The rumours which soon began to circulate at Rome of the perils which Cæsar was incurring at Alexandria, rendered his conduct uncertain; he hesitated to put down, with a firm hand, the disturbers of the republic, whom the death of his master might make more powerful than himself. The son-in-law of Cicero, Cornelius Dolabella, overwhelmed with debt, had followed the example of Clodius in getting himself adopted by a plebeian, and had thus acquired the tribunate. In this position he had recommended himself, like Cælius, to the worst classes of the citizens, by urging an abolition of debts. One of his colleagues resisted, and both betook themselves to violence. For some time Antony looked on as if uncertain which party to espouse; but a domestic affront from Dolabella, who had intrigued with his wife, roused his passion; he attacked the turbulent mob with arms, and filled the streets with the indiscriminate slaughter of eight hundred citizens. He did not venture, however, to punish the author of the disturbance, but contented himself with menaces and precautions till the fortunate arrival of the dictator himself in September, 47.
Roman Battering-ram with Testudo
Contrary to the apprehensions of many of the citizens Cæsar’s return was marked by no proscription. He confined himself to the confiscation of the estates of the men who still remained in arms against him; and that of Pompey himself, whose sons were in the hostile camp, he set up to public auction. A portion of them was bought by Antony, who ventured to evade the due payment of the price. He conceived that his services might command the trifling indulgence of release from a paltry debt. He found, however, that his patron was in earnest, and prudently submitted to the affront. The dictator remained only three months in Rome. Every moment was fully occupied in the vast work of reconstructing the government; but we know not what were the special measures enacted at this period, and Cæsar’s legislation may fitly be reserved to be contemplated hereafter at a single view. Two consuls were appointed for the remaining three months of the year, and for the next ensuing Cæsar nominated himself for the third time, together with Lepidus. He caused himself also to be again created dictator. His partisans he loaded with places and honours, and sated the populace with largesses. The soldiers demanded the fulfilment of his repeated promises. Those of the tenth legion broke out into open revolt, and ran from Campania to Rome to extort their claims. Cæsar convoked them in the Field of Mars, approached them unattended, mounted his tribunal, and demanded the statement of their grievance. At the sight of their redoubted general their voices faltered, their murmurs died away; they could only ask for their discharge. “I discharge you, citizens,” replied the imperator; and they cowered under this disparaging appellation, abashed and humiliated. To the fierce and haughty soldier the peaceful name of citizen seemed a degradation. They entreated to be restored to their ensigns, and submitted to severe punishment in expiation of their fault. This simple incident is a key to the history of the times. This application of the title of citizen, and the effect it produced, show plainly that the basis of Cæsar’s force was purely military, and that Cæsar himself knew it. This was the point at which every party leader in turn had tried for years to arrive, and Cæsar had succeeded.
THE AFRICAN WAR
As soon as this sedition was repressed Cæsar departed to crush the remnant of his enemies assembled in Africa. The defeated host had been scattered in various directions, but the largest division of the fugitives had made its way to Dyrrhachium, and there deliberated on its further movements. Cato, to whom the command was offered, waived it in favour of Cicero, as his superior in rank; but the orator declined to associate himself further in the honours and perils of a fruitless struggle, and departed mournfully for Italy. His life was with difficulty preserved from the fury of Cneius, the elder son of the great Pompey, a man of ungovernable passions and slender capacity. Shortly afterwards Scipio assumed the command of the main body, and carried it to Utica in the province of Africa. Cato at the head of another division skirted the coasts of Greece and Asia, and picked up some scattered adherents of the cause. He followed in the track of Pompey, but when the news of his chief’s assassination reached him, he landed on the shore of Libya, and demanded admission within the walls of Cyrene. The natives shut their gates; but Cato, always loath to exercise any unprofitable severity, generously abstained from chastising them. Anxious now to effect a junction with the remainder of his friends, he coasted westward as far as the lesser Syrtis, and then plunged with his little army into the sandy desert. The seven days’ march through this inhospitable region, torrid with heat and infested with serpents, was justly considered one of the noblest exploits of the Roman legionaries. The poet of the Pharsalia exalts it above the three triumphs of Pompey and the victories of Marius over the tyrant of Numidia. He turns with pardonable enthusiasm from the deified monsters, the Caligulas and Neros of his own day, to hail its achiever as the true Father of his Country, the only worthy object of a free man’s idolatry.
