The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

æsar's proceedings in Gaul are sufficiently familiar to enable us to treat them with a sort of contempt, by omitting even the heads of the oft-repeated tale from our history. Though his arms were abroad, his eye was at home, and he watched the affairs of Rome with a jealous interest. His confederates, Pompey and Crassus, had quarrelled; and the former fell out with Cæsar; so that there was a difference between the triumvirate, though they were all three alike in their unscrupulous designs upon the commonwealth.

Crassus was busy in his province of Syria, laying his hands on every thing of any value, until somebody laid hands upon him, notwithstanding his worthlessness. His engagement with the Parthians was a short passage in his life, which led to his death; for he had been induced by treachery to plunge into the mess of the Mesopotamian deserts. There he encountered an army which endeavoured to strike terror into the Romans, by brayings, bellowings, the beating of drums, and every kind of hollow artifice. The Parthians, who were skilful in the use of the bow, sent forth such a shower of arrows, that fury darted into many an eye, and on many a lip there was a quiver. Crassus began to faint, and went into a sort of hysterics, highly incompatible with historic dignity. The enemy, however, tried a feint of a different kind, and pretended to run away; but when pursued, turned suddenly round, galloped upon the Romans through a sand-hill, thus raising so much dust, that the latter were obliged to lick it, as their mouths were full of it. In this position they were assailed with arrows, which having been shot at their feet, pinned many of them to the ground; and their hands being skewered in the same manner to their breasts, they could neither fly nor defend themselves.[75] The horses might still have charged; but when the poor creatures arrived at the Parthian pikes, they were obliged to pull up rather suddenly. The cavalry being cut to pieces, Crassus and some of his footmen retired to a sand-hill for safety; but they soon found the error of building their hopes on such a foundation. Crassus himself hid his head in the sand, and would see nobody; but ultimately he was induced to enter into a negotiation with the Parthian general. In the course of the parley a little misunderstanding arose, when some of the parties present began to push each other about, first with their hands, then with their clenched fists, and ultimately with their weapons. At length Octavius, who had accompanied Crassus, drew his sword, and killed a groom, when somebody else killed Octavius; and the assassination having once fairly—or unfairly—set in, Crassus himself was soon disposed of. The King of the Parthians caused the head of Crassus to be filled with gold, as in his lifetime he had devoted all his faculties to the accumulation of the metal.

By the death of Crassus, the triumvirate was reduced to a duumvirate, and jealousies arose between Pompey and Cæsar; but as the people seemed to think that two heads at loggerheads were better than one having everything its own way, the opposing tyrants were left by the public to fight their own battles. The great prize for which they were now contending was the army, which is too often exposed to the degradation of being reckoned upon as the sure means of crushing everything in the shape of law and liberty.

Cæsar had certainly obtained the attachment of his soldiers; for he had shared their dangers; but the vain upstart, Pompey, had no more claim upon the army than he could establish by corrupting them. Cæsar held them by their affections, but Pompey hoped to unite them to him by those golden links which never fix themselves to the heart, though effecting a sort of temporary hanging-on to the pocket. Cæsar stood on the bank of the Rubicon, which divided his province of Gaul from Italy, and, looking at the surface of the river, he was soon absorbed in his own reflections. He knew it was against the law to cross the stream with an army; but after looking at both sides, and feeling his position to be that of sink or swim, he made a bold plunge, with one of his legions after him. The Rubicon was now passed; and Pompey, hearing of Cæsar's approach, was struck with such a panic before he had received any real blow, that he had at once quitted the city. So great was his haste, that he omitted even to follow his natural bent, and went away without robbing the treasury. The tyrant is so frequently associated in the same person with the coward, that the ignoble retreat of Pompey was the natural sequel to his previous despotism; for that which passes for boldness of action may be prompted by the fears of the knave, instead of by the courage of the hero.

Cæsar arrived at Rome, which had become freed from the presence of one tyrant, to receive another; and the people certainly deserved all they got, or rather all they lost; for they conferred upon the despot many marks of popularity. When he wanted money, he burst open the treasury-door like a thief; and when opposed in the name of the law, he cut down everything in the shape of objection, like a butcher.

"Quid times? Cæsarem vehis."

Cæsar next proceeded to Spain, but only to be recalled as Dictator, to which office he had been illegally nominated by one of his creatures, the Prætor, M. Lepidus. Having laid down the dictatorship in eleven days, during which period he laid down the law on some very important questions, including that of debtor and creditor, Cæsar abandoned his legislative pursuits, and started in pursuit of Pompey. The latter had proceeded to Greece, where the former suffered much inconvenience in trying to manage the movements of his army. Only a portion of his troops having got across the water, he became so impatient at the non-arrival of the rest, that he went to see after them by going to sea himself in disguise, on board a small fishing-boat. The winds were extremely contrary, and were blowing the vessel back, with a force threatening to dismast her, and to the utmost dismay of the master, when Cæsar, who was sitting at the stern, put on a stern look, exclaiming, "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis." "What are you afraid of? You carry Cæsar as a passenger." At this moment the vessel gave a lurch, and the heels of Cæsar were suddenly brought to the level at which his head had the moment before been visible. The mariner was about to ask for further explanation, and had got "Quid?" in his mouth, when a wave completely washed him up, and he remained in soak for the rest of the voyage. The vessel was driven back, and Cæsar, who was wet through, as well as in despair, sat wringing alternately his hands and his toga.

At length, soon after his return to his camp, his army was brought to him by Antony; but provisions were so scarce, that the soldiers had to live upon bark, which proves that the unlucky "dogs of war" were exposed to the most biting necessities. There, however, they continued, without being subdued; and, indeed, the bark seems to have made them more than usually snappish; for they threw some of it into the hostile camp, and declared they would live upon grass; nor would they lay down their swords while there was a single blade remaining.