the year 68 Caesar emerges again into history, and the year was marked by three important events. First of all his aunt Julia died. The death of the widow of the great Marius could not be allowed to pass without public notice, and Caesar made the very most of it. He had recently been appointed a quaestor (one of the state treasurers and paymasters), an office which brought with it membership of the senate. As a member of the College of Pontiffs and now as a senator, he was in a position to ask for a ritual eulogy of his aunt, a public procession which included musicians, a choir of mourners, an effigy of the dead on a state hearse and then further mourners and relatives. The procession much resembled a modern state funeral. On this occasion, however, Caesar with his instinct for showmanship did something for which there was no precedent, and which was at the same time a deliberately provocative gesture to the
Optimates.
In the procession, occasioning gasps among the citizens thronging the route, was borne the family statue of the great Marius, which it had been forbidden to show in public ever since Sulla had declared him an enemy of the state. When the procession stopped and the image of his dead aunt was placed as was customary in front of the orator’s platform, Caesar mounted it and pronounced the eulogy on the woman who had been Marius’ wife. It was now that he also saw fit to extol the virtues of his own family, laying claim to their descent from the kings of ancient Rome and the goddess Venus. The interesting point was not so much Caesar’s extravagant claims for his family but that he made them in the context of Julia’s marriage to Marius, a man of humble birth. Many of the aristocracy in a similar position, just as today, would have been happy to conceal such a
mesalliance,
but Caesar, it seems, was eager to stress that the noble blood from which he was descended was also allied with one who had, as it were, “risen from the ranks.” It was yet another statement of his membership of the popular party, and also perhaps a first claim to the leadership of it.

The third major event of this year was the death of Caesar’s wife Cornelia. She was probably only in her late twenties and she remains a shadowy figure, although Caesar’s action in refusing to divorce her at the orders of the dictator Sulla does indeed seem to suggest that he had really loved her. But apart from bearing his daughter Julia we know nothing of her and can only surmise, in view of Caesar’s long list of known mistresses, that her marriage can hardly have been a happy one—unless one accepts what is probably true, that a Roman wife did not expect a faithful husband.

Perhaps Caesar felt some qualms about his treatment of Cinna’s daughter—some uneasiness about the years that he had left her when he was abroad, and his constant absence with other women when at home. At any rate, she was accorded a funeral somewhat like the one he had arranged for his aunt Julia. This was most unusual, since normally such obsequies were only offered to older women, and those who had been the wives of famous or distinguished men. Plutarch observes: “This also procured him some favor, and by this show of affection he won upon the feelings of the people, who looked upon him as a man of great tenderness and kindness of heart.” Yes, even here he achieved some political capital.

5

The Shape of Ambition

CAESAR was now appointed as quaestor to a post in Farther Spain. This cannot have suited him at all. Farther Spain was as far west as anyone could then be sent, and a quaestorship there was far from influential: all the important posts were in Rome. It seems very probable the ruling party had decided that Caesar had gone quite far enough in his recent activities, and the greater the distance which separated him from Rome the better.

His duties were onerous, for he had to be entirely at the service of the controlling magistrate and undertake whatever tasks he was given. For a whole year, under the propraetor (a kind of governor-general) he was sent on what amounted to an assize-circuit, visiting the four main cities of this western province—Gades (Cadiz), Corduba (Cordova), Hispalis (Seville) and Astigi (Ecija)—as well as many of the other lesser towns. Becoming a quaestor had suited Caesar in so far as it admitted him to the senate, but service so far away from the capital was certainly not to his taste. Clearly he neither liked the job, nor possibly the place, for it is noticeable that he left Spain ahead of the official termination of his appointment. There was nothing to keep him in the area as there had been in Asia Minor, where he seems to have enjoyed himself.

Suetonius relates a suspect story relating to Cadiz which can hardly be omitted from any biography:

Being at Gades he saw a statue of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules and was heard to give a great sigh. It would seem that he was despondent because, at an age when Alexander had already conquered the whole world, he himself had done nothing of any importance.

