Augustus, page 7
Publius Clodius Pulcher was charismatic, restless and a determined politician who became one of the central figures of this decade. The family name was Claudius Pulcher, but at an early stage he adopted the vulgar spelling of Clodius. He remained a patrician to his very core, with all the assurance of an ancient aristocratic family that had maintained its standing throughout the centuries. The family name Pulcher means beautiful, and well illustrates their own view of themselves; the Claudii were renowned for supreme self-confidence and sheer arrogance. In the First Punic War against Carthage, it was a Claudius Pulcher who grew tired of waiting for the sacred chickens to eat and show that the auspices were favourable for him to lead the fleet into the attack. Eventually he grabbed their cage and threw the birds over the side of his flagship, calling out that ‘if the sacred chickens will not eat, then let them drink’. The Romans attacked and suffered their greatest defeat at sea in all the long wars with Carthage. A few years later Claudius Pulcher’s sister was prosecuted because, when her litter was obstructed in the crowded streets of Rome, she loudly expressed a wish that ‘her brother would go and drown more of the plebs’ to clear her path.19
Clodius had a far better sense of the popular mood than such ancestors, but a similar lack of restraint when it came to doing or saying whatever he wished. As a patrician, he could not stand for the tribunate, and so made several attempts to become a plebeian. Clodius’ deep hatred of Cicero was well known, and when in 59 BC the orator voiced public criticism of the triumvirate, the response was almost immediate. Within hours Julius Caesar as consul and Pompey as augur presided over an adoption ceremony, where Clodius officially became the son of a plebeian, who was in fact younger than he was. The whole affair was purely symbolic, with more than a hint of farce, but was technically valid. Clodius still remained in all other respects an aristocrat with a great array of clients and political friendships supporting him, and was easily elected tribune. Plenty of other politicians had employed mobs of supporters to intimidate and even attack opponents. Clodius took this to a new level, using the traditional collegia or trade guilds as the basis for organised gangs. Dismissed as rabble by his opponents, it looks as if many of his henchmen were shopkeepers and craftsmen, a good few freed slaves like much of the urban population.20
Cicero soon came under attack, centring around his execution of the Catilinarians. Within months he was abandoned to his fate and went into exile. Clodius was not the agent of Julius Caesar or Crassus or anyone else, and co-operation with them lasted only so long as it suited his purposes. Soon he was threatening to bring the legislation of 59 BC into question, and his gangs turned on Pompey, so that for a while the great hero of the Republic was frightened to leave his house. In time, a senator named Milo recruited his own band of supporters – many of them gladiators – to contest the streets and public spaces with Clodius. Political violence intensified, and bribery at elections rose to even greater levels.21
The old hostility between Crassus and Pompey resurfaced, and for a while it looked as if the alliance of the triumvirate was over. A frantic round of negotiations, culminating in meetings at Luca in Cisalpine Gaul – since Julius Caesar could not leave his province – patched things together. Pompey and Crassus stood for election and became consuls for the second time in 55 BC. Each arranged to take an extraordinary provincial command as proconsul once their year of office was over, and at the same time awarded Julius Caesar an additional five-year term in the Gauls and Illyria. Crassus took Syria and from the beginning clearly planned an attack on Parthia, the last great kingdom of the east not yet under Rome’s sway. Pompey had both of the Spanish provinces and the legions garrisoned there, but never bothered to travel to the region. Instead, he stayed in his villa in the Alban Hills, outside the formal boundary of Rome, so that he kept his imperium. He sent his legates – the subordinates serving a Roman governor who issued orders by virtue of delegated imperium – to govern the area, all the while knowing that he had legions to call upon if necessary.22
None of this was achieved without violence, and rioting at elections was now almost routine, with deaths more and more common. On one occasion Pompey returned home spattered with someone else’s blood and so shocked his wife Julia that she suffered a miscarriage. They still could not prevent senators of independent mind, and often bitterly hostile to them, from winning high office in the years to come. When Crassus left for his province he was hounded by a tribune who formally called on the gods to curse the proconsul and the unjust war he planned. Personal hatreds and rivalry loomed larger in most senators’ minds than the good of the Republic.23
