History of Julius Caesar by Jacob Abbott

J >> Jacob Abbott >> History of Julius Caesar

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

[Sidenote: The Cilician pirates.]
[Sidenote: Their increasing depredations.]
[Sidenote: Ships and fortresses of the Cilicians.]
[Sidenote: Their conquests.]

At length, in fact, an occasion came. In the year B.C. 67, which was
about the time that Caesar commenced his successful career in rising to
public office in Rome, as is described in the third chapter of this
volume, the Cilician pirates, of whose desperate character and bold
exploits something has already been said, had become so powerful, and
were increasing so rapidly in the extent of their depredations, that the
Roman people felt compelled to adopt some very vigorous measures for
suppressing them. The pirates had increased in numbers during the wars
between Marius and Sylla in a very alarming degree. They had built,
equipped, and organized whole fleets. They had various fortresses,
arsenals, ports, and watch-towers all along the coasts of the
Mediterranean. They had also extensive warehouses, built in secure and
secluded places, where they stored their plunder. Their fleets were well
manned, and provided with skillful pilots, and with ample supplies of
every kind; and they were so well constructed, both for speed and
safety, that no other ships could be made to surpass them. Many of them,
too, were adorned and decorated in the most sumptuous manner, with
gilded sterns, purple awnings, and silver-mounted oars. The number of
their galleys was said to be a thousand. With this force they made
themselves almost complete masters of the sea. They attacked not only
separate ships, but whole fleets of merchantmen sailing under convoy;
and they increased the difficulty and expense of bringing grain to Rome
so much, by intercepting the supplies, as very materially to enhance the
price and to threaten a scarcity. They made themselves masters of many
islands and of various maritime towns along the coast, until they had
four hundred ports and cities in their possession. In fact, they had
gone so far toward forming themselves into a regular maritime power,
under a systematic and legitimate government, that very respectable
young men from other countries began to enter their service, as one
opening honorable avenues to wealth and fame.

[Sidenote: Plan for destroying the pirates.]
[Sidenote: Its magnitude.]

Under these circumstances, it was obvious that something decisive must
be done. A friend of Pompey's brought forward a plan for commissioning
some one, he did not say whom, but every one understood that Pompey was
intended, to be sent forth against the pirates, with extraordinary
powers, such as should be amply sufficient to enable him to bring their
dominion to an end. He was to have supreme command upon the sea, and
also upon the land for fifty miles from the shore. He was, moreover, to
be empowered to raise as large a force, both of ships and men, as he
should think required, and to draw from the treasury whatever funds were
necessary to defray the enormous expenses which so vast an undertaking
would involve. If the law should pass creating this office, and a person
be designated to fill it, it is plain that such a commander would be
clothed with enormous powers; but then he would incur, on the other
hand, a vast and commensurate responsibility, as the Roman people would
hold him rigidly accountable for the full and perfect accomplishment of
the work he under took, after they had thus surrendered every possible
power necessary to accomplish it so unconditionally into his hands.

[Sidenote: Pompey appointed to the command.]
[Sidenote: Fall in the price of grain.]

There was a great deal of maneuvering, management, and debate on the one
hand to effect the passage of this law, and, on the other, to defeat it.
Caesar, who, though not so prominent yet as Pompey, was now rising
rapidly to influence and power, was in favor of the measure, because, as
is said, he perceived that the people were pleased with it. It was at
length adopted. Pompey was then designated to fill the office which the
law created. He accepted the trust, and began to prepare for the vast
undertaking. The price of grain fell immediately in Rome, as soon as the
appointment of Pompey was made known, as the merchants, who had large
supplies in the granaries there, were now eager to sell, even at a
reduction, feeling confident that Pompey's measures would result in
bringing in abundant supplies. The people, surprised at this sudden
relaxation of the pressure of their burdens, said that the very name of
Pompey had put an end to the war.

[Sidenote: Pompey's complete success.]

They were not mistaken in their anticipations of Pompey's success. He
freed the Mediterranean from pirates in three months, by one systematic
and simple operation, which affords one of the most striking examples of
the power of united and organized effort, planned and conducted by one
single master mind, which the history of ancient or modern times has
recorded. The manner in which this work was effected was this:

[Sidenote: His mode of operation.]