Spain was still a somewhat barbarous province, but Caesar must constantly have been reminded of its importance—particularly in view of its mineral wealth—and that it was the riches of Spain which had enabled the Carthaginian Hannibal to mount his famous campaign against Rome. There was a more recent instance of the strength that was latent in Spain: this was the revolt begun by Sertorius, a former lieutenant of Marius, which had aroused the Spanish desire for freedom and had raged almost uncontrollably for eight years. It was only extinguished in 72. Throughout his future career Caesar never forgot Spain in the context of Mediterranean power. After his time as quaestor there he was possessed by a fury of ambition, driving him into open action that threatened the state—or the
status quo
in Rome. Those who had once suspected that he might aim like Marius at a dictatorship—and then had dismissed him as a pleasure-loving philanderer—found their earlier suspicions reinforced.

Leaving the province in 68 he did not go, as might reasonably have been expected, straight to Rome, but made his way to the Latin colonies north of the Po which were agitating for full civic rights such as were enjoyed by their fellows south of the river. This area, long dominated by the Gauls who had settled there, had become increasingly Romanized and the aspirations of the citizens of towns such as Milan and Cremona could no longer be limited by the old framework. Caesar knew this well, knew too that it would be a “popular” move to secure city rights for them and would make them in the future beholden to him if he could achieve this aim. The oligarchy dominating the senate, the
Optimates
, opposed any extension of citizenship, since it might weaken their position. Now Caesar seemed prepared even to incite the cities north of the Po to civil war (something which he had refused to be party to in the days of Lepidus). His gambler’s nature stood clearly revealed, and the throw might well have come off but for the fact that there were two legions available in Italy which had been readied for transport to the East for the war against Mithridates. Seeing the danger, the senate held them back and Caesar’s aim was thwarted. He had, however, secured many new friends in the north—a potential power base upon which he would one day draw.

A year after the death of his wife Caesar married again. This time there could be no question of sentiment, since he married Pompeia, whose mother was the daughter of Sulla and whose father was the son of one of the two pro-Sulla consuls who had done so much to reduce the power of the tribunes in 88. He had, then, married right into the heart of the
Optimates.
Moreover his new wife’s family were extremely wealthy and Caesar still required money to pursue his ambitions.

The prime political consideration in Rome at this moment was the appointment of someone to take over command of the Mediterranean sea and rid it once and for all of piracy. Caesar, as we have seen, had personal knowledge of this scourge, which had now reached such proportions that the whole trade of the empire was at risk. The pirates, as was quite clear, often worked hand in glove with Roman administrators and by contributing agreed percentages to the administrators were treating the Mediterranean as their private lake. The only way to rid the sea-lanes of this intolerable mischief was to appoint a supreme commander at the head of a national fleet. The man proposed for this position by one of the tribunes was Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the Great.

Six years older than Caesar, he was a leading figure among the
Optimates
: the man who had marched with Sulla and become one of the dictator’s greatest generals, had been accorded the surname of Magnus in consequence of his victories in Africa over the Marian party. Pompey the Great should by all accounts have been the one man that Caesar would dislike more than all the other supporters of the conservative party. But Caesar, in the grip of the ambition that he seems to have brought back with him from Spain, had decided that Pompey was the man to ally himself with if he himself was to reach the upper echelons of power. When the proposition to give Pompey overall command of a fleet of two hundred vessels and all the soldiers and sailors he needed for the campaign was put to the people’s assembly it was immediately passed. The senators, however, were alarmed at the idea of giving such a command to one man, particularly perhaps because it seemed to be so popular with the masses. They saw the threat of a dictatorship and also, one suspects, there were those among them who had financial interests in the piracy. The entire senate, with one notable exception, informed the people’s assembly of their rejection of the plan. The exception was Caesar, who spoke out in its favor, thus aligning himself with Pompey and at the same time showing himself to the people in a favorable light as a popularist in agreement with their wishes. In the event, there was no way in which those who opposed the proposition could prevent its being carried out, and Pompey was duly given this independent command—with almost double the amount of ships and men that had first been proposed.