Cursed or simply careless, Crassus’ invasion was a disaster. His army was checked at Carrhae in 53 BC and all but a small remnant killed or captured when they tried to escape from the fast-moving Parthian cavalry. Crassus tried to negotiate a surrender and was killed and beheaded. His death seriously weakened the alliance between Pompey and Julius Caesar. An even worse blow came around the same time, when Julia died in childbirth. Her father hastily proposed new marriage connections, offering Octavius’ sister Octavia to Pompey as a potential bride. The offer was not accepted. Soon Octavia was married to Marcus Claudius Marcellus, a member of one of the most prestigious families of plebeian aristocrats. He was no friend of Julius Caesar, who may not have had any say in the arrangement, but in political terms it was a very good catch for the girl’s close relatives. Atia’s husband Philippus was consul in 56 BC, and Marcellus would win the same office in 50 BC.24
Clodius and Milo continued their running battles, while other leaders took part on a smaller scale. The disturbances were so bad that 53 BC began with no consuls elected, and it was not until the summer that the elections were finally completed and two men chosen. If anything, the violence was worse in the autumn of that year, for this time Milo was a candidate, while his arch enemy Clodius was standing for the praetorship. Once again rioting prevented the Comitia centuriata from completing its task and another year began without consuls. In January 52 BC Clodius and Milo happened to bump into each other outside the City. Clodius was wounded in the initial fighting and carried into a tavern. Milo sent men who forced their way in and finished off his hated rival. Supporters and sympathisers turned the subsequent funeral into the sort of dramatic protest the former tribune would no doubt have approved of. Clodius’ corpse was carried into the Senate House itself and cremated, burning the building down in the process. Rome seemed to be collapsing into anarchy. There was no significant policing force to control the mobs, and only troops could do the job. It was a question of who had both the imperium and auctoritas to bring the situation under control.25
Cato and the boni managed to stop Pompey being named dictator. Instead he became sole consul – an utterly unprecedented post. Later in the year he took a colleague – Quintus Cornelius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, whose lengthy name advertised a grand heritage unmatched by any natural talent. Pompey also married Scipio’s daughter Cornelia to confirm a new alliance with one of the aristocratic establishment. Order was restored by force. Milo was put on trial in a court surrounded by soldiers and a hostile crowd, and went into exile before the inevitable verdict was announced. He was of course guilty, but the trial scarcely gave the impression of being fair and ignored normal processes. Rather more of Clodius’ supporters found themselves condemned in similar circumstances, and fled north to find a ready welcome in Julius Caesar’s camp. Pompey’s provincial command was extended and at the end of the year he resumed his unorthodox stance, lurking just outside the City. At times the Senate chose to meet in temples outside the pomerium so that he could attend without laying down his imperium and the command of his army.26
By 51 BC Julius Caesar was completing mopping-up operations in Gaul. It is doubtful that anyone – save of course himself – would have expected him to prove quite such a gifted general. Exploiting the migration of a Gallic tribe that threatened first Transalpine Gaul and then Rome’s allies beyond, he had intervened over an ever-widening area, conquering – the Romans used the euphemism of ‘pacifying’ – all the land from the Atlantic in the west to the Rhine in the east. His victories were spectacular, and celebrated in his own annually released accounts, the famous Commentaries on the Gallic War that even Cicero praised as one of the highest expressions of the Latin language. Pompey had been awarded ten days of public thanksgiving to celebrate his eastern victories – double the amount ever given to a Roman general. Julius Caesar was given fifteen days for his first successes, then twenty more when he raided the unknown and mysterious island of Britain, and again when he suppressed a rebellion by a great confederation of tribes. The Roman people had a new military hero.27
Julius Caesar wanted to come back from Gaul, celebrate a triumph and then immediately become consul for 48 BC, having waited the full ten years legally required between consulships. He had no desire to be a private citizen, when he would become vulnerable to prosecution. Several of his enemies were loudly talking of bringing him to trial like Milo, in a court surrounded by soldiers. To achieve his aim, he needed the right to present his candidature in absentia. It was a small concession compared to the recent flouting of the rules by Pompey. Julius Caesar also wanted to remain as proconsul with imperium until late 49 BC, and argued that he was entitled to this as part of the command granted to him by the Popular Assembly. Although worse had happened since then, his critics spoke of the intimidation and violence of his first consulship and forecast an even more turbulent second term. More importantly, they sensed that Julius Caesar had become vulnerable, and rushed to exploit this just as they had turned against Pompey in the late sixties.
