Lentulus carries the Senate against Cæsar.
II. The Consul L. Lentulus, in a violent oration, engaged the Senate to show more courage and firmness: he promised to support it, and defend the Republic: “If, on the contrary, the assembly, in this critical moment, was wanting in energy—if, as in the past, it meant to spare Cæsar and to conciliate his good graces, there would be an end of its authority: as far as he was concerned, he should hasten to withdraw from it, and should in future consult only himself. After all, he also might gain the friendship and favour of Cæsar.” Scipio spoke in the same spirit: “Pompey,” said he, “will not fail the Republic, if he is followed by the Senate; but if they hesitate, if they act with weakness, the Senate will henceforth invoke his aid in vain.” This language of Scipio seemed to be the expression of the thoughts of Pompey, who was at the gates of the town with his army. More moderate opinions were also offered. M. Marcellus demanded that, before coming to any decision, the Senate should assemble troops from the different parts of Italy in order to ensure the independence of their deliberations; M. Calidius proposed that Pompey should retire to his province, in order to avoid all motive for a war; for Cæsar might justly fear to see used against him the two legions taken away from his command, and retained under the walls of Rome. M. Rufus gave his opinion nearly in the same terms. Lentulus immediately burst out into violent reproaches against the latter speakers; he upbraided them with their defection, and refused to put the proposal of Calidius to a vote. Marcellus, terrified, withdrew his motion. Then there happened one of those strange and sudden changes, so common in revolutionary assemblies: the violent apostrophes of Lentulus, the threats uttered by the partisans of Pompey, the terror inspired by the presence of an army under the walls of Rome, exerted an irresistible pressure upon the minds of the senators, who, in spite of themselves, adopted the motion of Scipio, and decreed that “if Cæsar did not disband his army on the day prescribed, he should be declared an enemy of the Republic.”[901]
Mark Antony and Q. Cassius, tribunes of the people, oppose this decree.[902] A report is immediately made of their opposition, invoking the decision taken by the Senate the year before; grave measures are proposed: the more violent they are, the more the enemies of Cæsar applaud. In the evening, after the sitting, Pompey convokes the senators in his gardens: he distributes praise and blame amongst them, encourages some, intimidates others. At the same time, he recalls from all parts a great number of his veterans, promising them rewards and promotion. He addressed himself even to the soldiers of the two legions who had formed part of Cæsar’s army.[903]
The town is in a state of extreme agitation. The tribune Curio claims the right of the comitia which had been set aside. The friends of the consuls, the adherents of Pompey, all who nourished old rancours against Cæsar, hurry towards the Senate, which is again assembled. Their clamours and threats deprive that assembly of all liberty of decision. The most varied proposals follow each other. The censor L. Piso and the prætor Roscius offer to go to Cæsar, to inform him of what is going on; they only ask a delay of six days. Others desire that deputies be charged to go to make him acquainted with the will of the Senate.
All these motions are rejected. Cato, Lentulus, and Scipio redouble in violence. Cato is animated by old enmities and the mortification of his recent check in the consular elections. Lentulus, overwhelmed with debts, hopes for honours and riches; he boasts among his party that he will become a second Sylla, and be master of the empire.[904] Scipio flatters himself with an ambition equally chimerical. Lastly, Pompey, who will have no equal, desires war, the only way to get over the folly of his conduct,[905] and this prop of the Republic assumes the title, like Agamemnon, of king of kings.[906]
The consuls propose to the Senate to assume public mourning, in order to strike the imagination of the people, and to show them that the country is in danger. Mark Antony and his colleague Cassius intercede; but no attention is paid to their opposition. The Senate assembles in mourning attire, decided beforehand on rigorous measures. The tribunes, on the other hand, announce that they intend to make use of their right of veto. In the midst of this general excitement, their obstinacy is no longer considered as a right of their office, but as a proof of their complicity; and, first of all, measures are brought under deliberation to be taken against their opposition. Mark Antony is the most audacious; the Consul Lentulus interrupts him with anger, and orders him to leave the curia, “where,” he says, “his sacred character will not preserve him any longer from the punishment merited by his spirit of hostility towards the Republic.” Mark Antony thereupon, rising impetuously, takes the gods to witness that the privileges of the tribune’s power are violated in his person. “We are insulted,” exclaims he; “we are treated like murderers. You want proscriptions, massacres, conflagrations. May all those evils which you have drawn down fall upon your own heads!” Then, pronouncing the forms of execration, which had always the power of impressing superstitious minds, he leaves the curia, followed by Q. Cassius, Curio, and M. Cœlius.[907] It was time: the curia was on the point of being surrounded by a detachment of troops, which were already approaching.[908] All four left Rome in the night between the 6th and 7th of January, in the disguise of slaves, in an ordinary chariot, and reached Cæsar’s quarters.[909]