Pompey raised and equipped a vast number of galleys, and divided them
into separate fleets, putting each one under the command of a
lieutenant. He then divided the Mediterranean Sea into thirteen
districts, and appointed a lieutenant and his fleet for each one of them
as a guard. After sending these detachments forth to their respective
stations, he set out from the city himself to take charge of the
operations which he was to conduct in person. The people followed him,
as he went to the place where he was to embark, in great crowds, and
with long and loud acclamations.

[Sidenote: Pompey drives the pirates before him.]
[Sidenote: Exultation at Rome.]

Beginning at the Straits of Gibraltar, Pompey cruised with a powerful
fleet toward the east, driving the pirates before him, the lieutenants,
who were stationed along the coast being on the alert to prevent them
from finding any places of retreat or refuge. Some of the pirates' ships
were surrounded and taken. Others fled, and were followed by Pompey's
ships until they had passed beyond the coasts of Sicily, and the seas
between the Italian and African shores. The communication was now open
again to the grain-growing countries south of Rome, and large supplies
of food were immediately poured into the city. The whole population was,
of course, filled with exultation and joy at receiving such welcome
proofs that Pompey was successfully accomplishing the work they had
assigned him.

[Sidenote: The pirates concentrate themselves.]

The Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily, which are, in fact, a
projection from the northern shores of the Mediterranean, with a salient
angle of the coast nearly opposite to them on the African side, form a
sort of strait which divides this great sea into two separate bodies of
water, and the pirates were now driven entirely out of the western
division. Pompey sent his principal fleet after them, with orders to
pass around the island of Sicily and the south era part of Italy to
Brundusium, which was the great port on the western side of Italy. He
himself was to cross the peninsula by land, taking Rome in his way, and
afterward to join the fleet at Brundusium. The pirates, in the mean
time, so far as they had escaped Pompey's cruisers, had retreated to the
seas in the neighborhood of Cilicia, and were concentrating their forces
there in preparation for the final struggle.

Pompey was received at Rome with the utmost enthusiasm. The people came
out in throngs to meet him as he approached the city, and welcomed him
with loud acclamations. He did not, however, remain in the city to enjoy
these honors. He procured, as soon as possible, what was necessary for
the further prosecution of his work, and went on. He found his fleet at
Brundusium, and, immediately embarking, he put to sea.

[Sidenote: Some of them surrender.]

Pompey went on to the completion of his work with the same vigor and
decision which he had displayed in the commencement of it. Some of the
pirates, finding themselves hemmed in within narrower and narrower
limits, gave up the contest, and came and surrendered. Pompey, instead
of punishing them severely for their crimes, treated them, and their
wives and children, who fell likewise into his power, with great
humanity. This induced many others to follow their example, so that the
number that remained resisting to the end was greatly reduced. There
were, however, after all these submissions, a body of stern and
indomitable desperadoes left, who were incapable of yielding. These
retreated, with all the forces which they could retain, to their
strong-holds on the Silician shores, sending their wives and children
back to still securer retreats among the fastnesses of the mountains.

[Sidenote: A great battle.]
[Sidenote: Disposal of the pirates.]

Pompey followed them, hemming them in with the squadrons of armed
galleys which he brought up around them, thus cutting off from them all
possibility of escape. Here, at length, a great final battle was fought,
and the dominion of the pirates was ended forever. Pompey destroyed
their ships, dismantled their fortifications, restored the harbors and
towns which they had seized to their rightful owners, and sent the
pirates themselves, with their wives and children, far into the interior
of the country, and established them as agriculturists and herdsmen
there, in a territory which he set apart for the purpose, where they
might live in peace on the fruits of their own industry, without the
possibility of again disturbing the commerce of the seas.

[Sidenote: Pompey's conquests in Asia Minor.]
[Sidenote: His magnificent triumph.]

Instead of returning to Rome after these exploits, Pompey obtained new
powers from the government of the city, and pushed his way into Asia
Minor, where he remained several years, pursuing a similar career of
conquest to that of Caesar in Gaul. At length he returned to Rome, his
entrance into the city being signalized by a most magnificent triumph.
The procession for displaying the trophies, the captives, and the other
emblems of victory, and for conveying the vast accumulation of treasures
and spoils, was two days in passing into the city; and enough was left
after all for another triumph. Pompey was, in a word, on the very summit
of human grandeur and renown.

