Yet the love of glory and the consciousness of his high faculties made him aspire to a more important part. He manifested his impatient desire for this one day when he went to visit the famous temple of Hercules at Gades, as Hannibal and Scipio had done before.[873] At the sight of the statue of Alexander, he deplored with a sigh that he had done nothing at the age when this great man had conquered the whole world.[874] In fact, Cæsar was then thirty-two years old, nearly the age at which Alexander died. Having obtained his recall to Rome, he stopped on his return in Gallia Transpadana (687).[875] The colonies founded in this country possessed the Latin law (jus Latii), which Pompeius Strabo had granted them, but they vainly demanded the rights of Roman city. The presence of Cæsar, already known for his friendly feelings towards the provinces, excited a lively emotion among the inhabitants, who saw in him the representative of their interests and their cause. The enthusiasm was such, that the Senate, terrified, thought itself obliged to retain for some time longer in Italy the legions destined for the army in Asia.[876]
The ascendency of Pompey still continued, though, since his consulship, he had remained without command, having undertaken, in 684, not to accept the government of any province at the expiration of his magistracy;[877] but his popularity began to disquiet the Senate, so much is it in the very essence of the aristocracy to distrust those who raise themselves, and extend their powers beyond itself. This was an additional motive for Cæsar to connect himself more closely with Pompey; whereupon he backed him with all his influence; and either to cement this alliance, or because of his inclination for a beautiful and graceful woman, shortly after his return he married Pompeia, the kinswoman of Pompey, and granddaughter of Sylla.[878] He was thus, at one and the same time, the arbiter of elegance, the hope of the democratic party, and the only public man whose opinions and conduct had never varied.
The Gabinian Law (687).
IV. The decadence of a political body is evident when the measures most useful to the glory of a country, instead of arising from its provident initiative, are inaugurated by obscure and often disreputable men, the faithful but dishonoured organs of public opinion. Thus the propositions made at this epoch, far from being inspired by the Senate, were put forward by uninfluential individuals, and carried by the violent attitude of the people. The first referred to the pirates, who, upheld and encouraged by Mithridates, had long infested the seas, and ravaged all the coasts; an energetic repression was indispensable. These bold adventurers, whose number the civil wars had greatly increased, had become a veritable power. Setting out from Cilicia, their common centre, they armed whole fleets, and found a refuge in important towns.[879] They had pillaged the much-frequented port of Caieta (Gaëta), dared to land at Ostia, and carry off the inhabitants to slavery; sunk in mid seas a Roman fleet under the orders of a consul, and made two prætors prisoners.[880] Not only strangers deputed to Rome, but the ambassadors of the Republic, had fallen into their hands, and had undergone the shame of being ransomed.[881] Finally, the pirates intercepted the imports of wheat indispensable for the feeding of the city. To remedy so humiliating a state of things, the tribune of the people, Aulus Gabinius, proposed to confide the war against the pirates to one sole general; to give him, for three years, extended powers, large forces, and to place three lieutenants under his orders.[882] The assembly of the people instantly accepted this proposition, notwithstanding the small esteem in which the character of its author was held; and the name of Pompey was in every mouth; but “the senators,” says Dio Cassius, “would have preferred to suffer the greatest evils from the pirates, than to have invested Pompey with such a power;”[883] they were ready to put to death, in the curia itself, the tribune who was the author of the motion. Scarcely had the multitude heard of the opposition of the senators, when they flocked in crowds, invaded the place of meeting, and would have massacred them, had they not been protected from their fury.[884]
The projected law, submitted to the suffrages of the people, attacked by Catulus and Q. Hortensius, energetically supported by Cæsar, is then adopted; and they confer on Pompey, for three years, the proconsular authority over all the seas, over all the coasts, and for fifty miles into the interior; they grant him 6,000 talents (35 millions [£1,400,000]),[885] twenty-five lieutenants, and the power of taking such vessels and troops as he should judge necessary. The allies, foreigners, and the provinces, were called on to concur in this expedition. They equipped five hundred ships, they levied a hundred and twenty thousand infantry and five thousand horse. The Senate, in spite of itself, sanctioned the clauses of this law, the utility of which was so manifest that its publication alone was sufficient to lower the price of wheat all through Italy.[886]
Pompey adopted an able plan for putting an end to piracy. He divided the Mediterranean coasts from the Columns of Hercules to the Hellespont and the southern shores of the Black Sea into ten separate commands;[887] at the head of each he placed one of his lieutenants. He himself, retaining the general surveillance, went to Cilicia with the rest of his forces. This vast plan protected all the shores, left the pirates no refuge, and enabled him to destroy their fleet and attack them in their dens at once. In three months Pompey re-established the safety of the seas, took a thousand castles or strongholds, destroyed three hundred towns, took eight hundred ships, and made twenty thousand prisoners, whom he transferred into the interior of Asia, where he employed them in building a city, which received the name of Pompeiopolis.[888]
The Manilian Law (688).
