Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (47 page)

– and Cicero had already had an opportunity of repaying some of this. Grain imports to Italy were erratic, and the new system of state-controlled supply set up by Clodius was not yet functioning well. He proposed a motion to give Pompey an extraordinary command to sort out the problem. In its eventual form the command was for five years, although there was an unsuccessful attempt by a tribune – probably with Pompey’s tacit backing

– to give him
imperium
throughout the empire, which was superior to every other governor, as well as control of substantial military and naval forces. Pompey had power again, and although this meant that he theoretically had to stay outside Rome the Senate was happy either to grant him a special dispensation from this rule or to meet outside the formal boundary of the city. Later disturbances in Egypt led to manoeuvring to secure him a further command to restore the situation there, but others were ambitious for this as well, and in the end it came to nothing.8

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As 56 BC opened Pompey had a formal position, but so did Clodius once again for he had been elected aedile. He prosecuted Milo for political violence, but the latter was defended by Pompey and Cicero, and each side had brought along a mob of supporters to shout down and threaten their opponents. Cicero subsequently described the scene to his brother Quintus: Pompey spoke, or at least tried to; but when he stood up, Clodius’

gang began yelling, and he had to put up with this for the whole time he was speaking, getting interrupted not just by shouts, but jeers and insults. When he had finished – he showed great determination given the situation, never flinching, he said all that he meant to say, some of it even in silence coming from his force of character – but anyway when he stopped up sprang Clodius. He was greeted by yells from our supporters – we were pleased to return the compliment – and lost control of his spirit, voice and expression. This went on from the sixth hour, when Pompey finished speaking, to the eighth hour, with all sorts of abuse and foul verses about Clodius and Clodia. Enraged and white with anger he called out questions to his gang – and he was heard clearly above the shouting – who was it who starved the people?

‘Pompey!’ his cronies replied. Who wanted to go to Alexandria?

‘Pompey!’ they called. Who do YOU want to go? ‘Crassus!’ they replied. The latter was there, but without any goodwill towards Milo.9

The hostility between the two old rivals seemed to be brewing again, and Pompey told Cicero that he believed Crassus was supporting Clodius and Caius Cato, the youth who had accused him of dictatorship in 59 BC and was now tribune. He even claimed that Crassus was plotting to murder him, and once again relapsed into morbid fears and sent for extra bodyguards from his rural clients. Mistrustful of Crassus, there were indications that Pompey was also beginning to wonder whether or not he still needed Caesar. The problems of maintaining the grain supply did not yield to an easy or swift solution, and were made worse because the Treasury was seriously short of funds. Cato had not yet returned with the wealth of Cyprus to swell the coffers. Since 59 BC the Republic had lost a major source of revenue through the distribution of the public land in Campania. Cicero and others now advocated repealing Caesar’s law to return this important source of income to the State. Cicero does not seem to have believed that Pompey was firmly opposed to such a move. Caesar’s legislation was under threat, and so from different quarters was his command. A tribune seems to have proposed his 260

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immediate recall, while one of the favoured candidates for the consulship for 55 BC was openly eager to replace Caesar after his own year of office. This was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, descendant of the man who had ridden on an elephant and helped to settle Transalpine Gaul, and his family connection to the region helped his case. It was not his first attack on Caesar, for he had been one of the praetors who in early 58 BC had questioned the validity of Caesar’s acts as consul. Cicero described him as a man for whom the consulship was practically his birthright. This time Caesar was in some ways the victim of his own success, since it could be argued that the public thanksgiving he had received after his great victories showed that the war had been won, and therefore that there was no need for him to remain for the full five years of his command. Once again, Pompey was not believed to be wholly averse to this, while Crassus simply said nothing. His recent support for Clodius, which was widely perceived even if never open, had been a reminder that he was still powerful and that Pompey could not afford to ignore him. The latter had his new command, had just been voted a substantial budget by the Senate to fund his activities and seemed to be considering whether it was worthwhile maintaining the alliance. The triumvirate seemed on the point of crumbling.10

In later years what followed was seen as a fairly public summit meeting, where the triumvirs agreed to carve up the Roman world to their mutual advantage. Suetonius says that: ‘Caesar made Pompey and Crassus come to Luca, a city in his province, where he persuaded them to seek a second consulship, thwart Domitius, and secure for him a five year extension to his provincial command.’11 Appian and Plutarch talk of 200 senators trudging north to Luca with their entourages – he claims that no less than 120 lictors were counted – to wait outside while the three great men hammered out their deal. The story evidently grew with the telling, and the few accounts written nearer to the time suggest less organisation and much last-minute improvisation. Crassus became worried about Pompey’s new strength sometime in the spring of 56 BC and hurried north to Ravenna, just inside Caesar’s province, for a meeting about Cicero’s fresh attempt to revive the question of the Campanian land. Pompey was due to leave Rome on 11

April, going first to Sardinia and then to Africa as part of his responsibilities for overseeing the corn supply. Cicero claims that he at least had no inkling of this, but before embarking on his official trip Pompey diverted to Luca, on the west coast of Cisalpine Gaul, to see Caesar. In Cicero’s account the natural inference would be that Crassus was not present and that Caesar represented his interests, but this is by no means certain. The outcome of the 261

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meetings was, as the later sources maintained, a pact for Pompey and Crassus to stand for the consulship in 55 BC, and a five-year extension of Caesar’s command. In this way, since after their consulship Pompey and Crassus could expect major provincial commands, all three men would have armies and formal
imperium
for the next few years.

