Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (9 page)

45

the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

The two consuls for 87 BC swiftly fell out and one, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, was declared an enemy of the Republic and expelled from office after attempts to undo Sulla’s legislation. Copying Sulla, Cinna fled to one of the armies still engaged in stamping out the last embers of the Italian revolt and persuaded the soldiers to support him. Soon he was joined by Marius who had returned from Africa with a mass of volunteers, who were little more than a rabble. Most notorious of all were the Bardyaei, a band of freed slaves who formed Marius’ personal bodyguard and often acted as executioners. Near the end of the year Marius and Cinna marched on Rome and were ineffectually opposed by the consul Cnaeus Octavius, a man of high principle but very modest talent. The ambiguous behaviour of Pompeius Strabo, who was still at the head of his army and had been angling for a second consulship for several years, only made matters worse. Sulla had sent Quintus Pompeius, his fellow consul for 88 BC, to take charge of Strabo’s legions. Quintus and Strabo were distant cousins, but that did not prevent the former from being murdered by the latter’s legionaries, almost certainly with their commander’s approval. Strabo may well have been unsure of which side to join and probably made overtures to both. In the event he joined Octavius, but failed to support him effectively and their forces were defeated. Strabo died soon afterwards, perhaps from disease or just possibly after being struck by lightning.

Octavius refused to flee when the enemy entered the city and was killed as he sat in his chair of office on the Janiculum Hill. His severed head was brought to Cinna, who had it fastened to the Rostra in the Forum. It was soon joined by the heads of a number of other senators. In our sources Marius receives the chief blame for the wave of executions that followed, but it seems likely that Cinna played as full a part. The famous orator Marcus Antonius – the grandfather of the Mark Antony who would follow Caesar

– was killed, as were the father and older brother of Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Lucius Caesar and his brother Caesar Strabo. A few men were given sham trials, but most were simply killed as soon as they were caught. Sulla’s house was burned to the ground in an important symbolic gesture, for a senator’s residence was not only the location for so much political activity but was a visible sign of his importance. His wife and family were sought out, but managed to evade capture and eventually joined him in Greece. If Sulla’s seizure of Rome had been shocking, the brutality of this second occupation was far worse. Marius and Cinna were elected consuls for 86

BC, but the former died suddenly a few weeks after taking up the office. He was seventy.25

46

Caesar’s Childhood

The role, if any, of Caesar’s father in these events is unknown. Nor is it possible to say whether or not the young Caesar was actually in Rome on either of the occasions when the city was stormed, or saw the corpses floating in the Tiber and the heads hanging from the Rostra. The education of young aristocrats was highly traditional and they were supposed to learn much by watching their elders conducting their daily affairs. Yet in these years public life was so disordered and often violent that they were inevitably absorbing a very different impression of the Republic to earlier generations. Worse was to come.

47

III

The First Dictator

‘Lists of proscribed people were posted not only in Rome, but in every city in Italy. There was nowhere that remained free from the stain of bloodshed – no god’s temple, no guest-friend’s hearth, no family home. Husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, sons in the arms of their mothers. Only a tiny proportion of the dead were killed because they had angered or made an enemy of someone; far more were killed for their property, and even the executioners tended to say that this man was killed by his large house, this one by his garden, that one by his warm springs.’

–
Plutarch, early second century AD.
1

Caesar’s father died suddenly, collapsing one morning while in the act of putting on his shoes. His son was nearly sixteen, but had probably already formally become a man, laying aside the purple-bordered
toga praetexta

– worn only by boys and magistrates – and replacing this with the plain
toga virilis
of an adult. As part of this ceremony the boy also removed the
bulla
charm from around his neck and laid it aside forever. For the first time in his life he was shaved, and his hair was cut in the short style appropriate for an adult citizen, rather than the somewhat longer fashion acceptable for a boy. There was no fixed age for this ceremony, and like so many other aspects of Roman education it was left to each family to decide. Usually it occurred between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, although cases are known of individuals as young as twelve and as old as eighteen. Equally often the ceremony took place at the Liberalia festival, which occurred on 17 March, though again there was no legal obligation to hold it on this day. Apart from ceremonies within the household, an aristocratic child would be paraded through the heart of the city by his father and his father’s friends, symbolising the son’s admission as an adult into the wider community of the Republic. After passing through the Forum, the group would ascend the Capitoline Hill to perform a sacrifice 48

the first dictator

in the Temple of Jupiter, making an offering to Iuventus, the deity of youth.2

After his father’s death Caesar was not simply an adult, but also the
paterfamilias
or head of the household. There were few close male relatives to guide his future career, but the young man from the beginning displayed considerable self-confidence. Within a year he broke off the betrothal arranged for him at some earlier date by his parents. This was to a certain Cossutia, whose father was an equestrian not a senator. Her family was very wealthy, and would doubtless have provided a large dowry, but although this money would have been very useful for launching a political career the alliance offered few other advantages. It is possible that the couple were actually married, rather than simply betrothed, for the word used by Suetonius often means an actual divorce, while Plutarch clearly counted Cossutia as one of Caesar’s wives. Their age makes this a little unlikely, but certainly not impossible. Whatever the precise nature of the union, it was broken. Instead Caesar wed Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, a fellow patrician, consul for four consecutive years from 87–84 BC, and the most powerful man in Rome.3