As it turned out, the Romans could not have done better than to give this far-ranging command to Pompey, for it completely suited his talents. In the turmoil caused by the Mithridatic wars the coasts of Asia Minor had become infested with pirates because the Romans were too involved on land to be able to devote their energies to the sea-lanes, but many of the rebels against whom he was to conduct his campaign were far from being the rough and undisciplined murderers and rogues that the word pirate nowadays tends to conjure up. As Plutarch writes:

whilst the Romans were embroiled in their civil wars, being engaged against one another even before the very gates of Rome, the seas lay waste and unguarded, and by degrees enticed and drew them on not only to seize upon and spoil the merchants and ships upon the seas, but also to lay waste the islands and seaport towns. So that now there embarked with these pirates men of wealth and noble birth and superior abilities, as if it had been a natural occupation to gain distinction in. They had divers arsenals, or piratic harbors, as likewise watchtowers and beacons, all along the sea-coast; and fleets were received that were well manned with the finest mariners, and well served with the most expert pilots, and composed of swift-sailing and light-built vessels adapted for their special purpose… There were of these corsairs above one thousand sail and they had taken no less than four hundred cities…

Pompey was not only a great soldier but a great organizer and administrator. He divided the Mediterranean into thirteen sections, allotted a squadron of his ships to each, and systematically combed the sea from one end to another. This disciplined and organized operation was something that the pirates had never met with before and, since they operated as individuals or small groups, they fell easy prey to the Roman squadrons. By the end of 67 (Plutarch with, one suspects, some exaggeration says “within forty days”) Pompey had systematically swept the western sea and completely cleared the trade routes of the empire. The grain ships moved freely again, the price of bread fell in Rome, imports and exports flowed normally and the people of Rome hailed Pompey as their deliverer. He was the hero of the hour.

It was in this atmosphere that, early in the following year, Manilius, one of the tribunes, proposed that Pompey be given an even more important task—the overall command of the Mithridatic War. There was even further consternation among the aristocratic oligarchy, for whom Pompey in the past had seemed only a tool to be used. He was not of the nobility but only from the class of the knights, and he now seemed to be getting beyond their control. Caesar once again supported the proposal, knowing as well as the senators who opposed it that—since the restoration of the power of the tribunes—it could not ultimately be gainsaid. As Dio Cassius puts it: “Caesar wanted to flatter the people,
who seemed to him far more powerful than the senate
[my italics], and to prepare the way for a similar decree in his own favor at some time in the future.” He had seen that Pompey’s star was in the ascendant. He may have calculated too that there was a chance Pompey would be killed in the East (as so many Romans had been), and that in any case his long absence from Rome would remove him from the political field. And Caesar never at any time forgot that, however great a commander’s achievements in foreign fields and even if he was awarded a triumph upon his return, the man who was away missed the shifts and nuances in the political heart of empire. Even as a young man he had always ensured a regular flow of information from the capital city. Pompey, as his life shows, was an admirable soldier and an honest administrator, but the cunning cat’s cradle of politics was not his forte.

Besides, the absence of Pompey from the city would leave Caesar free to cultivate the friendship of Licinius Crassus—whose surname has become synonymous with exorbitant wealth—and as always Caesar needed money to endear himself to the populace, as well as to indulge his own luxurious tastes. “Nobody,” Crassus is reported as saying, “can afford to become a force in politics unless he can support a private army.” It may have been about this time that Caesar became the lover of Tertulla, Crassus’ wife; there are references in Suetonius, Plutarch and Cicero to the fact that Tertulla was well-known for her infidelities and she is known to have been one of Caesar’s mistresses. Apart from his wealth, Crassus came from an ancient and distinguished family and had been consul with Pompey prior to a recent rift between them—something which Caesar was in due course to heal. In the meantime the millionaire found it convenient to have an active and able young man from his own class to act as his adviser and helper in his numerous concerns, which ranged from silver mines to slave farms and property dealing. In Pompey and Crassus, Caesar had deliberately sought—and found—two different aspects of power, both of which he intended to turn to his advantage.