JULIUS CÆSAR

By GEORGE WILLIS BOTSFORD

Late Professor of History, Columbia University. Author of “Story of Rome,” “History of Rome,” etc.

MENTOR GRAVURES

JULIUS CÆSAR

THE ROMAN FORUM IN THE TIME OF CÆSAR

THE RIVER TIBER IN THE TIME OF CÆSAR

MENTOR GRAVURES

CÆSAR CROSSING THE RUBICON

DEATH OF CÆSAR

RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE DEIFIED CÆSAR

From History of Rome, by G. W. Botsford, The Macmillan Co., Publishers

JULIUS CÆSAR

Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

Rome’s Conquest of the Civilized World

To understand the world in which Cæsar lived it is necessary first to review the growth of the Roman Empire. Four hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era Rome was a small city, an independent state, it is true, but in possession of a territory no larger than an American county. In a succession of wars lasting through a century and a third (400-264 B. C.), she gained control of the whole peninsula of Italy. In another century (264-167 B. C.), through a new series of wars, she built up an empire that nearly surrounded the Mediterranean Sea. This rapid expansion of power is one of the most notable events in the world’s history. In the present number of The Mentor, however, we are less concerned with the process of conquest than with its result. When Rome subdued a foreign state, she exercised her right of war in depriving it of a great part of its wealth, including money, land, and art treasures, not only paintings and marbles, but works of great intrinsic value in bronze, silver, and gold. These confiscations and the subsequent taxes levied by the imperial government, together with the illegal exactions of officials, tended to impoverish the world for the enrichment of Rome and of the few citizens who monopolized the offices. The conquest differentiated the freemen of the empire into three distinct classes: the few wealthy Romans, who governed the world, the masses of Roman citizens who, though in possession of the right to vote had gained no advantage by the conquest, and the subjects, barred from all share in the imperial government and greatly oppressed by its officials.

JULIUS CÆSAR

In the Capitoline Museum, Rome

Rome became a great city with a population of about a million, who had gathered from all parts of the empire. Some had come as slaves, others to seek their fortunes, while others had been driven from the surrounding districts by the pinch of poverty. As freemen could find little work in the city, there grew up a great mob of idlers, who lived in large part on food doled out to them by the state as the price of their votes.

The ruling class was represented by the Senate, which was the chief governing body. Generally the senators were the most cultured and intelligent people at Rome; but they had all the faults of a narrow plutocracy; through long enjoyment of wealth and power the class was thoroughly corrupted and enfeebled. Hence the Senate proved incapable of governing and protecting the empire and even of preventing the frequent outbreaks of anarchy in the capital.

TEMPLE OF JUPITER—CAPITOLINE

As it appeared in the time of Cæsar

Early Life of Cæsar

Such in brief was the world in which Gaius Julius Cæsar lived (100-44 B. C.) Belonging to the bluest-blooded aristocracy, he began life with all the advantages of wealth and family repute. As a boy and youth he enjoyed the best education of the time. It consisted mainly in the study and imitation of Greek writers, especially orators, in preparation for a career as public speaker and statesman. Rome had derived her civilization from Greece; and every business man or diplomatist had to speak the Greek language, which was the chief medium of communication throughout the Mediterranean world.

In company with other young aristocrats Cæsar in early life indulged in all the dissipations and vices of his class. The foppish negligence of his attire proclaimed him a rake, while exorbitant luxuries, costly entertainments, forbidden love-intrigues, gambling—in brief, the indulging of a great variety of expensive tastes—exhausted his fortune and loaded him with debts so portentous that he could never hope to pay them by legal means. Through all these immoralities he kept a sound mind and a body capable of extreme activity and endurance, though in his later years he was subject to fainting and to epileptic fits.

The clearness and quickness of his intelligence was such that he could carry on several lines of thought and keep a number of stenographers[1] occupied simultaneously with his dictations. These extraordinary mental powers enabled him to master the most complex political situations and on the battlefield to turn many a defeat into victory. For the knowledge necessary to his manifold activities he devoured the contents of a multitude of books on a great variety of subjects. He was an orator of splendid power, a writer of clear and simple Latin, a man of scientific taste, interested in the customs and character of the peoples with whom he came in contact, and in the phenomena of nature; a general with few equals in the world’s history, and a statesman variously estimated by modern historians.

[1] In that age stenography was a well-developed art, essential to the work of a secretary.

