CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

OVERTHROW OF CRASSUS. DEFEAT OF POMPEY. DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH
OF CÆSAR. END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

æsar's proceedings in Gaul are sufficiently familiar to enable us to treat them with a sort of contempt, by omitting even the heads of the oft-repeated tale from our history. Though his arms were abroad, his eye was at home, and he watched the affairs of Rome with a jealous interest. His confederates, Pompey and Crassus, had quarrelled; and the former fell out with Cæsar; so that there was a difference between the triumvirate, though they were all three alike in their unscrupulous designs upon the commonwealth.

Crassus was busy in his province of Syria, laying his hands on every thing of any value, until somebody laid hands upon him, notwithstanding his worthlessness. His engagement with the Parthians was a short passage in his life, which led to his death; for he had been induced by treachery to plunge into the mess of the Mesopotamian deserts. There he encountered an army which endeavoured to strike terror into the Romans, by brayings, bellowings, the beating of drums, and every kind of hollow artifice. The Parthians, who were skilful in the use of the bow, sent forth such a shower of arrows, that fury darted into many an eye, and on many a lip there was a quiver. Crassus began to faint, and went into a sort of hysterics, highly incompatible with historic dignity. The enemy, however, tried a feint of a different kind, and pretended to run away; but when pursued, turned suddenly round, galloped upon the Romans through a sand-hill, thus raising so much dust, that the latter were obliged to lick it, as their mouths were full of it. In this position they were assailed with arrows, which having been shot at their feet, pinned many of them to the ground; and their hands being skewered in the same manner to their breasts, they could neither fly nor defend themselves.[75] The horses might still have charged; but when the poor creatures arrived at the Parthian pikes, they were obliged to pull up rather suddenly. The cavalry being cut to pieces, Crassus and some of his footmen retired to a sand-hill for safety; but they soon found the error of building their hopes on such a foundation. Crassus himself hid his head in the sand, and would see nobody; but ultimately he was induced to enter into a negotiation with the Parthian general. In the course of the parley a little misunderstanding arose, when some of the parties present began to push each other about, first with their hands, then with their clenched fists, and ultimately with their weapons. At length Octavius, who had accompanied Crassus, drew his sword, and killed a groom, when somebody else killed Octavius; and the assassination having once fairly—or unfairly—set in, Crassus himself was soon disposed of. The King of the Parthians caused the head of Crassus to be filled with gold, as in his lifetime he had devoted all his faculties to the accumulation of the metal.

By the death of Crassus, the triumvirate was reduced to a duumvirate, and jealousies arose between Pompey and Cæsar; but as the people seemed to think that two heads at loggerheads were better than one having everything its own way, the opposing tyrants were left by the public to fight their own battles. The great prize for which they were now contending was the army, which is too often exposed to the degradation of being reckoned upon as the sure means of crushing everything in the shape of law and liberty.

Cæsar had certainly obtained the attachment of his soldiers; for he had shared their dangers; but the vain upstart, Pompey, had no more claim upon the army than he could establish by corrupting them. Cæsar held them by their affections, but Pompey hoped to unite them to him by those golden links which never fix themselves to the heart, though effecting a sort of temporary hanging-on to the pocket. Cæsar stood on the bank of the Rubicon, which divided his province of Gaul from Italy, and, looking at the surface of the river, he was soon absorbed in his own reflections. He knew it was against the law to cross the stream with an army; but after looking at both sides, and feeling his position to be that of sink or swim, he made a bold plunge, with one of his legions after him. The Rubicon was now passed; and Pompey, hearing of Cæsar's approach, was struck with such a panic before he had received any real blow, that he had at once quitted the city. So great was his haste, that he omitted even to follow his natural bent, and went away without robbing the treasury. The tyrant is so frequently associated in the same person with the coward, that the ignoble retreat of Pompey was the natural sequel to his previous despotism; for that which passes for boldness of action may be prompted by the fears of the knave, instead of by the courage of the hero.

Cæsar arrived at Rome, which had become freed from the presence of one tyrant, to receive another; and the people certainly deserved all they got, or rather all they lost; for they conferred upon the despot many marks of popularity. When he wanted money, he burst open the treasury-door like a thief; and when opposed in the name of the law, he cut down everything in the shape of objection, like a butcher.