Pompey’s attitude was crucial, and for a long time no one was sure what this would be. Cicero had long since conceded that the ‘Roman Alexander’ was a hard man to read. Yet gradually there were signs that he was turning against his former father-in-law. His support became less and less convincing. To later generations it appeared obvious, as summed up by the poet Lucan almost a century later – ‘Caesar cannot bear anyone above him, nor Pompey any equal’. Only by acknowledging his need for Pompey’s help and support could the proconsul of Gaul return in the way he wanted. When questioned over what he would do if Julius Caesar refused to obey the Senate, Pompey complacently responded, ‘What if my son wants to attack me with a stick?’ Statements like this encouraged Julius Caesar’s enemies.28
A succession of consuls took up the attack, pressing for Julius Caesar’s immediate recall. The first was the cousin and namesake of Octavia’s husband, who was consul in 51 BC. Marcellus himself was equally hostile to his wife’s great-uncle during his own consulship in 50 BC. To counter this assault, the plunder of Gaul flowed to Rome to win supporters, particularly from the ranks of the tribunes. On 1 December 50 BC one forced a vote in the Senate, demanding that both Pompey and Julius Caesar lay down their commands simultaneously. Only 22 senators voted against the 370 who supported this measure. The overwhelming majority did not want to risk another civil war, even though many disliked Julius Caesar and his prominence.29
A rumour spread that the proconsul had already invaded Italy. Marcellus tried to persuade the Senate to act, but was thwarted by their reluctance and tribunician veto. Ignoring this, he and his colleague, escorted by friends, hurried out to Pompey’s villa in the Alban Hills and presented him with a sword, calling on the proconsul to defend the Republic with his legions. Pompey showed no reluctance to take up arms against his former father-in-law and friend. Then the report was found to be false and nothing happened. On 1 January 49 BC another Marcellus became consul, this time the younger brother of the consul of 51 BC. Each side made proposals, but there was little trust and a tendency to perceive willingness to negotiate as a sign of weakness. On 7 January the Senate passed the senatus consultum ultimum, calling on the magistrates and the proconsuls near the City – an obvious reference to Pompey – to do whatever was necessary to see that the Republic suffered no harm. Mark Antony and another tribune who had been urging Julius Caesar’s case were advised that their safety could no longer be assured. They fled the City and went north.30
A few days later – probably on 10 January – Julius Caesar led a single legion across the River Rubicon, crossing the line that separated his province, where he still legally held imperium, into Italy, where he did not. The man who had received successive votes of public thanksgiving during his command was now a rebel, who must win or suffer the fate of Catiline. We do not know whether or not he actually uttered the old gambler’s tag – ‘the die is cast’ – as he embarked on civil war, but there is no doubt about the risk, or his belief that he was left with no alternative. Julius Caesar was willing to plunge the Republic into civil war to protect his own position and his dignitas. Pompey, as well as Cato and Julius Caesar’s other opponents, was equally willing to fight a war to deprive him of both.31
4
A WAY OUT
‘They wanted it; even after all my great deeds I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned, if I had not sought support from my army.’ Julius Caesar’s comment on seeing the enemy dead at Pharsalus, according to eyewitness Asinius Pollio, late first century BC.1