THE ROMAN FORUM (restored), northwest side

From History of Rome, by G. W. Botsford, The Macmillan Co., Publishers

A ROMAN FEAST

At the beginning of his career he cast his lot with the popular party. This policy meant little more than a preference for dealing with the Assembly rather than with the Senate. In theory the Assembly comprised all the citizens; practically it was attended by the idler members of the populace. There was no democracy; for those citizens that lived too far from Rome to attend the Assembly had no voice in the government, and the vast majority of people in the empire were subjects. It was expected that a leader of the popular party should propose to the Assembly bills for the benefit of the masses of citizens, particularly of the populace, and for checking the powers and privileges of the aristocracy.

Cæsar was by no means a believer in human equality. Speaking in early life at the funeral of an aunt, he gave the following account of his family’s genealogy: “My aunt Julia derived her lineage on her mother’s side from a race of kings, and on her father’s side from the immortal gods; for her mother’s family trace their origin to King Ancus Marcius, and her father’s to Venus, of whose stock we are a branch. We unite in our pedigree, accordingly, the sacred majesty of kings, who are the most exalted among men, and the divine majesty of gods, to whom kings themselves are subject.” Men of such pretensions could never descend to the level of peasants and artisans, nor believe that the world would benefit by popular rule.

POMPEY

In the Palazzo Spada, Rome

His Wars and His Consulship

Through an attractive personality, political intrigue sometimes verging dangerously on conspiracy, and the lavish use of borrowed money, Cæsar rapidly made his way upward through the higher offices in the routine order. In those times the surest avenue to political power was success in military command; and for the years 61-60 B. C. Cæsar was appointed governor of “Farther Spain.” On his arrival he found his province at peace; but he managed to stir up trouble with some neighboring tribes of mountaineers who were beyond the border of the empire. After imposing upon them orders that they could not obey, he made war upon them. They had little wealth to plunder, but he took captive great numbers, whom he sold into slavery. As governor he found other ways of making money, mostly illegal; so that he was able to reward his soldiers, pay his huge debts, and have something left for the future. In this policy he acted like former governors, but with greater cleverness.

JULIUS CÆSAR

In the National Museum, Naples

Returning to Rome, he gained the Consulship, which was the highest standing office (59 B. C.) There were two consuls; and his colleague was Bibulus, a stupid person, who chanced to be a political adversary. For the first time Cæsar was in a position to display his statesmanship. Two great problems were pressing, the economic improvement of the masses throughout the empire and their protection from the greedy oppression of Roman officials. Against the obstruction of his colleague Cæsar carried a law through the Assembly for the division of large tracts of public land among the needier citizens—a measure which brought him great popularity. Although it did nothing to benefit the subjects, it was a step in the right direction. Another law, worked out in great detail, aimed to prevent officers of the empire from committing extortion upon the subjects. Though doubtless well intended, this law proved ineffective because no one in power cared to enforce it. Most of his consular year, however, he devoted to winning influential friends and to securing for himself an opportunity for further military exploits after the expiration of his Consulship. The territory placed under his government for this purpose included especially Cisalpine Gaul—substantially the Po Basin—and Narbonensis, a strip of land extending along the southern coast of Gaul, now France.

Disturbances beyond his borders gave him a pretext for war, which lasted eight years (58-50 B. C.), and which resulted in the conquest of Gaul. In accomplishing this end Cæsar employed his most brilliant generalship, including lightning-like movements and daring strategy. When we consider that he had had little experience in warfare, we must regard his achievements as marvellous. The conquest was accompanied by great cruelty to the conquered. On one occasion more than fifty thousand captives were sold into slavery; on another he beheaded the senators of a conquered community and sold all the people as slaves. At another time he massacred an entire tribe, numbering more than four hundred thousand men, women, and children. The plunder, and especially the sale of captives, brought the victor enormous wealth, a part of which he devoted to buying supporters at Rome. After overawing Gaul with terrorism he adopted a policy of conciliation, by which he won the fidelity of the survivors. Although in entering upon the conquest Cæsar had merely his own aggrandizement in mind, he must in the end have come to an appreciation of the value of the new province to the empire. Even after the vast slaughter and enslavement of the bravest Gauls, the survivors were full of vitality. The country was rich in agricultural and mineral resources, and the Rhone River formed a convenient outlet for the country’s products in the direction of Rome. This acquisition added great strength to the empire, and prepared the ground for the extension of Roman civilization into western and central Europe. The conquest was, in fact, the greatest achievement of Cæsar’s genius.

From History of Rome, by G. W. Botsford, The Macmillan Co., Publishers

WARFARE IN CÆSAR’S TIME

ROMAN LEGIONARY SOLDIER

From Duruy’s “History of Rome”

GALLIC SOLDIER

No sooner had he finished this work than he came to blows with the Senate, which feared his towering ambition. A civil war ensued (49-45 B. C.) The champion of the Senate was Pompey, who also had met with great success in war. Though in appearance the struggle was between Cæsar and the Republic, its real object was to determine which of the two leading generals should be master of the Roman world. Pompey was defeated and killed; and in the end Cæsar subdued the whole empire to his will. He ruled as Dictator, appointed to that office by the submissive Senate.

His Reforms as Dictator

ROMAN WORKS OF APPROACH

Showing parts of a Gallic wall in which stones are intermixed with beams

During the civil war and the year following its close Cæsar gave attention to internal reforms. Humanely and prudently he forgave political offenders, and associated with himself in the government many who had fought against him in the war. He sought to reconcile old hatreds and to introduce an era of good feeling. There can be no doubt of his sympathy with the subject peoples. Those in authority in the provinces were no longer to enrich themselves and their friends by oppression, but were held strictly accountable to the Dictator. Roman citizenship was a highly-prized possession, as it meant justice and an enviable social standing to the possessor. Cæsar granted it freely to individuals and to entire communities. Obviously, his aim was the rapid equalization of all freemen of the empire.

He took especial interest in public improvements at Rome. Among these works was the completion of the temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill. The earlier temple had been destroyed by fire, and the construction of the new building required about thirty-six years. This was the largest and most stately temple in the city. Cæsar laid out a public square, named after his family the Julian Forum, in which he erected a temple to Venus Genetrix (ancestress), from whom he claimed descent. In it he placed a graceful statue of the goddess, carved by Arcesilaus, the most famous sculptor of the age. It is a remarkable example of clinging transparent drapery. In this public exhibition of his descent from a goddess Cæsar boldly displayed his egotism, which was further exalted by decrees of the Senate proclaiming him a god. It was not till after his death, however, that a temple was actually erected, at the east end of the Roman Forum, for his worship.[2] The Curia, Senate House, Cæsar began to rebuild, but its completion was left to Augustus, who named it the Curia Julia, after the Julian family, to which Cæsar, and by adoption Augustus, belonged. On the south side of the Forum he began the construction of the Basilica Julia, afterward finished by Augustus. It was a great hall intended for judicial and mercantile business. These are but a small part of the vast improvements that he planned for Rome, Italy, and the empire. The greater number remained mere schemes. To us the most interesting was the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, a work that has had to await the skill of the modern engineer.

[2] The temple of the deified Cæsar, the ruins of which is pictured in this number.

As supreme pontiff Cæsar was the head of the state religion and guardian of the sacred lore. In this capacity he reformed the calendar, which in his day had fallen into dire confusion. The improvement consisted essentially in the adoption of the Egyptian solar year of 365¼ days. The Julian calendar remained in force throughout the civilized world till 1582, when it was superseded by that of Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced a more exact system.

ROMAN FASCES

Bundle of rods and axe bound together and borne before emperors and other rulers as symbols of power

THE BASILICA JULIA—Roman Forum (restored)

A DENARIUS

Stamped with the head of Cæsar. A denarius was a silver coin worth about 20 cents

Personal Appearance, Friends and Character

The Romans as a people belonged to the Mediterranean race, and the great majority, therefore, were short and dark, like the Sicilians of today. Cæsar, however, was tall and fair, with round, well-proportioned limbs and black piercing eyes. His portraits on coins and in sculpture show a spare face with a high, broad forehead inclined to baldness, representing a physique too delicate to sustain the enormous activities of his brain. To the end of his days he paid, perhaps, an excessive attention to his personal appearance, and was especially gratified when the Senate in his honor decreed him the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath; for he found it a means of covering his baldness. There was in his face and manner a frank sympathy that won the hearts of all those that came into close touch with him; and in spite of brutal conquests he developed an expression of gentleness and clemency mentioned by writers of his age.

