Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (28 page)

There was room at the top, for as the decade drew to a close only Crassus could be seen as a serious rival to Pompey. Some of the wealthiest men in the Republic, notably Lucullus, had largely withdrawn from public life into luxurious retirement. The Senate of these years contained some 600 members, but was scarcely crammed with talent. The legacy of the civil war, which had culled the ranks of the prominent and capable, was still very obvious. It is striking that only fourteen former consuls were present at the Catilinarian debate, an occasion of such importance that a strong turnout would be anticipated. Crassus deliberately avoided the meeting, while Pompey and several other consulars were away on campaign. Assuming as a very rough guide that a man might expect to live for at least twenty years after being consul, the total is still less than half the number that we might expect. Compared to earlier periods, there were far fewer distinguished senators whose
auctoritas
allowed them to guide the Senate’s debates. This was one reason why men like Caesar and Cato were able to assume such prominence while still in their thirties.

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‘Caesar had accustomed himself to great effort and little rest; to concentrate on his friends’ business at the expense of his own, and never to neglect anything which was worth doing as a favour. He craved great
imperium
, an army, and a new war so that he could show his talent.’ –
Sallust, late forties
BC
.1

‘Yet what would history say of me in six hundred years time?For that is a thing which I fear more than the idle chatter of men alive today.’ –
Cicero,
April 59 BC
.2

On 28 and 29 September 61 BC Pompey the Great celebrated his third triumph, which commemorated his victories over the pirates and Mithridates. The festivities coincided with his forty-fifth birthday and included displays and processions of unprecedented scale and magnificence. His first triumph had been twenty years before, but this time there was no ridiculous plan for riding in a chariot pulled by elephants. Pompey was older, more mature and had no need for such theatrics, for the splendour of his victories dwarfed the achievements of the great generals of the past. Even so, triumphs were never occasions for restraint or modesty. Like any Roman aristocrat, Pompey took care to quantify his success and the processions included placards declaring that he had killed, captured or defeated 12,183,000 people, taken or sunk 846

warships, and accepted the surrender of 1,538 towns or fortified places. Each kingdom, people or place he had overcome was listed in turn on the great floats carrying the spoils he had taken from them. Then there were paintings showing famous episodes from the wars. Other signs told of how every soldier in the army had been given 1,500 denarii – equivalent to more than ten years’ pay – and proclaimed that the vast sum of 20,000 talents of gold and silver had been added to the State Treasury. Pompey boasted that as a result of his efforts, the annual revenue of the Republic had more than 152

Consul

doubled, from 50 million to 135 million denarii. At the end of the procession was an enormous float presented as a trophy of victory over the known world. People were saying that Pompey had triumphed over all three continents: Africa as part of his first triumph, Europe and specifically Spain in his second, and now Asia in his third. Ahead of Pompey walked over 300

senior hostages, including kings, queens, princesses, chieftains and generals, all wearing their national costume. The general himself rode in a chariot decorated with gemstones and wore a cloak captured from Mithridates, which he claimed had once been owned and worn by Alexander the Great. Appian, writing over a century and a half later, thought this unlikely, but Pompey revelled in the parallels often drawn between himself and the greatest conqueror in history.3

There is no doubting the scale of Pompey’s achievement. The suppression of the pirates had been a dazzling display of meticulous planning and rapid action, but proved to be merely a prelude to even greater successes. Mithridates of Pontus had proven one of Rome’s most resilient enemies. Sulla had expelled him from Greece and recovered the province of Asia, but the need to return to Italy had prevented him from achieving total victory. Lucullus had done more in the seven years he held command in the region, savaging the king and his allies in a series of battles. In the process he became fabulously rich from the spoils of war, but alienated the
publicani
operating in Asia as tax collectors, as well as many of his own soldiers. A successful general never lacked for opponents in the Senate, for senators were instinctively nervous of anyone else gaining too much glory, wealth and
auctoritas
. There were growing complaints that the war was going on too long, and even that Lucullus was deliberately prolonging it to enrich himself still more. His large province was broken up, and sections given to new governors, starving him of the men and material with which to wage war. With Lucullus weakened, Mithridates was given a chance to win back some of the ground he had lost. Everything changed when Pompey arrived in 66

BC. Backed by resources on a scale of which his predecessor could only have dreamed, he had irrevocably smashed the king’s power by the end of the year. It would be going a little far to say that Lucullus had already won the war – unlike the Slave War, which had certainly been decided by Crassus before Pompey arrived and tried to steal the credit – but he had certainly contributed a great deal to the eventual Roman victory.