V. At these tidings, the enthusiasm for Pompey, then in the island of Crete, redoubled, and they talked of placing in his hands the fate of another war. Although Lucullus had obtained brilliant successes over Mithridates and Tigranes, his military position in Asia began to be compromised. He had experienced reverses; insubordination reigned among his soldiers; his severity excited their complaints; and the news of the arrival of the two proconsuls from Cilicia, Acilius Glabrio and Marcius Rex, sent to command a part of the provinces until then under his orders, had weakened respect for his authority.[889] These circumstances determined Manlius, tribune of the people, to propose that the government of the provinces trusted to Lucullus should be given to Pompey, joining to them Bithynia, and preserving to him the power which he already exercised over all the seas. “It was,” says Plutarch, “to submit the whole Roman empire to one sole man, and to deprive Lucullus of the fruits of his victories.”[890] Never, indeed, had such power been confided to any citizen, neither to the first Scipio to ruin Carthage, nor to the second to destroy Numantia. The people grew more and more accustomed to regard this concentration of power in one hand as the only means of salvation. The Senate, taxing these proposals with ingratitude, combated them with all its strength; Hortensius asserted that if all the authority was to be trusted to one man, no person was more worthy of it than Pompey, but that so much authority ought not to be centred in one person.[891] Catulus cried that they had done with liberty, and that, henceforth to enjoy this, they would be forced to retire to the woods and mountains.[892] Cicero, on the contrary, inaugurated his entrance into the Senate by a magnificent oration, which has been preserved to us; he showed that it was for the best interest of the Republic to give the conduct of this war to a captain whose noble deeds in the past, and whose moderation and integrity, vouched for the future. “So many other generals,” he said at the close, “proceed on an expedition only with the hope of enriching themselves. Can those who think we ought not to grant all these powers to one man alone ignore this, and do we not see that what renders Pompey so great is not only his own virtues, but the vices of others?”[893] As to Cæsar, he seconded, with all his power, the efforts of Cicero[894] for the adoption of the law, which, supported by public feeling, and submitted to the suffrage of the tribes, was adopted unanimously.
Certainly, Lucullus had deserved well of his country, and it was cruel to deprive him of the glory of terminating a war which he had prosperously begun;[895] but the definitive success of the campaign demanded his substitution, and the instinct of the people did not deceive them. Often, in difficult cases, they see more clearly than an assembly preoccupied with the interests of castes or of persons, and events soon show that they are right.
Lucullus had announced at Rome the end of the war; yet Mithridates was far from being conquered. This fierce enemy of the Romans, who had continued the struggle twenty-four years, and whom evil fortune had never been able to discourage, would not treat, despite his sixty four years and recent reverses, save on conditions inadmissible by the Romans. The fame of Pompey then was not useless against such an adversary. His ascendency alone could bring back discipline into the army and intimidate the enemy. In fact, his presence was sufficient to re-establish order, and retain under their standards the old soldiers who had obtained their discharge, and wished to return to their homes;[896] they formed the flower of the army, and were known under the name of Valerians.[897] On the other hand, Tigranes, having learned the arrival of Pompey, abandoned the party of his father-in-law, declaring that this general was the only one to whom he would submit,[898] so much does the prestige of one man, says Dio Cassius, lord it over that of another.[899]