[Sidenote: The first triumvirate.]
[Sidenote: Pompey's wife Julia.]
[Sidenote: Pompey and Caesar open enemies.]
[Sidenote: Their ambition.]

He found, however, an old enemy and rival at Rome. This was Crassus, who
had been Pompey's opponent in earlier times, and who now renewed his
hostility. In the contest that ensued, Pompey relied on his renown,
Crassus on his wealth. Pompey attempted to please the people by combats
of lions and of elephants which he had brought home from his foreign
campaigns; Crassus courted their favor by distributing corn among them,
and inviting them to public feasts on great occasions. He spread for
them, at one time, it was said, ten thousand tables. All Rome was filled
with the feuds of these great political foes. It was at this time that
Caesar returned from Spain, and had the adroitness, as has already been
explained, to extinguish these feuds, and reconcile these apparently
implacable foes. He united them together, and joined them with himself
in a triple league, which is celebrated in Roman history as the first
_triumvirate_. The rivalry, however, of these great aspirants for power
was only suppressed and concealed, without being at all weakened or
changed. The death of Crassus soon removed him from the stage. Caesar
and Pompey continued afterward, for some time, an ostensible alliance.
Caesar attempted to strengthen this bond by giving Pompey his daughter
Julia for his wife. Julia, though so young--even her father was six
years younger than Pompey--was devotedly attached to her husband, and he
was equally fond of her. She formed, in fact, a strong bond of union
between the two great conquerors as long as she lived. One day, however,
there was a riot at an election, and men were killed so near to Pompey
that his robe was covered with blood. He changed it; the servants
carried home the bloody garment which he had taken off, and Julia was so
terrified at the sight, thinking that her husband had been killed, that
she fainted, and her constitution suffered very severely by the shock.
She lived some time afterward, but finally died under circumstances
which indicate that this occurrence was the cause. Pompey and Caesar now
soon became open enemies. The ambitious aspirations which each of them
cherished were so vast, that the world was not wide enough for them both
to be satisfied. They had assisted each other up the ascent which they
had been so many years in climbing, but now they had reached very near
to the summit, and the question was to be decided which of the two
should have his station there.

CHAPTER VI.

CROSSING THE RUBICON.

[Sidenote: The Rubicon.]

There was a little stream in ancient times, in the north of Italy, which
flowed westward into the Adriatic Sea, called the Rubicon. This stream
has been immortalized by the transactions which we are now about
to describe.

[Sidenote: Its insignificance as a stream.]

The Rubicon was a very important boundary, and yet it was in itself so
small and insignificant that it is now impossible to determine which of
two or three little brooks here running into the sea is entitled to its
name and renown. In history the Rubicon is a grand, permanent, and
conspicuous stream, gazed upon with continued interest by all mankind
for nearly twenty centuries; in nature it is an uncertain rivulet, for a
long time doubtful and undetermined, and finally lost.

[Sidenote: Importance of the Rubicon as a boundary.]

The Rubicon originally derived its importance from the fact that it was
the boundary between all that part of the north of Italy which is formed
by the valley of the Po, one of the richest and most magnificent
countries of the world, and the more southern Roman territories. This
country of the Po constituted what was in those days called the _hither_
Gaul, and was a Roman province. It belonged now to Caesar's
jurisdiction, as the commander in Gaul. All south of the Rubicon was
territory reserved for the immediate jurisdiction of the city. The
Romans, in order to protect themselves from any danger which might
threaten their own liberties from the immense armies which they raised
for the conquest of foreign nations, had imposed on every side very
strict limitations and restrictions in respect to the approach of these
armies to the Capitol. The Rubicon was the limit on this northern side.
Generals commanding in Gaul were never to pass it. To cross the Rubicon
with an army on the way to Rome was rebellion and treason. Hence the
Rubicon became, as it were, the visible sign and symbol of civil
restriction to military power.

[Sidenote: Caesar's expenditure of money at Rome.]
[Sidenote: His influence.]