His assigned task complete, Pompey showed no desire to go back to Rome straightaway, but instead sought new opportunities to win glory with the forces under his command. Over the next two years he took advantage of any 153

the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

opportunity to lead his legions further than any Roman army had gone in the past. They marched against the Iberians and Albanians, round the eastern shore of the Black Sea and into what would become southern Russia. Intervening in a civil war between rival members of the Judaean royal family, Pompey laid siege to Jerusalem and took it after three months. All of these spectacular achievements were celebrated in his triumphal procession. Pompey had throughout these campaigns given abundant evidence of his abilities as a commander, and may also, as in earlier campaigns, have occasionally led charges in person, emulating Alexander’s heroic style of leadership. In Jerusalem he and his commanders had gone into the Holy of Holies in the Great Temple, something forbidden to all save the high priests. As a mark of respect, none of the treasures were removed, but the gesture, as was intended, provided a new tale to tell at Rome of the unprecedented deeds of Rome’s great general. For the Romans, the spectacular was often combined with the practical, and Pompey spent much of his time organising the administration of Rome’s old provinces in the region and the new ones he had created. Active campaigning largely ceased when news arrived in 63 BC

that Mithridates was dead – killed by a bodyguard after he had tried to poison himself but discovered that the antidotes he had taken throughout his life rendered him immune. Even so Pompey remained in the east for over a year settling the region. His organisational talents were considerable and many of the regulations he established would remain in force for centuries.4

The wild activities of Metellus Nepos during his tribunate increased the apprehension over what Pompey would do on his return to Italy. Nepos was his brother-in-law, had served under him as a legate, and so his readiness to use violence and intimidation in his effort to allow Pompey to retain command of his army was deeply worrying. Crassus is said to have exploited the mood by taking his family abroad. It is difficult to know how far Nepos had been acting under instructions, but clearly Pompey cannot have been pleased with a result that raised many senators’ suspicion of him without achieving any benefit. In the spring of 62 BC he wrote to the Senate as a whole and privately to leading senators assuring them of his desire for peaceful retirement. Another of his legates, Marcus Pupius Piso, was already in Rome canvassing for the consulship for 61 BC. Pompey asked the Senate to postpone the elections till the end of the year so that he could be present and support his friend. Opinions were divided, but Cato prevented any vote by manipulating the procedure of the House. When asked his opinion in the debate, he kept on talking until the day ended and the meeting closed without a result. No one attempted to discuss the issue again. In the event 154

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Piso won the consulship anyway, but this was the first of a series of snubs that Pompey was to suffer. It did not prevent him from continuing his efforts to reassure the Senate of his good intentions. When he finally landed at Brundisium in December 62 BC he immediately demobilised his legions, instructing the soldiers to gather again only when it was time for them to march in his triumph.5

Until he had celebrated his triumph, Pompey could not actually cross the
pomerium
, the sacred boundary of the city, so he took up residence in his villa in the Alban Hills outside Rome. By the middle of the first century BC, substantial parts of Rome were actually outside the
pomerium
. On several occasions the Senate chose to meet, or public meetings were called, at locations in these areas to permit Pompey to attend. When he had become consul in 70 BC Pompey had the experienced senator and prolific author Marcus Terentius Varro write him a pamphlet explaining senatorial procedure. His return to political life showed that he still had much to learn after almost six years away on campaign. The first speech he made fell flat, pleasing no one. It was especially unfortunate that he had arrived at the height of the controversy over the trial of Clodius for sacrilege, with fierce debate over the procedure to be used and in particular the selection of jurors. Piso, Pompey’s former legate, was a friend and supporter of Clodius, while his consular colleague was an equally determined opponent. Not a well trained or especially gifted orator, Pompey attempted to show his firm support and respect for the Senate when his opinion was asked on such issues, but his speeches met with little enthusiasm. Cicero, smarting over Pompey’s refusal to praise him with sufficient enthusiasm for his suppression of Catiline, was scathing in his judgement of the man he had so often supported in the past. On 25 January 61 BC he wrote to his friend Atticus that Pompey ‘is now openly and ostentatiously trumpeting his friendship for me, but secretly he is jealous and does not conceal it very well. In him there is no real courtesy, straightforwardness, statesmanlike talent, or indeed a sense of honour, constancy, or generosity.’6 Cicero was delighted when Crassus began eulogising him in the Senate, probably largely because Pompey had failed to do so.7

