Thus all was struck with decadence. Brute force bestowed power, and corruption the magistracies. The empire no longer belonged to the Senate, but to the commanders of the armies; the armies no longer belonged to the Republic, but to the chiefs who led them to victory. Numerous elements of dissolution afflicted society: the venality of the judges, the traffic in elections, the absolutism of the Senate, the tyranny of wealth, which oppressed the poor by usury, and braved the law with impunity.
Rome found herself divided into two thoroughly distinct parties; the one, seeing salvation only in the past, attached itself to abuses, in the fear that to displace one stone would be to shatter the whole edifice; the other wished to consolidate it by rendering the base larger and the summit less unsteady. The first party supported itself on the institutions of Sylla; the second had taken the name of Marius as the symbol of its hopes.
Great causes need an historical figure to personify their interests and tendencies. The man once adopted, his faults, his very crimes are forgotten, and his great deeds alone remembered. Thus, the vengeance and massacres of Marius had faded away from memory at Rome. Only his victories, which had preserved Italy from the invasions of the Cimbri and the Teutones, were recalled; his misfortunes were pitied, his hatred to the aristocracy vaunted. The preferences of public opinion were clearly manifested by the language of the orators, even those most favourable to the Senate. Thus Catulus and Cicero, speaking of Sylla or of Marius, the tyranny of both of whom had been substantially almost equally cruel, thought themselves obliged to glorify the one and to brand the other;[840] yet the legislation of Sylla was still in full vigour, his party omnipotent—that of Marius dispersed and powerless.[841]
The struggle, which was perseveringly continued for sixty-three years against the Senate, had never succeeded, because the defence of the people had never been placed in hands either sufficiently strong or sufficiently pure. To the Gracchi had been wanting an army; to Marius a power less disgraced by excesses; to the war of the allies a character less hostile to the national unity of which Rome was the representative. As to Spartacus, by rousing the slaves he went beyond his aim, and his success threatened the whole of society; he was annihilated. To triumph over a long accumulation of prejudices, the popular cause needed a chief of transcendent merit, and a concurrence of circumstances difficult to foresee. But then the genius of Cæsar was not yet revealed, and the vanquisher of Sertorius was the only one who dominated the situation by his antecedents and high achievements.
Consulship of Pompey and Crassus.
II. By a line of conduct quite opposite to that of Cæsar, Pompey had greatly risen during the civil wars. From the age of twenty-three he had received from Sylla the title Imperator, and the name of “Great;”[842] he passed for the first warrior of his time, and had distinguished himself in Italy, Sicily, and Africa against the partisans of Marius, whom he caused to be pitilessly massacred.[843] Fate had ever favoured him. In Spain, the death of Sertorius had made victory easy to him; on his return, the fortuitous defeat of the fugitive remains of the army of Spartacus allowed him to assume the honour of having put an end to that formidable insurrection; soon he will profit by the success already obtained by Lucullus against Mithridates. Thus a distinguished writer has justly said that Pompey always came in time to terminate, to his own glory, the wars which were just going to end to the glory of another.[844]
The vulgar, who hail good fortune as the equal of genius, surrounded then the conqueror of Spain with their homage, and he himself, of a poor and vain spirit, referred the favours of fortune to his own sole merit. Seeking power for ornament rather than service, he courted it not in the hope of making a cause or a principle triumphant, but to enjoy it peaceably by trimming between different parties. Thus, whilst to Cæsar power was a means, to him it was only the end. Honest, but vacillating, he was unconsciously the instrument of those who flattered him. His courteous manners, and the show of disinterestedness which disguised his ambition, removed all suspicions of his aspiring to the supreme power.[845] An able general in ordinary times, he was great only while events were not greater than he. Nevertheless, he then enjoyed the highest reputation at Rome. By his antecedents he was rather the representative of the party of the aristocracy; but the desire of conciliating public favour, and his own intelligence, made him comprehend the necessity of certain modifications in the laws: thus, before entering Rome to celebrate his triumph over the Celtiberians, he manifested the intention of re-establishing the prerogative of the tribunes, of putting an end to the devastation and oppression of the provinces, of restoring impartiality to justice, and respect to the judges.[846] He was then consul-elect; his promises excited the most lively enthusiasm; for it was the evil administration of the provinces, and the venality of the senators in their judicial functions, which more than all else made the people demand so ardently the re-establishment of the privileges of the tribuneship, notwithstanding the abuses which they had engendered.[847] Excesses in power always give birth to an immoderate desire for liberty.
In publishing the programme of his conduct, of his own free will, before entering Rome, Pompey did not yield to a fascination cleverly exerted over him by Cæsar, as several historians pretend; he obeyed a stronger impulse, that of public opinion. The nobles reproached him with having abandoned their cause,[848] but the popular party was satisfied, and Cæsar, seeing the new consul take his ideas and sentiments to heart, resolved to support him energetically.[849] Doubtless, he thought that with so many elements of corruption, so much contempt of the laws, so many jealous rivalries, and so much boundless ambition, the ascendency of him whom fortune had raised so high could alone, for the time, assist the destinies of the Republic. Was this a loyal co-operation? We believe so, but it did not exclude a noble rivalry, and Cæsar could not be afraid of smoothing for Pompey the platform on which they must one day meet. The man who understands his own worth has no perfidious jealousy against those who have preceded him in his career; rather, he goes to their aid, for then he has more glory in rejoining them. Where would be the emulation of the contest if one was alone in the power of attaining the end?
Pompey’s colleague was M. Licinius Crassus. This remarkable man, as we have seen, had distinguished himself as a general, but his influence was owing rather to his wealth and his amiable and courteous disposition. Enriched under Sylla by purchasing the property of the proscribed, he possessed whole quarters of the city of Rome, rebuilt after several fires; his fortune was more than forty millions of francs [850] and he pretended that to be rich, one must be able to maintain an army at his own expense.[851] Though his chief passion was the love of gold, avarice did not with him exclude liberality. He lent to all his friends without interest, and sometimes scattered his largesses with profusion. Versed in letters, gifted with a rare eloquence, he accepted eagerly all the causes which Pompey, Cæsar, and Cicero disdained to defend; by his eagerness to oblige all those who claimed his services, either to borrow, or to obtain some situation, he acquired a power which balanced that of Pompey. This last had accomplished greater deeds, but his airs of grandeur and dignity, his habit of avoiding crowds and sights, alienated the multitude from him; while Crassus, of easy access, always in the midst of the public and of business, had the advantage over him by his affable manners.[852] We do not find very defined principles in him, either in political or private life; he was neither a constant friend nor an irreconcilable enemy.[853] Fitter to serve as an instrument for the elevation of another, than to elevate himself to the front rank, he was very useful to Cæsar, who did his best to gain his confidence. “There existed then at Rome,” says Plutarch, “three factions, the chiefs of which were Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus; Cato, whose power did not equal his glory, was more admired than followed. The wise and moderate part of the citizens were for Pompey; energetic, speculative, and bold men attached themselves to the hopes of Cæsar; Crassus, who held the mean between these two factions, used both.”[854]
During his first consulship, Crassus seems to have been only occupied with extravagant expenditure, and to have preserved a prudent neutrality. He made a grand sacrifice to Hercules, and consecrated to him the tenth part of his revenues; he gave the people an enormous feast, spread out on ten thousand tables, and bestowed corn for three months to every citizen.[855]