Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (18 page)

We do know that it was around this time that Caesar himself stood for the quaestorship and it is probable that securing this was his main concern. In 70 BC he was thirty, the minimum age Sulla had decreed for election to this magistracy. It was an important point of pride for an aristocrat to win office in ‘his year’ (
suo anno
), that is at the time when he first became eligible. This, as well as other factors, make it most likely that Caesar was elected as one of the twenty quaestors in the autumn of 70 BC and began his year of office early in 69 BC. The consular elections were normally held near the end of July, although there was no rigidly fixed date. There were around 150 days a year when it was permissible to hold an Assembly of the Roman people, but this could be reduced by additional festivals or the declaration of periods of public thanksgiving during which no State business could be conducted. The more junior posts such as the quaestorship were decided in a different assembly that was summoned fairly soon after the consular elections. Canvassing could begin as much as a year before the election, but was particularly intense in the last twenty-four days before actual voting. It was during this time, after they had formally registered with the magistrate overseeing the election, that those seeking office donned a specially whitened toga – the
toga candidus
, hence our word candidate – intended to make them stand out as they moved around the Forum. As they walked through the crowded centre of the city candidates greeted their fellow citizens, 96

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especially those whose property and status made their vote most influential. A specially trained slave known as a
nomenclator
usually stood behind the candidate, ready to whisper the names of anyone they approached, so that his master could greet them properly. Reliance on these slaves was almost universal, but good politicians made sure that their dependence on this aid to memory was never obvious. It was important for a candidate to be seen, but in many ways it was even more important with whom he was seen. Other senators who supported his candidature were expected to accompany a man for some of his canvassing, and their
auctoritas
helped to sway the voters. Less subtle propaganda took the form of signs painted on buildings expressing support. Many of the tombs that stood along the sides of the main roads into Rome included in their inscription a prohibition against such marks of support being posted or painted on them.17

Quaestors were elected by the Comitia Tributa, the Assembly of the thirty-five tribes of Roman citizens. When meeting to elect magistrates rather than vote for or against pieces of legislation, the Comitia was normally held in the Campus Martius, the mainly open area of parks and exercise grounds outside the formal boundary of the city to the northwest. This seems to have been because a higher turnout was expected for an election, and it would have been impossible to squeeze so many voters into the confines of the Forum. It is probable, though not certain, that candidates were given a chance to address the Assembly before the presiding magistrate gave the order ‘Divide, citizens’ (
Discedite
,
Quirites
). The members of each tribe then went to their allocated section of the
saepta
, a temporary complex of fenced enclosures. To vote, each member of the tribe in turn would leave the tribe’s enclosure, walking across a narrow raised gangway known as a ‘bridge’ to the
rogator
, the official appointed to oversee the process for each tribe. The voter then placed his written ballot into a basket, watched over by other officials known as the ‘guards’

(
custodes
), who would later count them and report the result to the presiding magistrate. Each tribe voted as a unit, their decision being announced in an order previously established by lot. The number of voters in each tribe varied considerably, with even the poorest members of the four urban tribes being able to attend without much difficulty. Given that the majority of Roman citizens now lived far from Rome, only the wealthier members of some of the other tribes were likely to be able and willing to travel to Rome for an election. The vote of these men was very significant, as was that of poorer men who now lived in Rome, but who were still enrolled in one of the rural tribes. In spite of the disparity between the 97

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numbers present at the election, the vote of each tribe carried equal weight. It was important for an aristocrat to carry the vote of his own tribe – in Caesar’s case the Fabia tribe – and great effort was made to know and do favours for fellow tribesmen. Elections were not decided by an overall majority, but concluded as soon as enough candidates to fill the available posts had each received the vote of eighteen tribes. It was literally a ‘first past the post’ system.18

