Unanimous acclamations respond to this speech of Cæsar. The soldiers of the 13th legion declare that they are ready to make the greatest sacrifices; they will revenge their general and the tribunes of the people for all these outrages; as a proof of his devotion, each centurion offers to entertain a horseman at his expense; each soldier, to serve gratuitously, the richer ones providing for the poorer ones; and during the whole civil war, Suetonius affirms, not one of them failed in this engagement.[922] Such was the devotedness of the army; Labienus alone, whom Cæsar loved especially, whom he had loaded with favours, deserted the cause of the conqueror of Gaul, and passed over to Pompey.[923] Cicero and his party thought that this deserter would bring a great addition to their strength. But Labienus,[924] though an able general under Cæsar, was only an indifferent one in the opposite camp. Desertions have never made any man great.
Cæsar is driven to Civil War.
IV. The moment for action had arrived. Cæsar was reduced to the alternative of maintaining himself at the head of his army, in spite of the Senate, or surrendering himself to his enemies, who would have reserved for him the fate of the accomplices of Catiline, who had been condemned to death, if he were not, like the Gracchi, Saturninus, and so many others, killed in a popular tumult. Here the question naturally offers itself: Ought not Cæsar, who had so often faced death on the battle-fields, have gone to Rome to face it under another form, and to have renounced his command, rather than engage in a struggle which must throw the Republic into all the horrors of a civil war? Yes, if by his abnegation he could save Rome from anarchy, corruption, and tyranny. No, if this abnegation would endanger what he had most at heart, the regeneration of the Republic. Cæsar, like men of his temper, cared little for life, and still less for power for the sake of power; but, as chief of the popular party, he felt a great cause rise behind him; it urged him forward, and obliged him to conquer in despite of legality, the imprecations of his adversaries, and the uncertain judgment of posterity. Roman society, in a state of dissolution, asked for a master; oppressed Italy, for a representative of its rights; the world, bowed under the yoke, for a saviour. Ought he, by deserting his mission, disappoint so many legitimate hopes, so many noble aspirations? What! Cæsar, who owed all his dignities to the people, and confining himself within his right, should he have retired before Pompey, who, having become the docile tool of a factious minority of the Senate, was trampling right and justice under foot; before Pompey, who, according to the admission of Cicero himself, would have been, after victory, a cruel and vindictive despot, and would have allowed the world to be plundered for the benefit of a few families, incapable, moreover, of arresting the decay of the Republic, and founding an order of things sufficiently firm to retard the invasion of barbarians for many centuries! He would have retreated before a party which reckoned it a crime to repair the evils caused by the violence of Sylla, and the severity of Pompey, by recalling the exiles;[925] to give rights to the peoples of Italy; to distribute lands among the poor and the veterans; and, by an equitable administration, to ensure the prosperity of the provinces! It would have been madness. The question had not the mean proportions of a quarrel between two generals who contended for power: it was the decisive conflict between two hostile causes, between the privileged classes and the people; it was the continuation of the formidable struggle between Marius and Sylla![926]
There are imperious circumstances which condemn public men either to abnegation or to perseverance. To cling to power when one is no longer able to do good, and when, as a representative of the past, one has, as it were, no partisans but among those who live upon abuses, is a deplorable obstinacy; to abandon it when one is the representative of a new era, and the hope of a better future, is a cowardly act and a crime.
Cæsar crosses the Rubicon.
V. Cæsar has taken his resolution. He began the conquest of Gaul with four legions; he is going to commence that of the world with one only. He must first of all, by a surprise, take possession of Ariminum (Rimini), the first important fortress of Italy on the side of Cisalpine Gaul. For this purpose, he sends before him a detachment composed of trusty soldiers and centurions, commanded by Q. Hortensius; he places a part of his cavalry in échelon on the road.[927] When evening arrives, pretending an indisposition, he leaves his officers, who were at table, enters a chariot with a few friends, and joins his vanguard. When he arrives at the Rubicon, a stream which formed the limit of his government, and which the laws forbad him to cross, he halts for a moment as though struck with terror; he communicates his apprehensions to Asinius Pollio and those who surround him. A comet has appeared in the sky;[928] he foresees the misfortunes which are on the point of befalling Italy, and recollects the dream which the night before had oppressed his mind: he had dreamt that he violated his mother. Was not his country, in fact, his mother; and, notwithstanding the justness of his cause and the greatness of his designs, was not his enterprise an outrage upon her? But the augurs, those flattering interpreters of the future, affirm that this dream promises him the empire of the world; this woman whom he has seen extended on the ground is no other than the earth, the common mother of all mortals.[929] Then suddenly an apparition, it is said, strikes the eyes of Cæsar: it is a man of tall stature, blowing martial airs on a trumpet, and calling him to the other bank. All hesitation ceases; he hurries onward and crosses the Rubicon, exclaiming, “The die is cast! Let us go where I am called by the prodigies of the gods and the iniquity of my enemies.”[930] Soon he arrived at Ariminum, of which he takes possession without striking a blow. The civil war has commenced!
“The true author of war,” says Montesquieu, “is not he who declares it, but he who renders it necessary.” It is not granted to man, notwithstanding his genius and power, to raise at will the popular waves; yet, when, elected by the public voice, he appears in the midst of the storm which endangers the vessel of the state, then he alone can direct its course and bring it to the harbour. Cæsar was not, therefore, the instigator of this profound perturbation of Roman society: he had become the indispensable pilot. Had it been otherwise, when he disappeared all would have returned to order; on the contrary, his death gave up the whole universe to all the horrors of war. Europe, Asia, Africa, were the theatre of sanguinary struggles between the past and the future, and the Roman world did not find peace until the heir of his name had made his cause triumph. But it was no longer possible for Augustus to renew the work of Cæsar; fourteen years of civil war had exhausted the strength of the nation and used up the characters; the men imbued with the great principles of the past were dead; the survivors had alternately served all parties; to succeed, Augustus himself had made peace with the murderers of his adoptive father; the convictions were extinct, and the world, longing for rest, no longer contained the elements which would have permitted Cæsar, as was his intention, to re-establish the Republic in its ancient splendour and its ancient forms, but on new principles.
NAPOLEON.
The Tuileries, March 20, 1866.