"Quid times? Cæsarem vehis." "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis."

Cæsar next proceeded to Spain, but only to be recalled as Dictator, to which office he had been illegally nominated by one of his creatures, the Prætor, M. Lepidus. Having laid down the dictatorship in eleven days, during which period he laid down the law on some very important questions, including that of debtor and creditor, Cæsar abandoned his legislative pursuits, and started in pursuit of Pompey. The latter had proceeded to Greece, where the former suffered much inconvenience in trying to manage the movements of his army. Only a portion of his troops having got across the water, he became so impatient at the non-arrival of the rest, that he went to see after them by going to sea himself in disguise, on board a small fishing-boat. The winds were extremely contrary, and were blowing the vessel back, with a force threatening to dismast her, and to the utmost dismay of the master, when Cæsar, who was sitting at the stern, put on a stern look, exclaiming, "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis." "What are you afraid of? You carry Cæsar as a passenger." At this moment the vessel gave a lurch, and the heels of Cæsar were suddenly brought to the level at which his head had the moment before been visible. The mariner was about to ask for further explanation, and had got "Quid?" in his mouth, when a wave completely washed him up, and he remained in soak for the rest of the voyage. The vessel was driven back, and Cæsar, who was wet through, as well as in despair, sat wringing alternately his hands and his toga.

At length, soon after his return to his camp, his army was brought to him by Antony; but provisions were so scarce, that the soldiers had to live upon bark, which proves that the unlucky "dogs of war" were exposed to the most biting necessities. There, however, they continued, without being subdued; and, indeed, the bark seems to have made them more than usually snappish; for they threw some of it into the hostile camp, and declared they would live upon grass; nor would they lay down their swords while there was a single blade remaining.

Cæsar encountered some slight reverses, and took up his quarters at Pharsalia, where he might have been blocked in and starved out, had not Pompey been taunted into attacking him. Cæsar was delighted at that imprudence, the fruits of which were speedily shown; for Pompey's army was utterly routed; and Pompey himself, retreating to his tent, was literally sick at the disgusting result of his enterprise. "The way in which my soldiers turned their backs," exclaimed Pompey to an intimate friend, "has positively turned my stomach;" and he was only sufficiently recovered on the following day to start viâ Lesbos for Egypt. There ill-fortune still awaited him; for Ptolemy, the young king, instead of receiving the outcast with hospitality, was advised to put him to death, as a little compliment to Cæsar. Septimius, a Roman, who had served under Pompey, was sent to meet him, with instructions to stab him in the back; and the victim had no sooner felt the blow, than, according to the custom of the period, he arranged the folds of his robe across his face, so that although very disgracefully killed, he might very gracefully expire. His wife, Cornelia, who witnessed the scene, sailed away as fast as she could from the melancholy sight, leaving no one but an old servant, named Philip, to perform not only the funeral, but all the characters that the performance required. He was, in fact, the undertaker of the whole of the sad ceremony, and attended as sole mourner at the melancholy undertaking.

On the arrival of Cæsar in Egypt, he was welcomed by having the head of Pompey put into his hand; but the former turned away in disgust, and at once dropped his old animosity.

Being detained by contrary winds at Alexandria, Cæsar entered into the disputes between Cleopatra and her elder brother Ptolemy; when the young lady, relying on her powers of fascination, caused herself to be brought, concealed in a mattress,[76] into the presence of the Roman general. Having emerged from under the bed, she pleaded her cause so earnestly, that he went to war on her account with her brother, who ultimately fell into the water; thus causing the drowning of himself and all his enmity. Cleopatra reigned in Egypt; and Cæsar was so enslaved by her charms, that he remained nine months on a visit; nor would he have torn himself away, but for the intelligence that Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, was endeavouring to recover his father's lost possessions. Hurrying to Pontus, he looked out for the enemy, drew his sword, struck one decisive blow, and in the memorable words, "Veni, vidi, vici," he set an example of the laconic style, which no writer of military despatches has since followed.

Disturbances had by this time broken out at Rome; and in order to repair the evil, Cæsar was obliged to repair himself to the capital. So much enthusiasm had been excited by the battle of Pharsalia—for the people are always too ready to lick the hand which seems capable of striking them—that Cæsar had been elected Dictator for one year, Consul for five, and Tribune for his whole lifetime.