The following days the Senate meets outside the town. Pompey repeats there what he had employed Scipio to say. He applauds the courage and firmness of the assembly; he enumerates his forces, boasts of having ten legions—six in Spain, and four in Italy.[910] According to his conviction, the army is not devoted to Cæsar, and will not follow him in his rash undertakings. Besides, would he dare, with one single legion, to face the forces of the Senate? Before he will have had time to summon his troops, which are on the other side of the Alps, Pompey will have assembled a formidable army.[911] Then the Senate declares the country in danger (it was the 18th of the Ides of January), an extreme measure reserved for great public calamities; and the care to watch that the Republic receive no harm is confided to the consuls, the proconsuls, the prætors, and the tribunes of the people. Immediately, all his party, whose violence has driven Pompey and the Senate into civil war, fell upon the dignities, the honours, the governments of provinces, as so many objects of prey. Italy is divided into great commands,[912] which the principal chiefs divide amongst themselves. Cicero, always prudent, chooses Campania as being more distant from the scene of war. Scribonius Libo is sent to Etruria,[913] P. Lentulus Spinther to the coast of Picenum,[914] P. Attius Varus to Auximum and Cingulum,[915] and Q. Minucius Thermus to Umbria.[916] By a false interpretation of the law which allows proconsuls to be chosen among the magistrates who have resigned their functions within five years, the consular and prætorian provinces are shared arbitrarily: Syria is given to Metellus Scipio, Transalpine Gaul to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cisalpine Gaul to Considius Nonianus, Sicily to Cato, Sardinia to M. Aurelius Cotta, Africa to L. Ælius Tuberno, and Cilicia to P. Sextius.[917] The obligation of a curiate law to legitimate their power is regarded as useless. Their names are not drawn by lot; they do not wait, according to the established practice, till the people has ratified their election, and till they have put on the dress of war, after having pronounced the usual vows. The consuls, contrary to custom, leave the town; men, till then strangers to all high office, cause lictors to go before them in Rome and in the Capitol. It is proposed to declare King Juba friend and ally of the Roman people. What matters whether he be devoted or not to the Roman domination, provided he become a useful auxiliary for the civil war? A levy of 130,000 men in Italy is decreed. All the resources of the public treasure are placed at the disposal of Pompey; the money preserved in the temples is taken; and if that be not sufficient, the property of private persons themselves shall be employed for the pay of the troops. In the midst of this sudden commotion, rights divine and human are equally trampled under foot.[918] And yet a few days had scarcely passed “when the Senate,” says Appian, “regretted not having accepted the conditions of Cæsar, the justice of which they felt at a moment when fear brought them back from the excitement of party spirit to the counsels of wisdom.”[919]
Cæsar harangues his Troops.
III. Whilst at Rome all was confusion, and Pompey, nominal chief of his party, underwent its various exigencies and impulses, Cæsar, master of himself and free in his resolutions, waited quietly at Ravenna until the thoughtless impetuosity of his enemies should break itself against his firmness and the justice of his cause. The tribunes of the people, Mark Antony and Q. Cassius, accompanied by Curio and M. Cœlius, hasten to him.[920] At the news of the events in Rome, he sends couriers to the other side of the Alps, in order to unite his army; but, without waiting for it, he assembles the 13th legion, the only one which had crossed the Alps; he reminds his soldiers in a few words of the ancient insults and the recent injustices of which he is the victim.
“The people had authorised him, although absent, to solicit a new consulship, and, as soon as he thought that he ought to avail himself of this favour, it was opposed. He has been asked, for the interest of his country, to deprive himself of two legions, and, after he has made the sacrifice, it is against him they are employed. The decrees of the Senate and the people, legally rendered, have been disregarded, and other decrees have been sanctioned; notwithstanding the opposition of the tribunes. The right of intercession, which Sylla himself had respected, has been set at naught, and it is under the garb of slaves that the representatives of the Roman people come to seek a refuge in his camp. All his proposals of conciliation have been rejected. What has been refused to him has been granted to Pompey, who, prompted by envious malignity, has broken the ties of an old friendship. Lastly, what pretext is there for declaring the country in danger, and calling the Roman people to arms? Are they in presence of a popular revolt, or a violence of the tribunes, as in the time of the Gracchi, or an invasion of the barbarians, as in the time of Marius? Besides, no law has been promulgated, no motion has been submitted for the sanction of the people; all which has been done without the sanction of the people is unlawful.[921] Let the soldiers, then, defend the general under whom, for nine years, they have served the Republic with so much success, gained so many battles, subdued the whole of Gaul, overcome the Germans and the Britons; for his enemies are theirs, and his elevation, as well as his glory, is their work.”