The deal suggests that Caesar was less of a junior partner in the association than had been the case when the triumvirate was formed, and it is tempting to see him as the prime mover in arranging it. His personal charm was doubtless a major asset in calming the hostility and suspicion between Pompey and Crassus. Perhaps he devised the compromise, but the secret of this, just like the original alliance, was that each man realised that the association would be to his own personal advantage. As consuls, and then proconsuls with armies, Pompey and Crassus would have personal security and the ability to act. It also gave them the option of seeking new military adventures, something that seems now to have had particular appeal to Crassus, who was beginning to feel overshadowed by the martial achievements not just of Pompey, but also of Caesar. Pompey was also satisfied. More than either of the others he had appeared in recent months to have been drifting away, but in the end he would not have been as well off if the triumvirate had been broken. Even if he turned against Caesar, he would still not have become acceptable to many leading nobles in the Senate, and would have continued to face the criticism of Cato and the hostility of Clodius. It is significant that he had not accepted the suggestion of a friend some months before that he divorce Julia. Love may have been part of the reason, but it is also likely that he felt that for the moment a connection with Caesar remained a major asset. At its most basic level, it remained a useful thing to have his son-in-law in command of an army stationed in northern Italy, especially until he had troops of his own to command. In many ways all three triumvirs gained more from the agreement in 56 BC

than their original association.12

It took time for the extent and full implication of the deal to be realised. Cicero seems to have been genuinely shocked, but quickly accepted the reality of the situation and came to terms with it. At the beginning of April he had won a personal victory over Clodius and his family when he successfully defended the young aristocrat Marcus Caelius Rufus. The latter was accused of orchestrating political violence, murder and the attempted murder of Clodius’ sister Clodia. Cicero’s speech was a skilful and highly vicious character assassination of the pair, raking up the old allegations of incest along with many other things, speaking of ‘that woman’s husband –

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I’m sorry I mean her brother’. This personal revenge may well have made the subsequent renewal of the triumvirate easier to bear. Cicero’s brother Quintus was one of Pompey’s legates on the grain commission and was given a blunt reminder to pass on that Pompey and Caesar had not supported his recall to have him criticise either of them. Probably at the beginning of May, Cicero delivered a speech in the Senate arguing against the moves to remove Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul from Caesar’s control and send out a new governor. His praise of Caesar was fulsome, and, so he claimed, justified by the victories won in Gaul whatever their past differences:13

Under the command of Caius Caesar, we have fought a war inside Gaul; in the past we have merely repelled attacks. Our generals always felt that these people needed to be driven back in by war . . .. Even Caius Marius himself whose divine and matchless courage protected the Roman people after dreadful disasters and casualties and who drove back hordes of Gauls who were flooding into Italy, did not attack them in their towns and lairs. . . . I see that Caius Caesar’s thinking has been very different. For he did not feel it sufficient to fight only against those already in arms against the Roman people, but felt that all of Gaul should be brought under our dominion. Therefore he has, with stunning good fortune, smashed in battle the greatest and fiercest tribes of Germans and Helvetii, and terrified the other peoples, checked them and brought under our domination and power of the Roman people; our general, our soldiers, and the arms of the Roman people have now made their way through regions and nations which till now have not even been known by story or written account.14

Backed by Cicero’s eloquence, and the combined weight of Pompey and Crassus, Caesar’s command was confirmed and later extended. The Senate also voted to accept responsibility for funding the extra legions Caesar had recruited, not, as Cicero declared, because he lacked resources from his provinces, but because it was unseemly to appear stingy with such a distinguished servant of the Republic. Caesar was secure in his command, but it required rather more effort to ensure that Crassus and Pompey would be the consuls for 55 BC. Disturbances orchestrated by the tribune Caius Cato, and apparently backed by Clodius, prevented elections being held in the last months of 56 BC. Both men had evidently been persuaded to work with the renewed triumvirate. The decision was a pragmatic one, but Crassus may also have persuaded them, since he was widely believed to have been 263

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backing them in recent years. Pompey and Crassus had not declared their candidature until after the legal date, and the consul due to preside over the elections, Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, refused to exempt them from this rule. Therefore the elections were not held until January 55 BC, after Marcellinus had laid down his office, and so were conducted under a temporary official known as an
interrex
, who permitted them to stand. The other candidates had largely fallen away, but Ahenobarbus was never a man to back down and refused to give up his ambitions.

Crassus’ son Publius had lately returned from Gaul, and brought with him a large number of soldiers given special leave to take part in the elections. Some were officers – centurions perhaps, and certainly tribunes and prefects

– but others were probably just burly members of the rank and file. The election day was marked by huge violence in which Ahenobarbus was wounded and one of his attendants killed, before Crassus and Pompey were declared the victors. The triumvirate was once again firmly in control of Rome, although it had taken far more brute force than on the first occasion. Intimidation prevented Cato the Younger from winning the praetorship. At the election of the curule aediles the fighting was so widespread and brutal that even Pompey ended up spattered by someone else’s blood. With Pompey and Crassus as consuls it would be difficult for anyone to attack them, but after their year of office was over things might change, especially if one or both set out for provincial commands. Clodius was still there and it was hard to judge what he would do in the future, while men like Ahenobarbus and Cato were even more bitterly opposed to the triumvirs than they had been in the past. In Rome power was never permanent, but for the moment the triumvirate were riding high.15

To the Atlantic

Although there was to be considerable military activity in Gaul in 56 BC, the operations were on a significantly smaller scale than in the previous years. With the Helvetii, Ariovistus and the Belgic confederation defeated, it was with some justification that Caesar felt that ‘Gaul was at peace’. He did not have a major campaign planned for the summer, which meant that it was easier for him to loiter in Cisalpine Gaul until well into April and arrange matters at Luca. There was no obvious opponent left in Gaul and it may well be that he was once again considering diverting his attentions to the Balkans. In the following year he would lead an expedition to Britain, and it is highly likely 264