The fact is, that Rome had become so thoroughly tired of the continual contests for the chief power, which a republican form of government necessarily invites, that the nation yearned for a permanent head, and eagerly adopted the very first that offered. It was thought better to be the slaves of one despotic adventurer, than the victims of half-a-dozen; and even absolutism was preferred to the republican system, which had kept the country so long exposed to laceration at the hands of those who were trying to snatch it from each other, without being able to govern it.

After a short stay in Rome, during which he exhibited his power by making various arbitrary changes in the Law and Constitution—for it is the tendency of a republic to place a whole nation at the will of one man—Cæsar proceeded to Africa, with the view of quelling there the party opposed to him. He marched against Utica, which was governed by Cato, who, when he ought to have been preparing to fight, was standing upon ceremony, and politely insisting that Scipio ought to take the command, as being the man of the highest rank present. Scipio, who was not ambitious of the foremost place in the field, declared that the pretended deference to his rank was rank nonsense, and that Cato must assume his proper position. The Governor, however, persisted; and Scipio went forth to fight; but he seems to have killed nobody except himself, while Juba and the legate Petreius, two other brave fellows on the same side, slew each other.

Cato, trembling for the fate of Utica, called a meeting of the Senate, which resolved unanimously to run away; and the Governor went home to supper. On retiring to his chamber he called for his sword, which was nowhere to be found; and he became so irritated, that he savagely struck the domestic who returned without the missing weapon. At length it turned out that "one of the young gentlemen had got it;" for the sword was brought to Cato by his eldest son, and it was quietly put away for the night under the old gentleman's pillow. Cato went to bed, and fell asleep while reading one of Plato's dialogues. Waking again at dawn, he rose, and having methodically finished the perusal of the dialogue he had commenced over-night, he ran himself through the body. His attendants rushed in, and sewed up the wound; but they had no sooner turned their backs, than—if we are to believe the authorities, which we confess we cannot at all times—he either undid the numerous stitches in his side, or ran himself through the body again; and, with a compliment in his mouth to the excellence of the reasoning of Plato, expired.

Cato was only eight-and-forty at the time of his death; and therefore, though in the course of nature too young to die, he was quite old enough to have known better than to kill himself. The graver historians inform us, that "he died the death of a hero and a philosopher;" but being unable to appreciate the heroism of running away from misfortune, instead of meeting it, or the philosophy of refusing to endure what one cannot cure, we must beg to be allowed to differ from the serious writers, who generally hold up suicide as a subject for respect and admiration. Cæsar was, of course, deeply affected on hearing of Cato's decease; but such affectation was common in those days; and there was nothing extraordinary in Cæsar's having gone into mourning for the man whose death he had long been compassing.

The victorious general now returned to Rome, where he might have obtained as long a lease as he pleased of almost unlimited power. He was named Dictator for ten years; and, instead of pursuing the ordinary practice of tyranny, which abuses the greatest power to gratify the pettiest spite, Cæsar not only made no proscriptions, but declared a general amnesty. He celebrated four triumphs, and gave a succession of banquets; for he knew that there is no more portentous grumbling than that which proceeds from an empty stomach.

Being entrusted with supreme power, he turned it, in many instances, to good account; and introduced, among other wholesome regulations, the very valuable reform of the Roman Calendar. This was an improvement, not merely for the day, but for all time, and has handed down the name of its author to every age, and every civilised country, in every almanack.

In these and similar salutary occupations he was disturbed by an insurrection in Spain, headed by the two sons of Pompey, Cneius and Sextus, whom he encountered, on Saturday, the 17th of March, B.C. 45, on the field of Munda. The battle, though ultimately decisive, was at first doubtful; for Cæsar's troops had commenced retreating, when their want of spirit so dispirited him, that, as they ran away, he was near making away with himself, by the mere force of sympathy. By a last effort, however, he succeeded in stopping the fugitives, and asked them if they were mad, to display such flightiness. His appeal was successful; and, having first come to themselves, they fell upon the enemy. Cneius made for the shore, and was getting into a ship, when a rope caught his foot, and he remained tied by the leg in a most perilous position. Having endeavoured for some time to effect his own extrication from the cable, which proved utterly impracti-cable, he called to one of his companions, who endeavoured to cut the rope, and in doing so, wounded Cneius. The unhappy sufferer attempted to fly, but being pursued to within an inch of his life, he naturally had not a foot to spare; and finding himself deprived of the use of one of his legs; he was, of course, in a sad hobble. He had got on shore, and had just placed his foot in a doctor's hands, when he was overtaken and killed by the enemy. His brother Sextus made his escape; and his hopes of rulership being at an end, he commenced the trade of a robber, which is not a very different kind of business from that of government in the days of military despotism.