Caesar’s prospects were good. He had won acclaim in the courts and served with distinction fighting in the East. Even the rumours about Nicomedes and his own scandalous womanising at least helped to make his name widely known, as did his distinctive style of dress. If his family was not amongst the inner circle of nobles in the Senate, the Julii Caesares had provided a number of magistrates in recent years. Some of these were from the other branch of the family, but this still meant that the name had been kept in the public eye. His mother’s relations were doing very well, with two consulships in the last five years and another member holding the praetorship in 70 BC. With twenty posts as quaestor available each year this was the easiest elected magistracy to win. The enfranchisement of the Italians had brought many sons of wealthy local families to Rome in search of a career, but a member of an established Roman family and patrician had little to fear from such competition. Caesar was duly elected. It was an important moment, for Sulla’s political reforms ensured that all quaestors were automatically enrolled in the Senate. Quaestors performed a range of financial and administrative tasks, but the majority served as deputy to a provincial governor, who was in turn either an ex-consul or ex-praetor. Caesar was sent in this way to Further Spain (Hispania Ulterior), the westernmost province of the Iberian Peninsula. 19

Before he left Rome some time in 69 BC, Caesar suffered two personal blows with the death of his aunt Julia, followed shortly afterwards by the death of his wife Cornelia. Aristocratic families held very public funerals for their members, using the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of their whole line, reminding voters of what they had done and hinting at the promise for the future. Actors dressed in the regalia of office and wearing the funeral masks of distinguished ancestors formed part of the procession, which went first to the Forum, where an oration would be delivered from the Rostra. Polybius tells us that

... who makes the oration over the man [or, in this case, woman] about to be buried, when he has finished speaking of him recounts the 98

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successes and exploits of the rest whose images are present, beginning from the most ancient. By this means, by this constant renewal of the good report of brave men, the celebrity of those who performed noble deeds is rendered immortal, while at the same time the fame of those who did good service to their country becomes known to the people and a heritage for future generations.20

At Julia’s funeral Caesar spoke from the Rostra about her distinguished ancestry, of the Julii’s descent from the goddess Venus, and the royal connections of her mother’s family. These were useful reminders to the watching crowd of his own lineage. More controversially he included in the procession symbols of Marius’ victories, and perhaps even an actor to represent him. Sulla had banned the public honouring of his rival, but only a few of the watchers protested, and they were swiftly shouted down by the rest. Though Sulla had won the civil war, he had not won over many, even of Rome’s elite, to accept all of his decisions, as had been indicated by the widespread popularity of the restoration of the tribunate. For a lot of Romans Marius remained a great hero, the man who had restored Rome’s injured pride in Africa and then saved Italy from the Northern menace. Cicero, who roundly condemned Marius’ role in the civil war, frequently and enthusiastically praised his victories over Jugurtha and the Cimbri in his speeches, knowing that his audience would warmly concur. Caesar’s gesture was generally welcomed and this emphasis on his own close connection to the great hero was very good for his own popularity.21

It was not uncommon for elderly women from the noble families to receive a grand public funeral. Caesar’s decision to grant the same honour to Cornelia was highly unusual, and Plutarch says that he was the first Roman to do this for such a young woman. The gesture proved popular, as many people took it as a sign of the genuine sorrow of a kind-hearted man. Although the popular image of the Romans sees them as stern and phlegmatic, in truth they were often a deeply sentimental people. Funerals, like so much of an aristocrat’s life, were conducted in public and had an impact on politics. No close male relative of Caesar had died during his young adulthood, and in one sense the funerals of his aunt and wife provided great opportunities for selfpublicising. Caesar seized the chance and exploited it to the best of his ability. This does not necessarily mean that his sorrow was not genuine, for sentiment and politics often co-existed happily at Rome. His marriage to Cornelia had been successful, perhaps also happy and loving. However, none of our sources suggest that it was the loss of his wife that sparked off his womanising and 99

the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

it is most probable that he had already had a number of affairs while married to her. We do not know if he paraded the symbols of her father Cinna, as he had so recently done with the latter’s ally Marius. Marius had far greater emotional appeal to the wider population, so the connection with him was far more important for Caesar.

