The Book of Ancient Bastards (13 page)

If You’re Going to be the “New Alexander,” Better Prepare for a Messy End

(106–48 B.C.)

[Pompey] does not know how to win a war.
—Gaius Julius Caesar, after the battle of Dhyrrachium

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (known in English as “Pompey the Great”) dreamed of aping and even exceeding the deeds of celebrated Macedonian bastard Alexander the Great on the battlefield. Unfortunately, he was, in the words of one contemporary, “the vilest man alive.” The kid first made his mark at the tender age of twenty-three in 83 B.C., raising private legions of soldiers, paying them out of his own pocket, and supporting Sulla in his attempts to wipe out the last of his opponents, the supporters of Gaius Marius.

Bypassing the traditional Roman steps to public greatness (holding offices such as aedile, questor, and consul) and still employing his own private army, Pompey went on to quickly win a string of bloody victories against Marian adherents from Sicily to North Africa, all before he turned twenty-six. So ruthless was the young man that his opponents gave him the nickname “adulescens carnifex”: “teenaged butcher.”

Next came a ten-year war to suppress a rebellion in Spain; after that, he swept the Mediterranean clean of the pirates who had plagued Roman commerce for the better part of a century.

For most of his life, Pompey seemed to be in the right place at the right time. But that luck ran out. At the pinnacle of his power, Pompey made an alliance called the “triumvirate” with Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives, and sealed it by marrying Caesar’s daughter Julia. A decade later, after Crassus’s death in the east, and Julia’s death in childbirth, Pompey allowed himself to be drawn by conservative elements into a confrontation with Caesar, recently returned from conquering Gaul and now the wealthiest and most powerful man in the Mediterranean world.

Pompey, spurred on by senatorial assurances that he was not only Rome’s “best man” but also the savior of the Republic and all of its sacred institutions, met Caesar in battle first at Dhyrrachium, then at Pharsalus, in Greece. Losing both battles, he fled to Egypt, where he was murdered on the orders of the king, who hoped to curry favor with Pompey’s former father-in-law, the aforementioned wealthiest, most powerful man in the Mediterranean world.

Bad timing.

More Marriages than Mickey Rooney

OK, not really. And ancient Romans had a far more sanguine view of divorce than we moderns tend to. But Pompey was married
five
times! Each marriage seems to have been motivated by his political career (he married into the family of his rival/ally/rival Caesar, for example, and also into that of the dictator Sulla, and finally into the powerful senatorial family of the Metelli). In the end, none of them could help him defeat Caesar on the field of battle.

No Fool Like an Old Fool

(106–43 B.C.)

A learned man, my child, a learned man and a lover of his country.
—Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Augustus)

Marcus Tullius Cicero (his nickname “Cicero” means “chickpea” in Latin, possibly a reference to his bulbous nose) was the foremost orator and most successful lawyer of his time. A complicated man, he was dedicated to the Republic, yet aware that the Republic’s structure was failing under the weight of its territorial ambitions and her expanding military-industrial complex. Cicero frequently hoped for the best for the Republic while at the same time despairing for her future.

Before his death in 43 B.C., Cicero would become fabulously wealthy, possessing one of the finest houses in Rome and some of the loveliest country villas in Italy. To his peril, he consistently underestimated opponents—such as the two members of the second triumvirate that succeeded the murdered Caesar: that playboy Marcus Antonius and Caesar’s heir Octavian.

When Caesar’s great-nephew and heir Octavian visited to pay his respects, Cicero developed a seemingly warm relationship with this suddenly wealthy and influential young orphan who came to refer to him as “Pater” (“Father”) in their discussions. Acting on this, Cicero set Octavian against Antonius, and persuaded the senate to name Octavian a praetor (judge/military commander).

But, Plutarch notes, “Cicero was led on and cheated, an old man by a young man.” Cicero failed to see that Octavian was making common cause with Antonius, and had acquiesced to Antonius’s insistence that Cicero’s name head the list of any political opponents to be killed in the coming purge. In the end, Cicero failed to take into account just how ruthless a twenty-year-old could be. He would not be the last to do so where Octavian was concerned.