On Cæsar's return to Rome he was received with increased adulation, though his victory had been over the Romans themselves; who, by acquiescing in their own degradation, became fully deserving of all the acts of tyranny they were made the victims of. Success, however, is the idol to which the multitude will bow, let the object of adoration be either good or evil; and it is only when the latter encounters the fall, which, sooner or later, must be its inevitable fate, that the Vox Dei is really echoed by the Vox Populi.

We must, however, accept with caution the accounts of the rejoicings that are described as attending the dictatorship of one who had so completely subjugated his country, that murder or banishment, without trial, had become the certain fate of every one who should venture to express the smallest disapprobation of any of his measures. Nothing is easier than for one who has a drawn sword ready for every hostile throat, to style himself the "father of his country," and to exercise the ancient privilege of paternity by taking the lives of such of his children as might rebel against his parental authority. It was easy to decree a thanksgiving of fifty days, and to obtain its outward observance, when instant death at the hands of a mercenary might be the fate of any one expressing a doubt as to having much to be grateful for. The statues of the usurper were placed in all the temples; but this was no test of true popularity; for if an armed band should break into our house, take forcible possession of all its contents, rob us of all we possess, and spend a portion of the proceeds in placing a bust of the head of the banditti in our principal apartments, it would be no proof of his being a favourite of ours. He decreed himself imperator, or Emperor, for life,—a proceeding no less impudent than that of a burglar, who, having broken into our premises, calls himself the landlord of the property. He declared his own person sacred—a poor consolation for a tyrant who knows that there is a curse which must eventually be brought terribly down upon all injustice and iniquity. He seized upon half the magistracies, as his own private property, to be given away by himself; and he virtually seized upon the other half, by claiming the nomination of the candidates. He was, in fact, supreme and sole master of the Republic; and without any one of the conditions which are absolutely essential to the permanency of power. His usurpation had neither law, morality, justice, nor reason—nor even that hollowest of all mockeries, expediency—to rest upon. The first utterance of the public voice, when free to speak, must have overwhelmed him with one shout of indignant execration; and the first movement of the popular arm, when freed from its ignoble paralysis, must have hurled him from power.

Some supporters of the miserable and unprincipled fallacy, that the end justifies the means, have pointed to some of Cæsar's salutary acts, as an excuse for his usurpation; but that right can never result from wrong, is shown in the fate which the Dictator soon met with. His aim was evidently the monarchy; and his adherent, Antony, caused a statue of Cæsar to be crowned; when two Tribunes seeing the diadem, and perceiving that there was an intention of trying it on, ordered it to be taken off again. The Dictator of the republic was so offended at this outrage on the symbols of monarchy, that he was on the point of putting the Tribunes to death, when it was suggested to him that exile might do as well, and he accordingly sent them into banishment.

It is one of the numerous penalties of iniquity, that its own example may be followed in opposition to itself; and that he who uses lawlessness and violence to attain his ends, may find them conducing to his own, in a sense he had not expected. The sentiments which, in contact with the open air of freedom, form the wholesome breath of public opinion, can never be stifled and pent up, without generating the foul and dangerous vapours of conspiracy. This noxious poison speedily forms itself among an enslaved people, and an explosion eventually takes place, which removes a load of oppression, and clears the political atmosphere.

A conspiracy had been for some time forming against Cæsar's life; and a band of about sixty, headed by M. Brutus and C. Cassius, had resolved on his downfall. The Dictator kept continually aiming at the crown, which he might perhaps have worn in dignity and safety, had he sought to gain it by honest means; for the nation had become so heartily sick of the alternate farce and tragedy of a Republic, that the necessity for some permanent authority based on law was on all hands admitted. He had, however, tried to effect his object by the cunning of a knave, the audacity of a thief, and the inhumanity of a butcher.