Caesar left for Further Spain in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, quite probably travelling out with the governor he was to serve, Antistius Vetus. It was common for governors to select their own quaestor from those who had been elected. It is possible that this had happened in Caesar’s case and that the two already had a connection. Certainly, they seem to have got on well, and Caesar would take Vetus’ son as his own quaestor when sent to govern Further Spain after his praetorship seven years later. One of the quaestor’s most important tasks was to oversee the accounts for the province, but he could be called upon to act as the governor’s representative in a wide range of activities. Much of a governor’s time was spent in touring the main towns of the region, listening to petitions, resolving problems and dispensing justice. Vetus sent Caesar to perform this function in some places. Caesar performed all his tasks well, and over twenty years later would remind the locals of his services to them. A quaestorship offered the chance to acquire clients amongst the notable men of a provincial population. We are told that Caesar was first subject to an epileptic fit while serving in Spain, although it is not clear whether this was in 69 BC or during his own spell as governor in 61–60 BC. Another incident probably dated to the quaestorship, although Plutarch sets it later, and occurred when he was visiting Gades (modern Cadiz) to hold court. Caesar is supposed to have seen a statue of Alexander the Great in the Temple of Hercules and been visibly distressed, because he had done so little at an age when the Macedonian king had conquered half the world. More disturbing still was a dream in which he raped his mother Aurelia. Understandably dismayed by this, Caesar consulted a soothsayer whose interpretation was that ‘he was destined to rule the world, since the mother whom he had ravished represented Mother Earth, the parent of all’. Suetonius claims that this explanation prompted him to leave the province early, so eager was he to return to Rome and resume his career. If this is true, then it is likely that he acted with the approval of Vetus, since there never seems to have been any criticism or suggestion that he abandoned his post. His review of the provincial accounts may well have already been complete and so his primary duty fulfilled. On the whole he had done his job well, but the activities of a quaestor rarely held much fascination to the electorate back in Rome.22

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Monuments and Gladiators : Caesar as Aedile

On his way back to Italy Caesar paused in Transpadane Gaul, the area of the Po Valley. This was part of the province of Cisalpine Gaul, the only province that formed part of the Italian Peninsula. It was populated by a mixture of descendants of Roman and Italian colonists and the Gallic tribes, the leading families of which were by now culturally very Roman. The grants of citizenship that came in the aftermath of the Social War had stopped at the line of the Po, and communities to the north possessed only Latin status. This was deeply resented, especially by the rich and powerful who had most to gain from full citizenship. Caesar encouraged these sentiments, for the future votes of wealthy new citizens would have been well worth having. The suggestion that his agitation was so strong as to push the Transpadanes to the brink of rebellion, and that this was only prevented by the chance presence of legions nearby, seems extremely improbable. It is most likely a later invention based upon the assumption that Caesar was always aiming at revolution. The man who had refused to join either Lepidus or Sertorius seems unlikely to have wanted to start a rebellion on his own. At this stage in his career, there was simply no need to take such a risk.23

On arrival back in Rome, one of Caesar’s first actions was to remarry. His new bride was Pompeia, grandchild on her mother’s side of Sulla and on her father’s side of the latter’s consular colleague in 88 BC, Quintus Pompeius. Therefore, for all the parading of the connection with Marius and his support for legislation aimed at dismantling Sulla’s regime, it would be far too simplistic to see Caesar as fixedly pro-Marian or anti-Sullan. Roman politics rarely, if ever, divided so starkly, even when civil war raged. When senators married it was almost invariably with a view to the useful associations they would gain as a result of the union. Not enough is known about Pompeia’s relatives to understand precisely how Caesar thought the marriage would help to foster his career – the web of inter-connections between aristocratic families was complex in the extreme. Unlike his marriage to Cornelia, this one would not have been through the
confarreatio
ceremony. A good deal is known about the rituals associated with conventional marriages at Rome, although we do not know whether all of these were followed at Caesar’s wedding in 67 BC. As with most aspects of private and public life at Rome, there were sacrificial offerings and taking of omens. Brides were traditionally supposed to wear orange slippers and a home-woven dress, fastened with a girdle tied in a complex ‘Herculean’ knot for the groom to undo on the wedding night. If Pompeia followed the usual conventions she would have 101