The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)

by Theodor Mommsen

Mission of Nepos to Rome

Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he undertook his mission to the east; he seemed desirous to go forward. In the autumn of 691, Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived from the camp of Pompeius in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship, with the express design of employing that position to procure for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more immediately, by special decree of the people, the conduct of the war against Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect commission of Pompeius; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer simultaneously the supreme military and the supreme civil power there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne, and the mission of Nepos a semi-official proclamation of the monarchy.

Pompeius in Relation to the Parties

Everything turned on the attitude which the two great political parties should assume towards these overtures; their future position and the future of the nation depended on this. But the reception which Nepos met with was itself in its turn determined by the then existing relation of the parties to Pompeius, which was of a very peculiar kind. Pompeius had gone to the east as general of the democracy. He had reason enough to be discontented with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place. It is probable that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and occupied with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through, at least at that time, the extent and mutual connection of the democratic intrigues contrived against him; perhaps even in his haughty and shortsighted manner he had a certain pride in ignoring these underground proceedings. Then there came the fact, which with a character of the type of Pompeius had much weight, that the democracy never lost sight of outward respect for the great man, and even now (691) unsolicited (as he preferred it so) had granted to him by a special decree of the people unprecedented honours and decorations.(1) But, even if all this had not been the case, it lay in Pompeius' own well-understood interest to continue his adherence, at least outwardly, to the popular party; democracy and monarchy stand so closely related that Pompeius, in aspiring to the crown, could scarcely do otherwise than call himself, as hitherto, the champion of popular rights. While personal and political reasons, therefore, co-operated to keep Pompeius and the leaders of the democracy, despite of all that had taken place, in their previous connection, nothing was done on the opposite side to fill up the chasm which separated him since his desertion to the camp of the democracy from his Sullan partisans. His personal quarrel with Metellus and Lucullus transferred itself to their extensive and influential coteries. A paltry opposition of the senate— but, to a character of so paltry a mould, all the more exasperating by reason of its very paltriness—had attended him through his whole career as a general. He felt it keenly, that the senate had not taken the smallest step to honour the extraordinary man according to his desert, that is, by extraordinary means. Lastly, it is not to be forgotten, that the aristocracy was just then intoxicated by its recent victory and the democracy deeply humbled, and that the aristocracy was led by the pedantically stiff and half-witless Cato, and the democracy by the supple master of intrigue, Caesar.

Rupture between Pompeius and the Aristocracy

Such was the state of parties amidst which the emissary sent by Pompeius appeared. The aristocracy not only regarded the proposals which he announced in favour of Pompeius as a declaration of war against the existing constitution, but treated them openly as such, and took not the slightest pains to conceal their alarm and their indignation. With the express design of combating these proposals, Marcus Cato had himself elected as tribune of the people along with Nepos, and abruptly repelled the repeated attempts of Pompeius to approach him personally. Nepos naturally after this found himself under no inducement to spare the aristocracy, but attached himself the more readily to the democrats, when these, pliant as ever, submitted to what was inevitable and chose freely to concede the office of general in Italy as well as the consulate rather than let the concession be wrung from them by force of arms. The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly accepted (Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions recently decreed by the majority of the senate, as unconstitutional judicial murders; and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light, was shown by his significant silence respecting the voluminous vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to have been embezzled by him at the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, and to transfer the completion of the temple to Pompeius. This was a masterstroke. Catulus had already been building at the temple for fifteen years, and seemed very much disposed to die as he had lived superintendent of the Capitoline buildings; an attack on this abuse of a public commission—an abuse covered only by the reputation of the noble commissioner—was in reality entirely justified and in a high degree popular. But when the prospect was simultaneously opened up to Pompeius of being allowed to delete the name of Catulus and engrave his own on this proudest spot of the first city of the globe, there was offered to him the very thing which most of all delighted him and did no harm to the democracy—abundant but empty honour; while at the same time the aristocracy, which could not possibly allow its best man to fall, was brought into the most disagreeable collision with Pompeius.

Meanwhile Nepos had brought his proposals concerning Pompeius before the burgesses. On the day of voting Cato and his friend and colleague, Quintus Minucius, interposed their veto. When Nepos did not regard this and continued the reading out, a formal conflict took place; Cato and Minucius threw themselves on their colleague and forced him to stop; an armed band liberated him, and drove the aristocratic section from the Forum; but Cato and Minucius returned, now supported likewise by armed bands, and ultimately maintained the field of battle for the government. Encouraged by this victory of their bands over those of their antagonist, the senate suspended the tribune Nepos as well as the praetor Caesar, who had vigorously supported him in the bringing in of the law, from their offices; their deposition, which was proposed in the senate, was prevented by Cato, more, doubtless, because it was unconstitutional than because it was injudicious. Caesar did not regard the decree, and continued his official functions till the senate used violence against him. As soon as this was known, the multitude appeared before his house and placed itself at his disposal; it was to depend solely on him whether the struggle in the streets should begin, or whether at least the proposals made by Metellus should now be resumed and the military command in Italy desired by Pompeius should be procured for him; but this was not in Caesar's interest, and so he induced the crowds to disperse, whereupon the senate recalled the penalty decreed against him. Nepos himself had, immediately after his suspension, left the city and embarked for Asia, in order to report to Pompeius the result of his mission.

Retirement of Pompeius

Pompeius had every reason to be content with the turn which things had taken. The way to the throne now lay necessarily through civil war; and he owed it to Cato's incorrigible perversity that he could begin this war with good reason. After the illegal condemnation of the adherents of Catilina, after the unparalleled acts of violence against the tribune of the people Metellus, Pompeius might wage war at once as defender of the two palladia of Roman public freedom— the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunate of the people—against the aristocracy, and as champion of the party of order against the Catilinarian band. It seemed almost impossible that Pompeius should neglect this opportunity and with his eyes open put himself a second time into the painful position, in which the dismissal of his army in 684 had placed him, and from which only the Gabinian law had released him. But near as seemed the opportunity of placing the white chaplet around his brow, and much as his own soul longed after it, when the question of action presented itself, his heart and his hand once more failed him. This man, altogether ordinary in every respect excepting only his pretensions, would doubtless gladly have placed himself beyond the law, if only he could have done so without forsaking legal ground. His very lingering in Asia betrayed a misgiving of this sort. He might, had he wished, have very well arrived in January 692 with his fleet and army at the port of Brundisium, and have received Nepos there. His tarrying the whole winter of 691-692 in Asia had proximately the injurious consequence, that the aristocracy, which of course accelerated the campaign against Catilina as it best could, had meanwhile got rid of his bands, and had thus set aside the most feasible pretext for keeping together the Asiatic legions in Italy. For a man of the type of Pompeius, who for want of faith in himself and in his star timidly clung in public life to formal right, and with whom the pretext was nearly of as much importance as the motive, this circumstance was of serious weight. He probably said to himself, moreover, that, even if he dismissed his army, he did not let it wholly out of his hand, and could in case of need still raise a force ready for battle sooner at any rate than any other party-chief; that the democracy was waiting in submissive attitude for his signal, and that he could deal with the refractory senate even without soldiers; and such further considerations as suggested themselves, in which there was exactly enough of truth to make them appear plausible to one who wished to deceive himself. Once more the very peculiar temperament of Pompeius naturally turned the scale. He was one of those men who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination; in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down; and to this too Pompeius succumbed.

In the autumn of 692 Pompeius embarked for Italy. While in the capital all was being prepared for receiving the new monarch, news came that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up his legions and with a small escort had entered on his journey to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did for Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every favour and every gift in vain.