When a sovereign is really wanted, much may be done for a candidate who has circumstances, seconded by prudence, honour, and ability, on his side; but that crown is not worth an hour's purchase which is seized by force, fraud, and cruelty. The last trick of Cæsar, in trying to turn his usurpation into a right, was a pretence that the Sibylline books, having declared the Parthians could be conquered by none but a king, it was necessary to make him one. The Senate was to meet to consider the matter, on the 15th of March, in Pompey's Curia, where now stands the Palazzo Massimi. The professional augurs had already begun to prophesy, on the strength of those shadows which precede coming events; and Cæsar was so puffed up with self-conceit, and the people had been so long his abject slaves, that he had almost learned to believe the world would never throw off the atom that had got to the top of it. His wife had, it is said, an unfavourable dream, on the day previous to the meeting; but Cæsar smiled at her warnings, and told her that her night-mare proceeded from some ridiculous mare's nest. Cæsar walked down to the house of assembly, chatting arm-in-arm with the Consul, Decimus Brutus. Seeing in the crowd an augur, who had told him to beware of the Ides of March, Cæsar observed, smiling, "Well, here they are; and here am I;" to which, "Wait till they are gone, and then where are you?" was the only reply of the soothsayer.

The secret of the conspiracy, which had been hitherto well kept, now began to ooze out in all directions; and nearly everybody that Cæsar met thrust a paper into his hand, or dropped a whisper into his ear; but he would read and listen to nothing.

The Senators rose on his entrance; and when he took his seat the conspirators got round about him, until one of them, Metellus Cimber, came rather intrusively to close quarters, with a petition. Cæsar gave him a slight push, as a hint to him to keep his distance; and Cimber, as if to catch himself, took hold of the Dictator's toga, which was the signal agreed upon. Casca instantly stabbed him in the neck, when Cassius followed up the blow with a poke in the ribs; and Brutus had raised his hand with a dagger in it, when Cæsar exclaiming, "Et tu, Brute!"—And you!—you, Brute!—staggered to the foot of Pompey's statue, that he might form a tableau as he expired.

The republic was now virtually, if not nominally, at an end, though a faint struggle was still made by the murderers of Cæsar, who ran through the streets, proclaiming that they had killed a king, but obtained no praise for the achievement. Antony, on the other hand, created an immense sensation, by exhibiting the identical toga in which Cæsar had fallen, and thrusting his ten fingers through twice as many large holes, which he declared had been made by the assassins' daggers. Not satisfied with making the most of Cæsar's wardrobe, Antony appropriated the money of the deceased; and while the widow was wrapped in grief, with her face buried in her hands, her late husband's friend was carrying off all he could lay his hands upon. Antony had been at once grasping and prodigal, giving away with one hand what he had snatched with the other; and buying at a liberal price what he had no means of paying for.

His rival in the contest for the supreme power was Octavius, the son of a daughter of Cæsar's sister, and who, with no other qualification than that of nephew to his uncle, had the impudence to claim absolute dominion over a great but broken-spirited nation. This individual was without character or courage; and though afraid to be left in the dark, he was still more afraid of the light; for he felt that his own actions would not bear looking at. His cowardice had the usual effect upon him, for it made him cruel; and though there was nothing but his name to make him a favourite with the army, he had betrayed the soldiers into the disgrace of turning their arms on their fellow-citizens. By a constant use of the name of his uncle, he succeeded in cozening a people who sought only permanence in their institutions; and Antony being ultimately subdued, more by his own feebleness as a voluptuary, than by the strength of his opponent, an empire fell into the hands of Octavius. He was invested with the title of Imperator for life; and he retained his position till his death—a circumstance to be attributed to the conviction that had been brought home to the popular mind, that the constant changing of the head of a State is a source of constant danger to the peace and happiness of the whole community.

The End of Julius Cæsar. The End of Julius Cæsar.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Those who doubt the accuracy of this description, may consult Plutarch's "Life of Crassus."

[76] This story of the mattress, though gravely told, is somewhat doubtful, and is hardly worth the straw involved in it.

LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS

No. 11, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
November, 1860.