Cæsar in Asia (673, 674).
III. Cæsar could not remain a cold spectator of the sanguinary reign of Sylla, and left for Asia, where he received the hospitality of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. A short time afterwards he took part in the hostilities which continued against Mithridates. The young men of good family who wished to serve their military apprenticeship followed a general to the army. Admitted to his intimacy under the name of contubernales, they were attached to his person. It was in this capacity that Cæsar accompanied the prætor M. Minucius Thermus,[788] who sent him to Nicomedes to claim his co-operation in the siege of Mitylene, occupied by the troops of Mithridates. Cæsar succeeded in his mission, and on his return aided in the capture of the city. Having saved the life of a Roman soldier, he received from Thermus a civic crown.[789]
Shortly afterwards he returned to Bithynia, to defend the cause of one of his clients. His frequent presence at the court of Nicomedes served as the pretext for an accusation of shameful condescension. But Cæsar’s relations with the Bithynians may be explained quite naturally by his feelings of gratitude for the hospitality he had received from them; it was the reason which made him always defend their interests, and at a later period become their patron, as may be gathered from the fragment of a speech preserved by Aulus Gellius.[790] The motives of his conduct were, nevertheless, so misconstrued, that insulting allusions are to be found in certain debates of the Senate, and even in the songs of the soldiers who followed his triumphal car.[791] But these sarcasms, which told rather of hatred than of truth, as Cicero himself says, magis odio firmata quam præsidio,[792] were only set afloat by his adversaries very much later, that is to say, at one of those moments of excitement when political parties shrink from no calumny[793] to mutually decry each other. Notwithstanding the relaxation of morals, nothing could have ruined the reputation of Cæsar more than this accusation, for such a crime was not only abhorred in the army,[794] but, committed with a foreigner, would have been the most degrading disregard of Roman dignity. Wherefore Cæsar, whose love for women ought to have shielded him from such a suspicion, repelled it with just indignation.[795]
After having made his first campaign at the siege of Mitylene, Cæsar served in the fleet of the proconsul P. Servilius (676), commissioned to make war on the Cilician pirates, who subsequently received the surname of Isauricus, because he had taken Isaura, their chief place of refuge,[796] and conquered part of Cilicia. However, he remained but a short time with Servilius, for, having been informed of the death of Sylla, he returned to Rome.[797]
Cæsar on his return to Rome (676).
IV. The Republic, divided into two parties, was on the eve of falling into civil war through the diversity of opinion between the two consuls, Lepidus and Catulus. They were ready to come to blows. The former, elevated to the consulship by the influence of Pompey, against the advice of Sylla, fomented an insurrection. “He lighted up,” says Florus, “the fire of civil war at the very funeral pyre of the dictator.”[798] He wished to abrogate the Cornelian laws, restore to the tribunes their power, to the proscribed their rights, to the allies their lands.[799] These designs against the system established by the dictator agreed with Cæsar’s ideas, and endeavours were made, by seductive offers, to draw him into the intrigues which were then going on; but he kept aloof.[800]
The Senate succeeded in making the consuls swear that they would be reconciled, and thought to ensure peace by giving each a military command. Catulus received the government of Italy, and Lepidus that of Cisalpine Gaul. The latter, before going to his province, visited Etruria, where the partisans of Marius flocked to him. The Senate, informed of these doings, recalled him to Rome, towards the end of the year, to hold the comitia.[801] Lepidus, leaving Brutus the prætor encamped near Mutina (Modena), marched back to Rome at the head of his army. Beaten by Catulus and Pompey at the bridge of Milvius, he withdrew to the coast of Etruria, and, after a new defeat, fled to Sardinia, where he ended his career miserably.[802] Perpenna, his lieutenant, went, with the wreck of his army, to rejoin Sertorius in Spain.
Cæsar acted wisely in keeping out of these movements, for not only did the character of Lepidus inspire him with no confidence,[803] but he must have thought that the dictatorship of Sylla was too recent, that it had inspired too many fears, and created too many new interests, to admit of the reaction, still incomplete in men’s minds, succeeding by arms. For the present, they must limit themselves to acting on public opinion, by branding with words the instruments of the past tyranny.
The most general way of entering on a political career was by instituting a prosecution against some high personage.[804] Its success mattered little; the real point was to be brought prominently forward by some remarkable speech, and offer a proof of patriotism.
Cornelius Dolabella, one of the friends of Sylla, who had had the honours of the consulate and triumph, and who, two years before, was governor of Macedonia, was now accused by Cæsar of excesses committed in his government (677). He was acquitted by the tribunal composed of the creatures of the dictator.[805] Public opinion did not praise Cæsar the less for having dared to attack a man who was supported and defended by orators such as Hortensius and L. Aurelius Cotta. Besides, he displayed so much eloquence, that this first speech gave him at once a veritable celebrity.[806] Encouraged by this success, Cæsar cited C. Antonius Hybrida before the prætor M. Lucullus for having, at the head of a body of cavalry, pillaged certain parts of Greece when Sylla was returning from Asia.[807] The accused was also acquitted, but the popularity of the accuser still increased. He also spoke, probably, in other causes now unknown. Tacitus speaks of a speech of Cæsar’s in favour of a certain Decius the Samnite,[808] without doubt the same mentioned by Cicero, who, flying from the proscription of Sylla, was kindly received by Aulus Cluentius.[809] Thus Cæsar boldly offered himself as the defender of the oppressed Greeks or Samnites, who had suffered so much from the regime preceding. He gained especially the good-will of the former, whose opinions, highly influential at Rome, helped to make reputations.