As Caesar found the time of his service in Gaul drawing toward a
conclusion, he turned his thoughts more and more toward Rome,
endeavoring to strengthen his interest there by every means in his
power, and to circumvent and thwart the designs of Pompey. He had and
partisans in Rome who acted for him and in his name. He sent immense
sums of money to these men, to be employed in such ways as would most
tend to secure the favor of the people. He ordered the Forum to be
rebuilt with great magnificence. He arranged great celebrations, in
which the people were entertained with an endless succession of games,
spectacles, and public feasts. When his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife,
died, he celebrated her funeral with indescribable splendor. He
distributed corn in immense quantities among the people, and he sent a
great many captives home, to be trained as gladiators, to fight in the
theaters for their amusement. In many cases, too, where he found men of
talents and influence among the populace, who had become involved in
debt by their dissipations and extravagance, he paid their debts, and
thus secured their influence on his side. Men were astounded at the
magnitude of these expenditures, and, while the multitude rejoiced
thoughtlessly in the pleasures thus provided for them, the more
reflecting and considerate trembled at the greatness of the power which
was so rapidly rising to overshadow the land.

[Sidenote: Pompey's personal popularity.]
[Sidenote: Public thanksgiving in his behalf.]

It increased their anxiety to observe that Pompey was gaining the same
kind of influence and ascendency too. He had not the advantage which
Caesar enjoyed in the prodigious wealth obtained from the rich countries
over which Caesar ruled, but he possessed, instead of it, the advantage
of being all the time at Rome, and of securing, by his character and
action there, a very wide personal popularity and influence. Pompey was,
in fact, the idol of the people. At one time, when he was absent from
Rome, at Naples, he was taken sick. After being for some days in
considerable danger, the crisis passed favorably, and he recovered. Some
of the people of Naples proposed a public thanksgiving to the gods, to
celebrate his restoration to health. The plan was adopted by
acclamation, and the example, thus set, extended from city to city,
until it had spread throughout Italy, and the whole country was filled
with the processions, games, shows, and celebrations, which were
instituted every where in honor of the event. And when Pompey returned
from Naples to Rome, the towns on the way could not afford room for the
crowds that came forth to meet him. The high roads, the villages, the
ports, says Plutarch, were filled with sacrifices and entertainments.
Many received him with garlands on their heads and torches in their
hands, and, as they conducted him along, strewed the way with flowers.

[Sidenote: Pompey's estimate of Caesar's power.]

In fact, Pompey considered himself as standing far above Caesar in fame
and power, and this general burst of enthusiasm and applause, educed by
his recovery from sickness, confirmed him in this idea. He felt no
solicitude, he said, in respect to Caesar. He should take no special
precautions against any hostile designs which he might entertain on his
return from Gaul. It was he himself, he said, that had raised Caesar up
to whatever of elevation he had attained, and he could put him down even
more easily than he had exalted him.

[Sidenote: Plans of the latter.]

In the mean time, the period was drawing near in which Caesar's command
in the provinces was to expire; and, anticipating the struggle with
Pompey which was about to ensue, he conducted several of his legions
through the passes of the Alps, and advanced gradually, as he had a
right to do, across the country of the Po toward the Rubicon, revolving
in his capacious mind, as he came, the various plans by which he might
hope to gain the ascendency over the power of his mighty rival, and make
himself supreme.

[Sidenote: Caesar arrives at Ravenna.]
[Sidenote: Pompey's demands.]

He concluded that it would be his wisest policy not to a'tempt to
intimidate Pompey by great and open preparations for war, which might
tend to arouse him to vigorous measures of resistance, but rather to
cover and conceal his designs, and thus throw his enemy off his guard.
He advanced, therefore, toward the Rubicon with a small force. He
established his headquarters at Ravenna, a city not far from the river,
and employed himself in objects of local interest there, in order to
avert as much as possible the minds of the people from imagining that he
was contemplating any great design. Pompey sent to him to demand the
return of a certain legion which he had lent him from his own army at a
time when they were friends. Caesar complied with this demand without
any hesitation, and sent the legion home. He sent with this legion,
also, some other troops which were properly his own, thus evincing a
degree of indifference in respect to the amount of the force retained
under his command which seemed wholly inconsistent with the idea that he
contemplated any resistance to the authority of the government at Rome.

[Sidenote: Caesar demands to be made consul.]
[Sidenote: Excitement in consequence.]

