The Grandeur That Was Rome: a survey of Roman culture and civilisation

by J. C. Stobart

Pompeius and Cæsar

So we come to the final phase of the Republic—the great struggle between the giants Cæsar and Pompeius, with figures like Cicero, Cato, and Clodius in the background. I do not propose to linger over this period, because on the one hand it is so thoroughly well known as the period of fullest evidence in all Roman history, and therefore would require a volume for adequate treatment, and on the other hand because it has been such a battle-ground for partisan historians of all times that it is difficult in such a summary as this to do justice without detailed argument.

Gneius Pompeius the Great[17] had first come into prominence as a supporter of Sulla. He was of high official family and was a born soldier. That is really the secret of his career. Like Marius he was a general and no statesman, but he was a very great general, and one of the few honest men, one might almost say one of the few gentlemen, of his period. The tragedy of his life was to be born in such a period. He had disdained the minor offices of state, and relying on his military renown but in defiance of the law, he stood for the consulship in 70 B.C. As the official aristocracy objected he went over to the democrats, and allied himself with Crassus. These two, elected under threat of Pompeius’s army, straightway repealed most of the Sullan constitution, and restored the balance of power to the knights and the assembly. At the end of the year Pompeius retired into private life. This was characteristic of him; he was capable of grandiose schemes but he lived in fear of public opinion, and he was really moved when orators spoke of illegality. Meanwhile there was a loud demand for some comprehensive scheme of attack upon the pirates. No ordinary

Plate XV. BUST OF CICERO

consular command would do. Even the Roman senate was by this time convinced that it was useless to send legions and cavalry against pirate ships. Accordingly a Gabinian Law of 67 gave to Pompeius a command of unprecedented magnitude. Millions of money were voted to him, he was to be supreme over all the seas and all the coasts for fifty miles inland for three years, with a staff of twenty-five legates, and all governors were to obey his orders. The price of corn fell at once: Pompeius discovered abundance of it in the granaries of the Sicilian corn trust. Then he began a systematic drive of the seas, and in about three months had cleared them. Thousands of pirates were caught and crucified. All this made Pompeius the most powerful and the most dangerous man in Rome.

Next the tribune Manilius, in whose favour that rising novus homo the friend of our youth, Marcus Tullius Cicero, pronounced an oration, gave to Pompeius another huge commission against Mithradates, the irrepressible rebel of Asia. Pompeius succeeded where all his predecessors, from Sulla to Lucullus, had failed, and the wicked old king was driven to suicide. Then Pompeius proceeded to organise the East like an Alexander, but always in perfect loyalty to Rome.

While Pompeius was absent the so-called democracy, which mostly consisted of hired ruffians in the pay of discontented nobles, ruled the streets of the city. Among the young nobles who took this side was one more dissolute and more foppish than the rest, a notorious adulterer and spendthrift, Gaius Julius Cæsar. Though of the highest birth—the goddess Venus by her marriage with the father of Æneas was among his ancestors—he was also by lineage associated with the democracy. His aunt was the wife of Marius, and his wife was a daughter of Cinna. He began his public career quaintly enough as pontifex maximus. When Julia the widow of Marius died, young Cæsar had the audacity to display images and utter an oration in praise of Marius. This, as was intended, set all the gossips talking, and his amazing extravagance kept him well in the public eye. On one occasion he exhibited three hundred gladiators in silver armour, although he was known to be penniless. Probably Crassus was his financier all along.

At this time there was another of the frequently recurring financial crises at Rome. Everybody was deeply in debt, and loud rose the cry for the clean slate, as part of the democratic programme—the only intelligible part. This was the cause of the famous conspiracy of Catiline, who, if Cicero may be trusted, proposed to seize and burn Rome by the aid of the discontented Sullan colonists in Etruria. Both Cæsar and Crassus are said to have favoured the plot, but it is exceedingly difficult to see what a large owner of Roman house property had to gain by it. Cicero was the consul for the year 63, and though it is the fashion just now to sneer at Cicero, he seems to have displayed courage and promptitude in dealing with the conspirators. Unfortunately his arrest and execution of Catiline was technically illegal. Cicero himself, as a parvenu, was naturally an aristocrat, and his policy, though futile, was intelligible. Briefly, it was to unite the senate with the capitalist class in what he called the “union of the orders” against the democratic elements of disorder. Pompeius came home from the East to find the conspiracy crushed. He and his legions were not wanted. With incredible folly and ingratitude the senate, led by Cicero, refused even to grant the lands he had promised to his veterans.