CHAPTER XXV. THE CLOSING SCENES OF CÆSAR’S LIFE
THE END OF THE AFRICAN WAR
The suicide of Cato was the consistent act of a heathen philosopher, determined at least to maintain the purity of his soul uncontaminated by base compliances. Assuredly the calm dignity of its execution demands our respect and compassion, if not the principle on which it was based. Far different was the manner in which the rude barbarian Juba and the coarse soldier Petreius ran forward to meet their ends. They had escaped together from the field of battle, and the Numidian offered to provide shelter for his companion in one of his own strongholds. The Roman province was so ill-disposed towards the barbarian chief that he was obliged to hide himself by day in the most secluded villages, and roam the country on his homeward flight during the hours of darkness. In this way he reached Zama, his second capital, where his wives and children, together with his most valuable treasures, were deposited. This place he had taken pains to fortify at the commencement of the war, with works of great extent and magnitude. But on his appearance before the walls, the inhabitants deliberately shut their gates against him and refused to admit the enemy of the victorious Roman. Before setting out on his last expedition, Juba had constructed an immense pyre in the centre of the city, declaring his intention, if fortune went ill with him, of heaping upon it everything he held most dear and precious, together with the murdered bodies of the principal citizens, and then taking his own place on the summit, and consuming the whole in one solemn conflagration. But the Numidians had no sympathy with this demonstration of their sovereign’s despair, and resolved not to admit him within their walls. Juba having tried in vain every kind of menace and entreaty, to which no reply was vouchsafed, at last retired, but only to experience a similar reception in every other quarter to which he resorted. He at least had little to hope from the clemency which the victor had extended to his conquered countrymen. His companion, hard as his own iron corslet, scorned to accept it. The fugitives supped together, and, flushed with the fumes of the banquet, challenged each other to mutual slaughter. They were but unequally matched; the old veteran was soon despatched by his more active antagonist, but Juba was constant in his resolution, and only demanded the assistance of an attendant to give himself the last fatal stroke.
Nor was the fate of Considius, of Afranius, and Faustus Sulla less disastrous. The first of these had abandoned the defence of Thysdrus at the approach of the forces which Cæsar despatched against it, and attempted to make his escape with the treasures he had amassed into the territories, until now friendly, of the Numidian chieftains. He was destroyed, for the sake of his hoarded booty, by the Gætulians who accompanied him in his flight. The others had retained the command of a squadron of Scipio’s cavalry, and after burning one town which had shut its gates against them had made a desperate attack on the military post which Cato maintained outside the walls of Utica, to wreak an unworthy vengeance on the Cæsarian partisans there kept in custody. Baffled in this object they had made their way into Utica, while Cato still commanded there, and had added bitterness to his last days by the violence and ferocity of their behaviour. From thence they led their ruffians along the coast in the hope of finding means of transporting them into Spain. But on their way they fell in with Sittius, who was advancing to join Cæsar; their men were routed and themselves taken. The bands of the Roman adventurer carried on war with the same brutality as the barbarians among whom they practised it. The captors quarrelled among themselves; their passions were inflamed, perhaps, in the distribution of the prisoners and the booty; and both Afranius and Faustus were killed in the fray which ensued. But the massacre of the son of the dictator Sulla, accidental as it was, or at least unauthorized, could hardly fail of being charged as a deliberate act upon the representative of Marius.
While his foes were thus flying and falling, Cæsar advanced triumphantly from the scene of his last exploit, receiving the submission of the towns on his way, carrying off the stores and treasure collected for his enemies’ use, and leaving garrisons to retain them in fidelity. As he drew near to Utica he was met by L. Cæsar, whose petition for mercy seems to have been confined to his own person, and to whom, as well as to a long list of distinguished nobles, the conqueror extended the promise of his protection. He lamented with every appearance of sincerity that Cato had robbed him of the pleasure of pardoning one who, of all his antagonists, had been the most obstinate in his opposition, and the most inveterate in his hatred. The fatal compliance of the Utican senators, who, not content with obeying his enemies’ commands, had contributed money to their cause, furnished him with a specious pretence for rifling their coffers of the treasures he now most urgently needed. His requisitions amounted to two hundred millions of sesterces. At the same time the city of Thapsus was mulcted in two millions, and the company of Roman traders in three. Hadrumetum paid down three millions, and its Roman capitalists five. Leptis and Thysdrus also suffered in due proportion. A grand auction was held at Zama for the sale of all the objects of Juba’s royal state, and of the goods of the Roman citizens who had borne arms under the tyrant’s orders. Upon the people who had so boldly defied their sovereign, and refused him admittance within their walls, honours and largesses were munificently showered, and the taxes heretofore demanded for the royal treasury were partially remitted by the collectors of the republic. But the country of Numidia was deprived of its independence, and definitely reduced to the form of a province, under the proconsulate of Sallust. The rewarded and the punished acquiesced equally in the conqueror’s dispositions; the submission of Africa to his authority was from thenceforth complete. The Uticans were allowed to commemorate with a funeral and a statue the humane and noble conduct of their late governor.