In the domestic sphere things were little better. Pompey had divorced his wife Mucia almost as soon as he had returned to Italy. She and Caesar had had an affair in her husband’s absence, but he had not been her only lover and her infidelities were a matter of public scandal. Politically this had unfortunate consequences, alienating Pompey from her half-brothers Metellus Nepos and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, for the Metelli as a 155

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family were never slow to respond to real or apparent slights. After he had been attacked by Nepos, Cicero had had to go to great lengths to placate Metellus Celer even though it had been his brother who had begun the dispute. Celer was a strong candidate for the consulship in 60 BC, making him an especially dangerous enemy. Nevertheless, the divorce gave Pompey the opportunity for making a new political alliance, and he clearly wished to demonstrate again his commitment to the senatorial elite and show that he was no revolutionary. He approached Cato and asked that he and his son be allowed to marry his nieces, the daughters of Servilia. To the dismay of both the girls and their ambitious mother, Cato rejected the proposal, a gesture that added to his reputation for placing the stern dictates of virtue ahead of political advantage. Although he lost the prospect of an alliance with the wealthiest man and most successful commander in the Senate, the incident added to the legend that Cato was consciously building by his actions and behaviour.8

Pompey had two main objectives in these years. The first was to secure grants of land to the discharged veterans of his armies. In 70 BC a law had been passed to provide for the men who had fought under him in Spain, but had failed to achieve much as the Senate had not provided the resources to make an adequate distribution of land possible. His second aim was to secure the ratification of his Eastern Settlement, the scheme of laws and regulations that he had established after his victory over Mithridates. It was normal for such things to be done by a senatorial committee, but Pompey had gone ahead without this authority. The fact that he had done the job extremely well did not prevent considerable criticism. Lucullus, who had been forced to wait years for his own triumph and was still deeply bitter of his replacement in the command by Pompey, came out of his self-imposed retirement from public life to oppose him. He was especially critical of anything that had altered his own rulings. Pompey wanted his entire Eastern Settlement to be ratified in a single law. Lucullus, Cato and many other leading senators demanded instead that each individual ruling be discussed and dealt with on its own. During Piso’s consulship in 61 BC nothing was achieved, in part because of his preoccupation with the trial of Clodius. Realising that Metellus Celer was practically certain to win the consulship for 60 BC, Pompey indulged in massive bribery to ensure that he was given a more amenable colleague. The man chosen was another of his former legates, a ‘new man’ called Lucius Afranius. Although he may have been a capable officer, Afranius was better known as a dancer than for his skill as a politician. As consul he proved an abject failure, his fellow ‘new man’

156

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Cicero viewing him as little more than a joke in the poorest taste. More talented was Lucius Flavius, one of the tribunes of the year who was eager to do Pompey’s bidding. He proposed a land law, which was intended to provide farms for the veterans and a substantial number of the urban poor. Metellus Celer led the opposition, and was so bitter in his invective that the tribune ordered him led off to prison. The consul was a shrewd enough player of the political game to know how to exploit the situation and promptly convened a meeting of the Senate in the prison itself. Flavius responded by placing his tribunician bench of office in front of the entrance to stop anyone from getting in. Undaunted, Metellus ordered his attendants to knock a hole in the prison’s wall to admit the senators. Pompey realised that Flavius was losing the contest and instructed him to release the consul. The episode showed the same almost farcical respect for convention as the confrontation between Cato and Nepos in 62 BC on the podium of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. In this case, things stopped short of actual violence. Further attempts to intimidate Metellus by denying him the right to go to a province failed and the bill was eventually dropped.9