The arrival of Cato at the headquarters of the republicans in Utica was quickly followed by that of Cneius Pompey, and in the course of the year 47 the remains of the great host of Pharsalia were assembled with many reinforcements under the banners of Scipio. These forces amounted to not less than ten complete legions, and Juba, who could bring one hundred and twenty elephants into the field, besides innumerable squadrons of light cavalry, had promised his assistance. The officers began to brag of their future triumphs almost as loudly as before their recent disasters. Their defiance was re-echoed to the opposite shores of Italy, and caused fresh dismay to the time-servers, who had abandoned the Pompeian cause on the event of its first discomfiture. But this force, numerous as it was, was not in a condition, it would seem, to choose a distant field of operations. The want of money may have compelled its chief still to act on the defensive, and await through a whole year the expected attack of the enemy. Nor were these chiefs themselves unaffected by personal jealousies. Scipio and Varus contended for the command, the one as the foremost in rank and dignity, the other as the legitimate proconsul of the province; while Juba, conscious of his own importance to the cause, affected to lord it over both. Cato alone continued still to act with his usual simplicity of purpose and patriotic devotion. But his noble demeanour rebuked the selfishness of his associates, and they contrived to remove him from their counsels by charging him with the defence of Utica, while they shifted their own quarters to the neighbourhood of Hadrumetum. The brave philosopher rejoiced that he was not compelled to draw his sword in civil strife, while he busied himself not the less earnestly in the collection of stores and preparation of defence. Of all the professed asserters of Roman liberty he alone really lamented the necessity of arming in her cause; from the first outbreak of the war he had refused to trim his venerable locks or shave his grizzled beard, and from the fatal day of Pharsalia he had persisted in sitting at his frugal meals, and denied himself the indulgence of a couch.
[47-46 B.C.]
A whole year had now passed, while the republicans contemplated with folded arms the perils Cæsar had surmounted in Alexandria, the victory he had gained over Pharnaces, and the brilliant reception he had met with in Rome. Cæsar assembled six legions and two thousand horse at Lilybæum in Sicily, and in the middle of October 47, he appeared off the African coast with the first division of his forces, and summoned the republicans in their camp at Hadrumetum to surrender to “Cæsar the imperator.” “There is no imperator here but Scipio,” they replied, and inflicted death upon his envoy as a deserter. The dictator sailed on to Leptis, and was there invited to take shelter, while he awaited the arrival of the rest of his armament.
While these reinforcements were coming slowly in he was attacked by Scipio, and subjected to annoyance and peril from the movements of the enemy’s cavalry. Labienus, who frequently charged him at the head of the Roman horse, distinguished himself by the bitter taunts with which he addressed the veterans whom he had so often led to victory. But Cæsar maintained himself in a fortified position till he could move forward with a force of five legions. At the same time the alliance he had formed with the Mauretanian kings, Bogudes and Bocchus, the jealous rivals of the Numidians, enabled him to draw off Juba to the defence of his own capital Cirta. He pushed on, offering battle, which Scipio, though with double his numbers, steadily refused, until Juba returned with his vaunted elephants and cavalry. The necessities of the Roman chiefs compelled them to submit to revolting indignities at the hands of this barbarian ally. He forbade Scipio the use of the imperator’s purple cloak, which he declared to belong only to kings. When he issued his royal mandates to the Roman officers, they were observed to be even more punctually obeyed than the orders of the general himself.