After remaining a few days at Besançon, Cæsar takes the way to the Rhine, avoids the mountainous spurs of the Jura, proceeds by Pennesières, Arcey, and Belfort, and debouches towards Cernay in the fertile plains of Alsace. The two armies are only twenty-four miles apart. Cæsar and Ariovistus have an interview; its only result is to increase their mutual resentment. The latter conceives the project of cutting the line of operation of the Romans, and, passing near the site of the modern Mulhouse, he proceeds, by a circuitous movement, to establish himself on the stream of the little Doller, to the south of the Roman army, which, encamped on the Thur, supports its rear on the last spurs of the Vosges, near Cernay. In this position, Ariovistus intercepts Cæsar’s communications with Franche-Comté and Burgundy. The latter, to restore them, distributes his troops into two camps, and causes a second camp to be made, less considerable than the first, on his right, near the little Doller. During several days, he seeks in vain to draw Ariovistus to a battle; then, learning that the matrons have advised the Germans not to tempt fortune before the new moon, he unites his legions, places all the auxiliaries on his right, marches resolutely to assault the camp of the Germans, forces them to accept battle, and defeats them after an obstinate resistance. In their flight, they take the same road by which they had advanced, and, pursued for a distance of fifty miles, they re-pass the Rhine towards Rhinau. As to the Suevi, who had assembled near Mayence, when they are informed of the disaster of their allies, they hasten to regain their country.
Thus, in his first campaign, Cæsar, by two great battles, had delivered Gaul from the invasion of the Helvetii and the Germans; all the Gauls looked upon him as a liberator. But services rendered are very soon forgotten when people owe their liberty and independence to a foreign army.
Cæsar places his troops in winter quarters in Franche-Comté, leaves the command to Labienus, and starts for Cisalpine Gaul, where he is obliged, as proconsul, to preside over the provincial assemblies. Nearer Rome during the winter, he could follow more easily the political events of the metropolis.
Sequel of the Consulship of L. Calpurnius Piso and Aulus Galbinus.
IV. While the armies were augmenting the power of the Republic without, at Rome the intestine struggles continued with new fury. It could hardly be otherwise among the elements of discord and anarchy which were at work, and which, since the departure of Cæsar, were no longer held under control by a lofty intelligence and a firm will. Moral force, so necessary to every government, no longer existed anywhere, or rather, it did not exist where the institutions willed it to be, in the Senate; and, according to the remark of a celebrated German historian, this assembly which ruled the world, was incapable of ruling the town.[564] For a long time the prestige of one man in visible power was master over that of the Senate; Pompey, by his military renown, and by his alliance with Cæsar and Crassus, continued dominant, although he had not then any legal power. Cæsar had reckoned upon him to continue his work, and curb the bad passions which were in agitation in the highest regions as well as in the lowest depths of society: but Pompey had neither the mind nor energy necessary to master at the same time the arrogance of the nobles and the turbulence of certain partisans of the demagogy; he was soon exposed to the censure of both parties.[565] Moreover entirely under the influence of the charms of his young wife, he appeared indifferent to what was passing around him.[566]
The relation of the events at Rome during the eight years of Cæsar’s abode in Gaul will only offer us an uninterrupted series of vengeances, murders, and acts of violence of every description. How, indeed, could order be maintained in so vast a city without a permanent military force; when each man of importance took with him, for his escort, his clients or slaves in arms, and thus, within it, everybody had an army except the Republic? From this moment, as we shall see, the quarrels which are about to spring up among the parties will result always in riots; the slaves and gladiators will be enrolled as the ordinary actors.
Intrigues of Clodius.
V. Clodius, whose imprudent support of those who were subsequently called the triumvirs had increased his influence, continued, after Cæsar’s departure, to court a vain popularity, and to excite the passions which had been imperfectly allayed. Not satisfied with having, at the beginning of his tribuneship, re-established those religious, commercial, and political associations, which, composed chiefly of the dregs of the people, were a permanent danger to society; with having made distributions of wheat, restrained the censors in their right of exclusion, forbidden the auspices to be taken or the sky observed on the day fixed for the meeting of the comitia,[567] and with having provoked the exile of Cicero, he turned his restless activity against Pompey,[568] whom he soon deeply offended, by causing to be taken away and set at liberty a son of Tigranes, King of Armenia, made prisoner in the war against Mithridates, and retained as a pledge for the tranquillity of Asia.[569] At the same time he began judicial proceedings against some of Pompey’s friends, and replied to the expostulations which were addressed to him, “That he was glad to learn how far the great man’s credit went.”[570] The latter then conceived the idea of recalling Cicero, to oppose him to Clodius, just as, a few months before, he had raised Clodius against Cicero. We see the game of political see-saw is not new.
Pompey consults Cæsar on the Return of Cicero.
VI. Under these circumstances, the opinion of Cæsar was of great weight. Pompey wrote to consult him,[571] and P. Sextius, one of those nominated as the new tribunes, repaired to Gaul to ascertain his mind.[572] It appears certain that it was favourable,[573] for, so early as the Calends of June, 696, hardly two months after the decree against Cicero, a tribune of the people, L. Ninnius, demanded his recall in the Senate. This proposal was on the point of being carried, when another tribune of the people, Ælius Ligus, interceded.[574] The Senate, in its irritation, declared that it would take into consideration no political or administrative affair until it had voted on Cicero’s return.[575] We thus judge how much the assembly took to heart the success of this measure, and how much, in supporting it, Pompey flattered the sentiments of the majority.