The greatest of his contemporaries was Cicero, who by sheer energy and ability had worked his way to the highest offices, and had rescued the state from a dangerous conspiracy. Though he was a consummate political orator, Cicero’s tastes lay chiefly in the direction of literary and philosophic composition, pleasant country life, and association with intellectual men. Cæsar tried to win him as a political ally; but Cicero and those intimate associates that loved the Republic feared Cæsar’s autocratic methods and ambition. This aloofness of the intellectual class drove Cæsar to seek friends and helpers in the lower ranks of society and among his subordinate military officers. Although a few of these people served him faithfully, the great majority were incompetent to fill the offices that he gave them, and were bent only on shirking duty and enriching themselves. On such a basis no man, however great, can build up a just and efficient system of government.

CICERO

In the Vatican Museum, Rome

CICERO

In the Madrid Museum. Considered the most authentic marble portrait of the great orator

From History of Rome, by G. W. Botsford, The Macmillan Co., Publishers

POMPEY

In spite of many admirable qualities Cæsar shared fully in the moral looseness of the age, which set at naught all marriage relations. Not even his friends at Rome, nor friendly kings who gave him their hospitality, could trust their wives to his honor. With Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, he had associated in her capital; but he shocked even his dissolute countrymen by bringing her to Rome and into his own house.

An Imitation of Alexander

POMPEY’S THEATER (restored)

First theater in Rome built of stone

That Cæsar desired absolute power, not merely for his own enjoyment but in the conviction that with it he could best serve the empire, can hardly be disputed; but whether or not he wished the kingly title no one can know. While he was in the Orient the glamor of Alexander’s achievements seems to have overcome him; and under this spell he neglected the work of improving the empire to plan the conquest of the great Parthian kingdom, Rome’s only surviving rival. In this scheme the conqueror got the better of the statesman. A motive to the new war, in itself unnecessary, was to escape from the situation at Rome—from flattery, intrigue, the incompetence of officials, from deadly though silent envy and hatred, which were making his life every day more unendurable. As the conqueror of Parthia he could overwhelm all opposition and mold the empire as clay in the potter’s hands. For the remainder of his days he could dwell serene on the pinnacle of glory; and at his death, having no son of his own, he could bequeath the regenerated world to his grandnephew Octavius, a youth of great promise whom he had adopted as a son.

CLEOPATRA

In the Vatican Museum, Rome

From all that we can learn, however, success in the Parthian war would have been a catastrophe to European civilization. In wealth and population, in the resources of war and peace, the Oriental part of the empire would have overbalanced the European. The capital would have shifted to Alexandria or farther east; and Oriental absolutism would have dominated the civilized world. Three centuries after Cæsar, autocracy was to come even to Europe. It came with its bureaucratic accompaniment to destroy the little that remained of economic strength and intellectual freedom, and to drag to ruin the decaying civilization of the ancient world.

Cæsar, however, was not destined even to set out for Parthia. On March 15 (44 B. C.), the Senate met to take the last measures preparatory to his departure. The place of session was the Senate House which Pompey had built near his theater. Scarcely had Cæsar entered and taken his seat when a throng of about sixty senators gathered round him, pretending to greet him and to offer a petition. They were conspirators who had engaged in a plot for his assassination, through no especial love for the Republic, but for various personal reasons. Many had gained office and wealth under his patronage; but in their greed for greater wealth and political glory they lost all sense of gratitude. The best among them was Marcus Brutus, in his own social circle a philosopher and an idealist, but in business a hard, relentless usurer. Caius Cassius, the brain of the conspiracy, was a plunderer of the provinces and a robber of temples, whom envy drove into the plot. By such men was Cæsar slain. It was a crime perpetrated upon the civilized world, which had to endure thirteen more years of desolating civil war (44-31 B. C.), before Octavius, the young heir to Cæsar, could gain the mastery and bring the empire to peace. This young man, known to history as Augustus, though less brilliant than his granduncle, possessed a far greater degree of practical wisdom. It was he, rather than Cæsar, who gave the Roman world an organization under which it was to enjoy more than two centuries of prosperity and happiness. Viewed in this light, the wisest act of the great Cæsar was the choice of this youth of delicately modeled features and frail body as his son and successor.

