During Cæsar’s campaigns in Gaul (where his government was prolonged for a second five-year term), Crassus disappeared from the triumvirate. After holding the consulship with Pompey, in 55 B. C., he went as proconsul to the province of Syria, in 54 B. C. His greed of wealth, and desire for the military fame which he envied in Cæsar and Pompey, brought him to ruin, by inducing him to attack the kingdom of Parthia,[5] where he was soon afterward murdered. So that the triumvirate became a duumvirate, or league of two men,—Cæsar and Pompey.
[5] Parthia had the rare distinction of being a country the prowess of whose warriors baffled the efforts of Rome for her subjection. The Parthian kingdom, southeast of the Caspian Sea, came into existence about 250 B. C., by revolt from the Seleucids, the monarchs of Syria, and became a powerful realm after the death of Alexander the Great. It included Parthia proper, Hyrcania, and afterwards (130 B. C.) Bactria, so that at last its dominions stretched from the Euphrates to the Indus, and from the river Oxus to the Indian Ocean. The Parthians adopted the Greek religion, manners, and customs, which had been introduced into that part of Asia by Alexander’s conquests.
The renowned cavalry of Parthia seem to have been all-powerful only on their own soil, for their invasions of the Roman province of Syria in 39 and 38 B.C. were utterly defeated, while the invasion of Parthia by the great Roman general and triumvir, Mark Antony, in 36, was repulsed with loss of a great part of his army. In 20 B. C. the Parthian king Phraates restored, chiefly as a friendly concession, the standards and prisoners taken from Crassus and Antonius, and this is the event commemorated by the Roman poets of the day as equivalent to a submission by Parthia. Under the Roman emperors the Parthians sometimes courted and were sometimes at war with Rome, and were partially conquered for a time under Trajan. The Parthian kings encouraged Christianity. In A. D. 226 a revolt of the Persians put an end to the Parthian kingdom, revived the religion of Zoroaster, stopped the eastward progress of Christianity in Asia, and began modern history in Persia.
Now between these two men there had for some time been a growing coldness. It was said that Cæsar was a man who could brook no equal, and Pompey a man who could suffer no superior. A feeling of rivalry having once arisen, naturally grew till Cæsar and Pompey became the bitterest enemies. Pompey went over to the aristocratic party to which he had originally belonged, and having been made sole consul for the year 52 B. C., he began to exert his great influence against Cæsar. In this he was supported by the nobles, who dreaded Cæsar’s immense power.
FINAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN
CAESAR AND POMPEY
As the period of Cæsar’s command would expire in the year 49 B. C., he had determined to obtain the consulship for the year 48 B. C., since otherwise he would become a private citizen. Accordingly he demanded, though absent, to be permitted to put himself in the lists for the consulate. But it was proposed, through the influence of Pompey, that Cæsar should lay down his command by the thirteenth of November, 50 B. C. This was an unreasonable demand; for his term of government over Gaul had another year to run, and if he had gone to Rome as a private citizen to sue for the consulship, there can be no doubt that his life would have been sacrificed. Cæsar, still anxious to keep the peace, offered, at the beginning of the year 49 B. C., to lay down his command if Pompey would do the same; but this the senate refused to accede to, and a motion was passed that Cæsar should disband his army by a certain day, and that if he did not do so, he should be regarded as an enemy of the state.
THE CROSSING OF THE
RUBICON
Cæsar promptly took his resolve: he would appeal to the arbitrament of arms. He had the enthusiastic devotion of his soldiers, the great mass of whom, being provincials or foreigners, cared very little for the country whose name they bore. Accordingly, in January, 49 B. C., he advanced from his headquarters at Ravenna to the little stream, the Rubicon, which separated his own province and command from Italy. The crossing of this river was in reality a declaration of war against the republic; and it is related that, upon arriving at the Rubicon, Cæsar long hesitated whether he should take this irrevocable step. After pondering many hours he at length exclaimed, “The die is cast!” and plunged into the river.
Pompey concluded not to attempt to defend Italy, but to retire upon the East, where he would gather a great army and then return to overwhelm the “usurper.” Accordingly he retreated to Greece.
CAESAR MASTER OF ITALY AND
DICTATOR OF ROME