The details of the Civil War need not detain us for long, since Octavius was only thirteen and too young to be involved. Julius Caesar overran Italy quickly. Perhaps Pompey had still expected that his former ally would back down, or was simply complacent in his own strength. Months before, he had boasted that he had only ‘to stamp his foot for legions and cavalry to spring up from the soil of Italy’. Instead his allies were dismayed to see him abandon Rome without a fight, and retreat to Brundisium. One senator cynically asked him whether it was about time to start stamping his foot. Instead he took them all across the Adriatic to northern Greece, and there set about building up a great army and fleet, drawing on all his connections in the eastern provinces and allied kingdoms. Nearing sixty, Pompey displayed his great skills as an organiser. ‘Sulla did it, why shouldn’t I?’ he said repeatedly, for Sulla had come back from Greece to win a civil war. Yet it was not the happiest example. Some of his allies muttered that they were fighting merely to choose which dictator to have ruling them. Others openly criticised every decision he made. Pompey, the man whose career had broken every constitutional rule, had somehow become the champion of the free Republic, commanding many of the boni who had been his bitterest opponents for so many years. It was a grim irony and produced an uneasy alliance.2
His enemies and the majority who wanted to remain neutral feared that Julius Caesar would prove a truly savage master, slaughtering his enemies like Marius and Sulla. Instead he paraded his clemency, only fighting those who fought him and sparing all who surrendered. In March 49 BC he proclaimed: ‘Let us see if in this way we can willingly win the support of all and gain a permanent victory, since through their cruelty others have been unable to escape hatred or make their victory lasting – save for Lucius Sulla, and I do not intend to imitate him. This is a new way of conquest, we grow strong through pity and generosity.’3
After Italy he went to Spain, and in a rapid campaign outmanoeuvred the legions left there by Pompey and forced their surrender. Wherever Julius Caesar went himself there were victories, but his subordinates proved less capable and several marched off to defeat. By the start of 48 BC he had gathered enough ships to transport some of his legions to Macedonia, where Pompey was still preparing to copy Sulla. Numbers and resources were on Pompey’s side, but Julius Caesar’s smaller army was hardened by years of war and utterly devoted to their commander. He attacked, and came close to blockading the more numerous enemy into submission at Dyrrachium, before Pompey managed to break his lines. The Caesareans retreated and the Pompeians followed, prominent senators nagging the general to win quickly and already bickering over the anticipated spoils. At Pharsalus, on 9 August 48 BC, Pompey offered battle and Julius Caesar gratefully accepted. Pompey’s plan was sound, if un-subtle, staking everything on a flanking attack by his cavalry, which outnumbered their Caesarean counterparts by seven to one. Julius Caesar guessed his intention, countered it, and after that his veterans cut to pieces the inexperienced Pompeians and their foreign auxiliaries.4
Roman aristocrats could be pardoned for military incompetence as long as they were brave, refusing to admit permanent defeat and rallying their army for the next battle. Pompey’s nerve went and he fled before the battle was over, going eventually to Egypt, where the advisers of the boy king Ptolemy XIII ordered his murder in the hope of pleasing the victor. The death may well have been convenient for Julius Caesar, but when he arrived in pursuit and was presented with his former son-in-law’s head he showed revulsion and anger. Needing hard currency to pay his armies – now swollen in size by tens of thousands of captured Pompeians – he intervened in the affairs of the kingdom, and was soon embroiled in their own civil war as the young king fought for power with his sister Cleopatra. The small Roman army was soon besieged, and it was only after a hard struggle and the arrival of reinforcements that the enemy was defeated. Julius Caesar tarried longer than many felt necessary, cruising along the Nile with his lover Cleopatra. In the meantime the Pompeians regrouped, Cato’s iron will helping to muster a new army in Africa. Finally leaving Egypt, Julius Caesar crushed an army led by Mithridates’ son in Asia, returned fleetingly to Italy in the autumn, and then crossed to Africa. The Pompeians were defeated at Thapsus on 6 April 46 BC. Cato killed himself rather than surrender and accept his enemy’s mercy. It was not quite the end of the war. Pompey’s older son Cnaeus raised an army in Spain, and so once again Julius Caesar left Rome and set out for war. Munda, the final battle fought on 17 March 45 BC, was a savage and desperate struggle, but in the end the veterans of the Gallic war prevailed.5