In the mean time, the struggle at Rome between the partisans of Caesar
and Pompey grew more and more violent and alarming. Caesar through his
friends in the city, demanded to be elected consul. The other side
insisted that he must first, if that was his wish, resign the command of
his army, come to Rome, and present himself as a candidate in the
character of a private citizen. This the constitution of the state very
properly required. In answer to this requisition, Caesar rejoined, that,
if Pompey would lay down his military commands, he would do so too; if
not, it was unjust to require it of him. The services, he added, which
he had performed for his country, demanded some recompense, which,
moreover, they ought to be willing to award, even if, in order to do it,
it were necessary to relax somewhat in his favor the strictness of
ordinary rules. To a large part of the people of the city these demands
of Caesar appeared reasonable. They were clamorous to have them allowed.
The partisans of Pompey, with the stern and inflexible Cato at their
head, deemed them wholly inadmissible, and contended with the most
determined violence against them. The whole city was filled with the
excitement of this struggle, into which all the active and turbulent
spirits of the capital plunged with the most furious zeal, while the
more considerate and thoughtful of the population, remembering the days
of Marius and Sylla, trembled at the impending danger. Pompey himself
had no fear. He urged the Senate to resist to the utmost all of Caesar's
claims, saying, if Caesar should be so presumptuous as to attempt to
march to Rome, he could raise troops enough by stamping with his foot to
put him down.

[Sidenote: Debates in the Senate.]
[Sidenote: Tumult and confusion.]
[Sidenote: Panic at Rome.]

It would require a volume to contain a full account of the disputes and
tumults, the maneuvers and debates, the votes and decrees which marked
the successive stages of this quarrel. Pompey himself was all the time
without the city. He was in command of an army there, and no general,
while in command, was allowed to come within the gates. At last an
exciting debate was broken up in the Senate by one of the consuls rising
to depart, saying that he would hear the subject discussed no longer.
The time had arrived for action, and he should send a commander, with an
armed force, to defend the country from Caesar's threatened invasion.
Caesar's leading friends, two tribunes of the people, disguised
themselves as slaves, and fled to the north to join their master. The
country was filled with commotion and panic. The Commonwealth had
obviously more fear of Caesar than confidence in Pompey. The country
was full of rumors in respect to Caesar's power, and the threatening
attitude which he was assuming, while they who had insisted on
resistance seemed, after all, to have provided very inadequate means
with which to resist. A thousand plans were formed, and clamorously
insisted upon by their respective advocates, for averting the danger.
This only added to the confusion, and the city became at length pervaded
with a universal terror.

[Sidenote: Caesar at Ravenna.]

While this was the state of things at Rome, Caesar was quietly
established at Ravenna; thirty or forty miles from the frontier. He was
erecting a building for a fencing school there and his mind seemed to be
occupied very busily with the plans and models of the edifice which the
architects had formed. Of course, in his intended march to Rome, his
reliance was not to be so much on the force which he should take with
him, as on the co-operation and support which he expected to find there.
It was his policy, therefore, to move as quietly and privately as
possible, and with as little display of violence, and to avoid every
thing which might indicate his intended march to any spies which might
be around him, or to any other person! who might be disposed to report
what they observed at Rome. Accordingly, on the very eve of his
departure, he busied himself with his fencing school, and assumed with
his officers and soldiers a careless and unconcerned air, which
prevented any one from suspecting his design.

[Sidenote: Caesar's midnight march.]
[Sidenote: He loses his way.]

In the course of the day he privately sent forward some cohorts to the
southward, with orders for them to encamp on the banks of the Rubicon.
When night came he sat down to supper as usual, and conversed with his
friends in his ordinary manner, and went with them afterward to a public
entertainment. As soon as it was dark and the streets were still, he set
off secretly from the city, accompanied by a very few attendants.
Instead of making use of his ordinary equipage, the parading of which
would have attracted attention to his movements, he had some mules taken
from a neighboring bake-house, and harnessed into his chaise. There were
torch-bearers provided to light the way. The cavalcade drove on during
the night, finding, however, the hasty preparations which had been made
inadequate for the occasion. The torches went out, the guides lost their
way, and the future conqueror of the world wandered about bewildered and
lost, until, just after break of day, the party met with a peasant
who undertook to guide them. Under his direction they made their way to
the main road again, and advanced then without further difficulty to the
banks of the river, where they found that portion of the army which had
been sent forward encamped, and awaiting their arrival.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13