Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

Pompeius’s sloth at this period is sometimes put down to his extreme domestic happiness. Julia, his new wife, was but half his age, three and twenty. She possessed a full measure of the irresistible charm of her father; so long as she lived the bond between the Triumvirs was unshakeable. But her husband’s apparent indifference to public affairs was due, in the main, to another reason; the one which explains so much in Pompeius’s action and inaction both at this time and later. He stood aloof because he did not know what to do. The political tangle had become a knot that must be cut. Pompeius was not the man to cut knots. He let things slide.

A ROMAN VILLA ON THE COAST
Notice the roof garden

Disorder grew and nothing was done to stop it. The Senate, alarmed by Caesar’s growing popularity—a fifteen days’ festival was held in honour of his victories in Gaul—began to attack his new land and other laws. Pompeius did not trouble to defend them. Cicero had come back from banishment and made alarmist speeches declaring that Caesar was aiming at bringing the Republic to an end. Pompeius and Crassus quarrelled again. Yet when Caesar called his friends to meet him at Lucca, where he had gone into winter quarters (56), hardly any one in Rome refused to go. Pompeius, despite his growing jealousy and uneasiness, was reconciled to Crassus and the Triumvirate renewed. But as soon as he got back to Rome again, away from Caesar’s charm, he fell back into his old moody indolence. In the course of the next few years he became openly hostile to Caesar. Little heed was paid in Rome to what he was doing in Gaul. The death and defeat of Crassus at Carrhae (53), produced no deep stir. The disturbances in the city, which had been occasional, grew constant. More interest was felt by the ordinary citizen and even the ordinary senator in the brawls between Clodius and Milo than in anything happening outside Rome.

The Government was quite helpless. Things were plainly going from bad to worse. There was one strong man in the Roman world who might save the State; but the price of his doing it was one that made the Conservatives determined to have civil war rather. The clearer Caesar’s outstanding position became the more resentful were Pompeius’s feelings against him. Since his early youth he had been regarded by other people, and had come to regard himself, as the great man. Now, however, when there was a real opportunity for showing greatness he did not know how to do it; and saw, too, another likely to carry off the prize.

Julia’s death, two years after the meeting at Lucca, removed the one human being who might have prevented an open breach between Pompeius and Caesar, and left Pompeius’s jealousy to rule unchecked in his mind. Caesar, far from Rome, saw with clear eyes the meaning of what was happening there; Pompeius, though on the spot, did not or would not understand. He would never take action. For this very reason the senators looked upon him as a safe man and gave him powers far greater than any Caesar had or had ever asked for. He was made sole consul (52) and head of a special court which was to try all cases of disorder. Disorder had indeed been getting more and more serious; Clodius and Milo were rival candidates for the consulship. There were open fights, day and night, between their followers. At last Clodius was actually murdered by Milo’s ruffians on the Appian Way.

Pompeius did nothing, though in Rome he was all-powerful. Crassus was dead; Caesar far away in Gaul and hard pressed there. When Pompeius fell ill about this time prayers for his recovery were put up all over Italy; and when the news came that he was better great public services of thanksgiving took place. But as Plutarch says, this demonstration proved to be one of the causes of the civil war which followed. ‘For the joy Pompeius conceived on this occasion, added to the high opinion he had of his achievements, intoxicated him so far that, bidding adieu to the caution and prudence which had put his good fortune and the glory of his actions upon a sure footing, he gave in to the most extravagant presumption and even contempt of Caesar; insomuch that he declared, “He had not need of arms nor any extraordinary preparations against him, since he could pull him down with much more ease than he had set him up”.’ When people like Cicero expressed their fear that Caesar might march upon Rome with his army he said, ‘In Italy, if I do but stamp upon the ground an army will appear.’ Filled with such notions, he proceeded recklessly to drive Caesar to desperation. He refused to disband his own troops (two legions which he had lent to Caesar, and Caesar, on his demand, had returned to him loaded with presents); instead of backing Caesar’s candidature for the consulship for the year in which he was due to return from Gaul he opposed him in every way. Finally, he made it quite clear that if Caesar came to Rome without his army he would be in serious danger; and at the same time insisted that he should do so.

What this must lead to was plain enough to people in Rome. When they heard that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon (49) at the head of his troops (regardless of Sulla’s law) they fell into a panic. The Senate was terrified of Caesar and not much less afraid of Pompeius. But disunited as the Conservatives were among themselves, he was the only man who could hold them together at all, and their only general. If Pompeius had acted firmly at the crisis, whether with Caesar or against him, he might have prevented the civil war. But at a time when every day was vital he did nothing at all for several days, remained in his own house without giving any lead or staying in any way the gathering tumult and excitement. Refugees began to pour into Rome. For some reason or other every one took it for granted that Caesar was going to march on the city, though as a matter of fact he had made no move. At last Pompeius declared that the country was in danger and that every one should leave Rome. He himself left the city to muster the great bodies of soldiers in Italy into an army. Very soon afterwards the consuls fled, in such a hurry that they left the State treasures behind them, and with most of the senators joined Pompeius at Brundisium, whence they intended to sail for Greece.

Perhaps only a poet could interpret what was happening, in this time, in the mind of Pompeius. Lucan thus describes it: