Civil Wars

The Adriatic Sea yielded to Cæsar, becoming navigable and quiet in mid-winter. He also crossed the western ocean to Britain, which had never been attempted before, and he ordered his pilots to break their ships in pieces by running them on the rocks of the British coast.[*](This is nonsense. Cæsar himself says (Gallic War, v. 10) that while he was advancing into the interior of Britain, word was brought to him that a great storm had arisen in the night and dashed almost all of his ships in pieces on the shore, so that he was obliged to abandon his expedition temporarily.) He was exposed to the violence of another tempest when alone in a small boat by night, and he ordered the pilot to spread his sails and to keep in mind Cæsar's fortune rather than the waves of the sea. He often dashed against the enemy single-handed when all others were afraid. He fought thirty pitched battles in Gaul alone, where he conquered forty nations so formidable to the Romans previously that in the law which exempted priests and old men from military enrolment an exception was made of a Gallic war, in case of which priests and old men were required to serve in the army. Once in the course of the Alexandrian war, when he was left alone on a bridge in extreme peril, he threw off his purple garment, leaped into the sea, and, being sought by the enemy, swam under water a long distance, coming to the surface only at intervals to take breath, until he came near a friendly ship, when he made himself known by raising his hands, and was saved. In these civil wars, in which he engaged either through apprehension, as he says, or ambition, he was brought in conflict with the first generals of the age and with many large armies, not now of barbarians, but of Romans in the highest state of efficiency and good fortune, and, like Alexander, he overcame them all by one or two engagements with each. His forces were not, like Alexander's, always victorious, for they were defeated by the Gauls most disastrously under the command of his lieutenants, Cotta and Titurius; and in Spain Petreius and Afranius shut them up like an army besieged. At Dyrrachium and in Africa they were put to flight, and in Spain they were terrified by young Pompey. But Cæsar himself was always undaunted and was victorious at the end of every war. He grasped, partly by force, partly by good-will, the Roman power which ruled the earth and sea from the setting sun to the river Euphrates, and held it much more firmly and strongly than Sulla had done, and he showed himself to be a king in spite of opposition, even though he did not accept the title. And, like Alexander, he expired while planning new wars.

Their armies were equally zealous and devoted to both, and in battles they fought with the greatest ferocity, but were often disobedient and mutinous on account of the severity of their tasks. Yet they mourned and longed for their commanders when they were dead, and paid them divine honors. Both were well-formed and handsome in person, and both were descended from Jupiter, Alexander through Æacus and Hercules, Cæsar through Anchises and Venus. Both were as prompt to fight their adversaries as they were ready to make peace and grant pardon to the vanquished, and after pardon to confer benefits; for they desired only to conquer. Thus far let the parallel hold good, although they did not both start toward empire from the same footing; Alexander from the monarchy founded by Philip, Cæsar from a private station, well born and illustrious indeed, but very short of money.

Both of them despised the prodigies relating to themselves, but they did not deal harshly with the sooth-sayers who predicted their death; for more than once the very same prodigies confronted both, pointing to the same end. Twice in the case of each the victims were without a liver, and the first time it indicated a doubtful danger. It happened to Alexander when he was among the Oxydracæ and while he was leading his Macedonians in scaling the enemy's wall. The ladder broke, leaving him alone on the top. Taking counsel of his courage, he leaped inside the town against his enemies, and was struck severely in the breast and on the neck by a very heavy club, so that he fell down, and was rescued with difficulty by the Macedonians, who broke down the gates in their alarm for him. It happened to Cæsar in Spain while his army was in great fear of young Pompey, and hesitated to join battle. Cæsar dashed in advance of all into the space between the armies, and received 200 darts on his shield until his army, moved by shame and fear for his safety, rushed forward and rescued him. Thus in the case of each the first victims without livers presaged danger of death; the second presaged death itself. As Peithagoras, the soothsayer, was inspecting the entrails, he told Apollodorus, who was in fear of Alexander and Hephestion, not to be afraid of them, because they would both be out of the way very soon. Hephestion died immediately, and Apollodorus, being apprehensive lest some conspiracy might exist against Alexander, communicated the prophecy to him. Alexander smiled, and asked Peithagoras himself what the prodigy meant. When the latter replied that it meant fatality, he smiled again. Nevertheless, he commended Apollodorus for his good-will and the soothsayer for his freedom of speech.

As Cæsar was entering the Senate for the last time, as I have shortly before related, the same omens were observed, but he said, jestingly, that the same thing had happened to him in Spain. When the soothsayer replied that he was in danger then too, and that the omen was now more deadly, he yielded somewhat to the warning and sacrificed again, and continued to do so until he became vexed with the priests for delaying him, and went in and was killed. The same kind of thing happened to Alexander. As he was returning from India to Babylon with his army, and was nearing the latter place, the Chaldeans urged him to postpone his entrance for the present. He replied with the iambic verse, "He who guesses right is the best prophet."[*](This is a line from Euripides, which had passed into a proverb in both Greek and Latin. Schweighäuser cites several authors who used it -- among them Arrian (Expeditio Alex. vii. 16), who also gives us a more detailed account of this affair of Alexander and the Chaldeans.) Again, the Chaldeans urged him not to march his army into the city while looking toward the setting sun, but to go around and enter facing the east. It is said that he yielded to this suggestion and started to go around, but being bothered by a lake and marshy ground, he disregarded this second prophecy also, and entered the city looking toward the west. Not long after entering he went down the Euphrates in a boat to the river Pallacotta, which takes its water from the Euphrates and carries it away in marshes and ponds and thus hinders the irrigation and navigation of the Assyrian country. While he was considering how he should dyke this stream and while he was sailing out to it for this purpose, it is said that he jeered at the Chaldeans because he had gone into Babylon and sailed out of it safely. But scarcely had he returned back to it when he died. Cæsar jeered at the prophecies in like manner, for the soothsayer predicted the day of his death, saying that he should not survive the Ides of March, and when the day came Cæsar mocked him saying, "The Ides have come "; and the same day he died. Thus both alike made light of the prophecies concerning themselves, and were not angry at the soothsayers who uttered them, yet they became the inevitable victims of the prophecies.

