Pompey receives Ovations, and asks Cæsar to return his Two Legions.
III. About this time Pompey fell dangerously ill, and on his recovery the Neapolitans and the peoples of all Italy showed such joy, that “every town, great or small,” says Plutarch, “celebrated festivals for several days. When he returned to Rome, there was no place spacious enough to contain the crowd which came to meet him; the roads, the villages, and the ports were full of people offering sacrifices and making banquets, in order to show their joy at his recovery. A great number of citizens, crowned with leaves, went to receive him with torches, and threw flowers on him as they accompanied him; the procession which followed him in his progress offered the most agreeable and most magnificent spectacle.”[864] Although these ovations had given Pompey an exaggerated opinion of his influence, on his return to Rome he observed in public the same reserve, though in secret he supported the measures calculated to diminish Cæsar’s power. Thus, taking for pretext the demands for re-enforcements renewed incessantly by Bibulus and Cicero, proconsuls of Syria and Cilicia, who sought to place their provinces in safety against an invasion of the Parthians, he represented that the levies ordered by the Senate were insufficient, and that it was necessary to send experienced troops to the East. It was thereupon decided that Pompey and Cæsar, who were at the head of considerable armies, should each of them detach one legion for the defence of the threatened provinces. A senatus-consultus at once summoned Cæsar to send his legion, and ordered him, besides, to return the legion which Pompey had lent him shortly after the conference of Lucca. Perhaps they hoped for resistance on his part, for this last legion had been raised, like all those of his army, in Cisalpine Gaul; but he obeyed without hesitation, so that he alone had to furnish the re-enforcements required for the East. Before parting with his soldiers, who had so long fought under his orders, he caused 250 drachmas (225 francs) to be distributed to each legionary.[865]
Appius Claudius, nephew of the censor of the same name, who had left Rome with the mission of bringing those troops from the Cisalpine into Italy, reported on his return that the soldiers of Cæsar, weary of their long campaigns, sighed for repose, and that it would be impossible to draw them into a civil war; he pretended even that the legions in winter quarters in Transalpine Gaul would no sooner have passed the Alps than they would rally to Pompey’s flag.[866] Events in the sequel proved the falsity of this information, for not only, as will appear hereafter, did the troops which had remained under Cæsar’s command continue faithful to him, but those which had been withdrawn from him preserved the remembrance of their ancient general. In fact, Pompey himself had not the least confidence in the two legions he had received, and his letter to Domitius, proconsul at the commencement of the civil war, explains his inaction by the danger of bringing them into the presence of the army of Cæsar, so much he fears to see them pass over to the opposite camp.[867] At Rome, nevertheless, they believed in the reports which flattered the pretensions of Pompey, although they were contradicted by other more certain information, which showed Italy, the Cisalpine provinces, and Gaul itself, equally devoted to Cæsar. Pompey, deaf to these last warnings, affected the greatest contempt for the forces of which his adversary could dispose. According to him, Cæsar was ruining himself, and had no other chance of safety but in a prompt and complete submission. When he was asked with what troops he would resist the conqueror of Gaul, in case he were to march upon Rome, he replied, with an air of confidence, that he had only to strike the soil of Italy with his foot to make legions start up out of it.[868]
It was natural that his vanity should make him interpret favourably all that was passing under his eyes. At Rome, the greatest personages were devoted to him. Italy had shuddered at the news of his illness, and celebrated his recovery as if it had been a triumph. The army of Gaul, it was said, was ready to answer to his call.
With less blindness, Pompey might have discerned the true reason of the enthusiasm of which he had been the object. He would have understood that this enthusiasm was much less addressed to his person than to the depositary of an authority which alone then seemed capable of saving the Republic: he would have understood that, the day another general should appear under the same conditions of fame and power as himself, the people, with its admirable discernment, would at once side with him who should best identify himself with their interests.
To understand the public opinion correctly, he ought not, though this might have been a difficult thing to the chief of the aristocratic cause, to have confined himself solely to the judgment of the official world, but he should have interrogated the sentiments of those whose position brought them nearest to the people. Instead of believing the reports of Appius Claudius, and reckoning on the discontent of certain of Cæsar’s lieutenants, who, like Labienus, already showed hostile tendencies, Pompey ought to have meditated upon that exclamation of a centurion, who, placed at the door of the Senate, when that assembly rejected the just reclamations of the conqueror of Gaul, exclaimed, putting his hand to his sword, “This will give him what he asks.”[869]
The fact is that, in civil commotions, each class of society divines, as by instinct, the cause which responds to its aspirations, and feels itself attracted to it by a secret affinity. Men born in the superior classes, or brought to their level by honours and riches, are always drawn towards the aristocracy, whilst men kept by fortune in the inferior ranks remain the firm supports of the popular cause. Thus, at the return from the isle of Elba, most of the generals of the Emperor Napoleon, loaded with wealth like the lieutenants of Cæsar,[870] marched openly against him; but in the army all up to the rank of colonel said, after the example of the Roman centurion, pointing to their weapons, “This will place him on the throne again!”
The Senate votes impartially.
IV. An attentive examination of the correspondence between M. Cœlius and Cicero, as well as the relations of the various authors, leads to the conviction that at that period it required great efforts on the part of the turbulent fraction of the aristocratic party to drag the Senate into hostility towards Cæsar. The censor Appius, reviewing the list of that body, noted Curio, that is, wished to strike him from the list; but at the instances of his colleague and of the Consul Paulus, he confined himself to expressing a formal reproof, and his regret that he could not do justice. On hearing him, Curio tore his toga, and protested with the utmost passion against a disloyal attack. The Consul Marcellus, who suspected the good understanding between Curio and Cæsar, and who reckoned on the feelings of the Senate, which were very unfavourable to both, brought the conduct of the tribune under discussion. While he protested against this illegal proceeding, Curio accepted the debate, and declared that, strong in his conscience, and certain of having always acted in the interests of the Republic, he placed with confidence his honour and his life in the hands of the Senate. This scene could have no other result but an honourable vote for Curio;[871] but this incident was soon left, and the discussion passed to the political situation. Marcellus proposed at first this question: Ought Cæsar to be superseded in his province? He urged the Senate to a vote. The senators having formed themselves into two groups in the curia, an immense majority declared for the affirmative. The same majority pronounced for the negative on a second question of Marcellus: Ought Pompey to be superseded? But Curio, resuming the arguments which he had used so many times on the danger of favouring Pompey at the expense of Cæsar, demanded a vote upon a third question: Ought Pompey and Cæsar both to disarm? To the surprise of the consul, this unexpected motion passed by a majority of 370 against 22. Then Marcellus dismissed the Senate, saying with bitterness, “You carry the day! you will have Cæsar for master.”[872] He did not imagine that he foretold the future so well. Thus the almost unanimity of the assembly had, by its vote, justified Curio, who, in this instance, was only the representative of Cæsar; and if Pompey and his party had submitted to this decision, there would no longer have been a pretext for the struggle which honest men feared: Cæsar and Pompey would have resumed their place in ordinary life, each with his partisans and his renown, but without army, and consequently without the means of disturbing the Republic.
Violent Measures adopted against Cæsar.