When Antonius’s killers caught up with Cicero, he bared his neck for them that they might more easily cut his throat (a move ancient gladiators made as a final sign of their courage in the face of impending death). Not a man previously renowned for physical courage, Cicero’s last words are reported to have been: “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.”

The tragedy of Cicero, a calculating political bastard who overplayed his hand one time too many, is also the tragedy of the end of republican Rome.

Litigious Bastard

In ancient Rome, any trial lawyer who successfully prosecuted an officeholder for corruption in office was awarded the criminal’s political status as a reward for getting rid of an enemy of the Republic. When Cicero successfully prosecuted Gaius Verres on corruption charges, he received Verres’s status as a praetor (a combination of a civilian judge and a military commander) as his reward. Not a military man himself, Cicero used his praetorian status, and the perks associated with it, to their fullest extent. These included being able to be heard in a senate debate before anyone without praetorian status. Talk about cutting in line!

One Man’s Thief Is Another Man’s Art Connoisseur

(CA. 114–43 B.C.)

Because all the world knows that Verres is distinguished by nothing except his monstrous offenses and his obscene wealth.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, in his oration Against Verres

Gaius Verres (we think his second name was “Licinius,” but aren’t sure) was a career Roman politician who embodied everything that was wrong with politics during the late republican period in ancient Rome. Working his way up through the ranks of the Republic’s governmental offices to become a praetor (a combination of magistrate and provincial governor), Verres was equal parts art lover and thug.

Verres determined from an early age to do as so many others were doing at the time: use civil service jobs to cash in. His term serving in the provinces under Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella only reinforced his larcenous inclinations. While working for Dolabella, Verres looted paintings, statues, and golden idols from the temples of subject populations. When Dolabella was eventually prosecuted for extortion, Verres turned states’ evidence in exchange for freedom from prosecution himself.

On his return to Rome, Verres laid out a huge bribe in order to grease election officials and win office as a city magistrate in charge of settling civil cases. He quickly made back the bribe he’d laid out and then some from kickbacks he received from the litigants who appeared before him. While in office, he also manipulated inheritance laws so that the judge overseeing property transfers (in other words, him) received a fee right off the top before the inherited property could be passed to a decedent’s heirs.

Verres’s criminal career culminated with his appointment as provincial governor of Sicily in 73 B.C. Sicily at the time was a wealthy province, a trading crossroads and possessed of rich farms and ranches along the island’s massive internal plain.

Verres helped change all that.

Apprentice Bastard

Originally a follower of Gaius Marius, Verres, while still a minor government official, stole a bunch of government funds intended for Marius’s troops and joined up with Sulla, Marius’s opponent, helping bankroll Sulla’s bid to triumph in the civil war against the Marians. Once Sulla was firmly ensconced in power, Verres received the plum job of serving as legatus (a combination of tax collector and army general) in the administration of Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, governor of the wealthy province of Cilicia (in Armenia). Dolabella later stood trial for extortion related to his time as governor of Macedonia, so Verres learned at the feet of a master!

So rapacious that no amount of treasure could sate him, Verres took his habitual larceny to new heights, crucifying victims who refused to allow him to seize their property and possessions. When one village elder refused to let him strip the local temple, Verres chained him to a bronze statue in the middle of winter, naked. The old man didn’t hold out for long.

But Verres finally went too far. After three years in Sicily, Verres returned to Rome and stood trial for bribery and forgery (in addition to everything else, he was notorious for forging works of art and selling them to rich Romans as antiques).

For someone with his connections, this would not have usually been cause for concern: his allies controlled the judicial process, and they were sympathetic to his case (this kind of looting was so common, prosecution for it was practically a rite of passage). But Verres had drawn as the prosecutor in his case the foremost courtroom lawyer of the era: Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero systematically demolished Verres’s defense (making a name for himself in the process), so much so that Verres accepted exile and fled to Marseille rather than allow the trial to continue. Decades later, he was executed when he wouldn’t surrender his entire collection of ill-gotten art to the Second Triumvirate (they were short of money).

Fitting end for a profiteering bastard.