Both were students of the science and arts[*](e)pisth/mhn th=s a)reth=s: literally, " the science of excellence," which is by no means clear. Nauck marks the last word doubtful.) of their own country, of Greece, and of foreign nations. As to those of India, Alexander interrogated the Brahmins who seem to be the astronomers and learned men of that country, like the Magi among the Persians. Cæsar likewise interrogated the Egyptians while he was there restoring Cleopatra to the throne, by which means he made many improvements among the peaceful arts for the Romans. He changed the calendar, which was still in disorder by reason of the intercalary months till then in use, for the Romans reckoned the year by the moon. Cæsar changed it to the sun's course, as the Egyptians reckoned it.[*](Cæsar also, at this time, changed the beginning of the year from the first of March to the first of January, because the latter was the date for changing the supreme magistrates. "Both changes came into effect on the first January 709 of the city (45 B.C.), and along with them the use of the Julian Calendar, so named after its author, which, long after the fall of the monarchy of Cæsar, remained the regulative standard of the civilized world, and in the main is so still." (Mommsen.)) It happened in his case that not one of the conspirators against him escaped, but all were brought to condign punishment by his adopted son, just as the murderers of Philip were by Alexander. How they were punished the succeeding books will show.

The Senate blamed Antony for his funeral oration over Cæsar, by which, chiefly, the people were incited to disregard the decree of amnesty lately passed, and to scour the city in order to fire the houses of the murderers. But he changed it from bad to good feeling toward himself by one capital stroke of policy. There was a certain pseudo-Marius in Rome named Amatius. He pretended to be a grandson of Marius, and for this reason was popular with the masses. Being, according to this pretence, a relative of Cæsar, he was pained beyond measure by the latter's death, and erected an altar on the site of his funeral pyre. He collected a band of reckless men and made himself a perpetual terror to the murderers. Some of these had fled from the city, and those who had accepted the command of provinces from Cæsar himself had gone away to take charge of the same, Decimus Brutus to Cisalpine Gaul, Trebonius to Asia adjoining Ionia, and Tillius Cimber to Bithynia. Cassius and Marcus Brutus, who were the special favorites of the Senate, had been chosen by Cæsar as governors for the following year, the former of Syria, and the latter of Macedonia. Being still city prætors, they remained there necessarily, and in their official capacity they conciliated the colonists by various decrees, and among others by one enabling them to sell their allotments, the law hitherto forbidding the alienation of the land till the end of twenty years.

It was said that Amatius was only waiting an opportunity to entrap Brutus and Cassius. On the rumor of this plot,[*](th=s e)ne/dras o( )*antw/nios e)pibai/nwn. There is a curious resemblance in these words to our slang phrase " getting on to his game.") Antony, using his consular authority, arrested Amatius and boldly put him to death without a trial. The senators were astonished at this deed as an act of violence and contrary to law, but they enjoyed it exceedingly because they thought that the situation of Brutus and Cassius would never be safe without such boldness. The followers of Amatius, and the plebeians generally, missing Amatius and feeling indignation at the deed, and especially because it had been done by Antony, whom the people had honored, determined that they would not be scorned in that way. With shouts they took possession of the forum, exclaiming against Antony and called on the magistrates, in place of Amatius, to dedicate the altar and to offer the first sacrifices on it to Cæsar. Having been driven out of the forum by soldiers sent by Antony, they became still more indignant, and vociferated more loudly, and some of them showed places where Cæsar's statues had been torn from their pedestals. One man told them that he could show a shop where the statues had been broken up. The others followed, and having witnessed the fact, they set fire to the place. Finally, Antony sent more soldiers and some of those who resisted were killed, others were captured, and of these the slaves were crucified and the freemen thrown over the Tarpeian rock.[*](Cicero in the first Philippic refers to the killing of this impostor as the act of Antony and Dolabella in common, and says that the rest of the work was done by Dolabella alone; but he believes that if Antony had been present he would have coöperated with his colleague. Valerius Maximus says that the pseudo-Marius was a horse doctor (equarius medicus) and that his real name was Herophilus. "He gave out that C. Marius was his grandfather, and so extolled himself that several colonies of veterans, and towns of the first class, and almost all the rural communities, adopted him as their patron. When Cæsar opened his gardens to the people after he had made an end of young Pompey in Spain, Herophilus, who was separated from Cæsar by only the space between two columns, was received by the crowd with almost as much enthusiasm as himself, so that unless the powers of the godlike Cæsar had put a stop to these shameful outbursts, the republic would have received the same hurt as in the case of Equitius (the pseudo-Gracchus)." (Val. Max. ix. 15. 2.))