OCTAVIUS

Called “Augustus.” In the Vatican Museum, Rome

MARCUS BRUTUS

In the National Museum, Naples. Found at Pompeii

The Passing of Cæsar—“On March 15 (the Ides of March), 44 B. C., Cæsar entered the Senate Chamber and took his seat. His presence awed men, in spite of themselves, and the conspirators had determined to act at once, lest they should lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and easy of access. They gathered round him. He knew them all. There was not one from whom he had not a right to expect some sort of gratitude, and the movement suggested no suspicion. One had a story to tell him; another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had just made governor of Bithynia, then came close to him with some request which he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, stabbed him in the throat. He started up with a cry, and caught Cassius’s arm. Another poinard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. He looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his head, gathered the folds about him that he might fall decently, and sank down without uttering another word. Cicero was present. Brutus, waving his dagger, shouted to Cicero, congratulating him that liberty was restored. The Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed into the Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Cæsar was dead and scattered to their houses. The murderers, some of them bleeding from wounds which they had given one another in their eagerness, followed, crying that the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free.”—James Anthony Froude.

THE FALLEN CONQUEROR

A reproduction of the pen drawing of the figure of Cæsar made by the painter Gérôme as a preliminary sketch for his great picture of the assassination of Cæsar

SUPPLEMENTARY READING: JULIUS CÆSAR, by G. Ferrero; JULIUS CÆSAR, a sketch, by J. A. Froude; JULIUS CÆSAR, by W. W. Fowler (Heroes of the Nations Series); JULIUS CÆSAR, by J. Abbott; LIFE OF CÆSAR, in Plutarch’s Lives.

⁂ Information concerning these books may be had on application to the Editor of The Mentor.

THE CONQUERORS

Copyright by Braun, Clement & Co. Original painting owned by John Wanamaker

THE CONQUERORS

This powerful painting by Pierre Fritel pictures the grim progress of the great conquerors of the world through an avenue of death lined by the victims of the world’s wars. Cæsar rides in the center—beside and behind are Tamerlane, Alexander, Attila, Charlemagne, Napoleon and other world conquerors.

It is Human Desire that makes world history—desire for conquest, possession, and control. The Conqueror of the World must have his will. He treads the peoples of the earth under his feet, and spreads ruin in his path. He knows no social distinctions—this Re-molder of Humanity. The habitations of poor and rich alike are demolished, and the treasured possessions of city and town desecrated. Monuments of revered memory are razed to the ground, and new monuments to the Conqueror are raised to the sky. Nations are subjugated; governments are revised; territory is re-assigned; new laws are made. The people bow under the yoke; the Conqueror is enthroned with pomp and ceremony, and hailed as Master of the World.

And then—something happens that saves the world for the people. Some call it the “Hand of Fate”; those that live in the faith call it the “Will of God.” But history tells us that final defeat awaits the man that aspires to be Conqueror of the World.

Tamerlane, the Tartar tyrant, called “the Scourge of God,” swept the hordes of Asia before him in world conquest. He died suddenly while preparing to invade China. Alexander of Macedon, called “the Great,” made himself master of the world of his day. He forestalled Fate by dissipating his young life away, and died broken-hearted, sighing for more worlds to conquer. Hannibal, the Carthaginian, carried the spirit of conquest across the Mediterranean to Spain, Italy, and over the Alps. He threatened Rome itself, and aspired to the overlordship of land and sea. Finally, defeated by Scipio Africanus, he was exiled to Syria, where, dishonored and deserted, he committed suicide. Julius Cæsar conquered all Gaul, and carried the standards of Rome to far-off Britain. The name of Cæsar became synonymous with conquest, so that it has been borne by successive emperors for centuries, and is, even in this day, the title of Imperialism. But Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, “and Rome was free no more.” In the very fullness of his power he was assassinated by his own senators, his friend Brutus among them.

“As he was ambitious,” said Brutus, “I slew him. There is joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition.”

Napoleon Bonaparte gained leadership in France at a critical time, reconstructed her shattered institutions, and built up a military power that dominated all Europe. His ambition contemplated a personal supremacy of the Continent, with vassal nations paying tribute to his sovereignty. Beyond the bounds of Europe he carried conquest into Egypt, riding his charger to the foot of the Pyramids. But his over-weening ambition tempted him too far. As the crossing of the Rubicon sealed the fate of Cæsar, the crossing of the Niemen marked the beginning of Napoleon’s downfall. With the Grand Army of more than half a million men, he invaded Russia, penetrating as far as Moscow. In a few months, with a pitiful, broken and ragged remnant of his forces, he recrossed the Niemen, minus glory and minus the trophies of war. Soon after, Napoleon met his Waterloo, and ended his days in lonely brooding, like an eagle chained to a rock, on the desolate island of St. Helena.

Sic transit gloria mundi—“so passes away the glory of the world”; so ends the career of the Conqueror.

W. D. Moffat
Editor

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