It is not clear precisely why Cinna chose to honour Caesar in this way. Clearly the execution of two Julii Caesares did not count against him, which in itself illustrates just how separate the two branches of the family were. Marius was the boy’s uncle, which doubtless brought favour, but the importance of this link had diminished to some extent with Marius’ death early in 86 BC. In the last weeks of his life it is true that he and Cinna had nominated the boy for the post of
Flamen Dialis
, one of Rome’s most prestigious priesthoods. The previous incumbent, Lucius Cornelius Merula, had been made suffect (acting) consul in 87 BC by Octavius to replace the dismissed Cinna. When the Marian and Cinnan forces captured Rome, Merula had anticipated execution by committing suicide. The
flamen
had to be a patrician married to a patrician by an ancient, rarely used form of the wedding ceremony known as
confarreatio
. Caesar was too young to take up the post in 86 BC and the arrangement of the marriage to the patrician Cornelia in 84 BC was in part to prepare him for his priesthood. Yet it is hard to believe that Cinna’s daughter was the only available patrician girl to be married to the
flamen
designate, or that the desire to ensure that Caesar was qualified for the priesthood overruled the normal priorities of a senator looking for a son-in-law. Indeed the youth was in fact not really eligible for the priesthood at all, because a
flamen
was supposed to be the son of patrician parents married according to the ritual of
confarreatio
and Aurelia 49

the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

was plebian. Cinna must have had a high opinion of the young Caesar. If so, then the decision to make him
Flamen Dialis
seems more than a little peculiar. The flaminate was one of Rome’s most ancient religious orders. There were fifteen of these priests all told, each dedicated to the worship of a particular deity, but three were of far greater importance and prestige than the rest. These were the priests of Quirinus (
Flamen Quirinalis
), Mars (
Flamen Martialis
), and Jupiter (
Flamen Dialis
). Jupiter was Rome’s most important god, and his
flamen
was correspondingly the most senior. The great antiquity of the flaminate was attested by the host of strange taboos binding him, for the
flamen
and his wife were considered to be permanently engaged in the propitiation of the god, and so could not risk any form of ritual pollution. Amongst many other things, the
Flamen Dialis
was not allowed to take an oath, to pass more than three nights away from the city, or to see a corpse, an army on campaign or anyone working on a festival day. In addition he could not ride a horse, have a knot anywhere within his house or even in his clothing, and could not be presented with a table without food since he was never to appear to be in want. Furthermore, he could only be shaved or have his hair cut by a slave using a bronze knife –

surely another indication of antiquity – and the cut hair, along with other things such as nail clippings, had to be buried in a secret place. The
flamen
wore a special hat called the
apex
, which appears to have been made from fur, had a point on top and flaps over the ears. These restrictions made a normal senatorial career impossible.4

The prestige of the
Flamen Dialis
was very great, and in the last century holders of this priesthood had asserted their right to sit in the Senate and hold magistracies that did not require them to leave Rome. This required them to be exempted from the oath normally taken by any magistrate at the beginning of his term of office. The restrictions preventing the
flamen
from holding military command could not be bypassed so easily. Merula’s consulship was unlikely to have occurred without the peculiar circumstances of Cinna’s deposition in 87 BC. He claimed later that he had not wanted to stand, but was presumably voted into office by the
Comitia Centuriata
in the normal way. The taboos imposed by his priesthood ensured that he could not play a very active part in events, and it may be that this was why Octavius had wanted him as a colleague. When Cinna and Marius seized Rome, Merula had voluntarily laid down his consulship but swiftly realised that this would not be enough to save his life. He went to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill and there removed the
apex
hat, formally laying down his office, before cutting his wrists with a knife. He died roundly 50

the first dictator

cursing Cinna and his supporters, but was careful to leave a note explaining that he had been careful to avoid polluting his priesthood.5

Caesar and Cornelia were married by the peculiar
confarreatio
ceremony. The name came from that of emmer wheat –
far
in Latin – which was used to make a loaf for a sacrificial offering to
Jupiter Farreus
. This was carried ahead of the bride, and may well have been eaten by the couple as part of the ritual. Ten witnesses needed to be present and the ceremony was supposed to be conducted by two of Rome’s most senior priests, the
Pontifex Maximus
and the
Flamen Dialis
. Since the latter post remained vacant after Merula’s death this part of the ritual cannot have been fulfilled. Given that Caesar was marked out for this post and therefore that his wife would become the
flaminica
, their wedding was also marked by the sacrifice of a sheep. Afterwards, their heads veiled, the couple sat on seats covered in sheepskin.6

The selection of Caesar for the vacant priesthood was a considerable honour, which would make him an important figure in the Republic and a member of the Senate at a very young age. Yet this prominence came at the price of severely limiting opportunities for his future career. At best Caesar might hope to reach the praetorship like his father, but he could not have left Rome to govern a province and certainly would have had no opportunity for military glory. Given the family’s fairly modest achievements in the past, a career of this sort may have been considered ample reward for the boy, for certainly no one would have guessed at his eventual achievements. However, there is no evidence that it was felt that lack of talent or poor health would anyway have prevented the lad from doing well in the normal way – Caesar had not yet begun to suffer from the epileptic fits to which he would be prone in later life. The marriage with Cornelia also suggests that the boy was not seen as wholly lacking in merit. Cinna and Marius clearly agreed on the appointment in the first place, and the former maintained the decision after his ally’s death, but in the end we cannot know their reasons, or indeed the attitude of the young Caesar towards it. Whatever their thinking, there does not seem to have been any great urgency about the whole business, and although one of our sources claims that he was actually invested with the flaminate, it is most probable that the other authors were right to say that this did not actually occur. At first his youth may have been an obstacle. More importantly Cinna himself could not make the actual appointment, which had to be done in accordance with a strict procedure by another of Rome’s senior priests, the
Pontifex Maximus
. At the time this was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who was not a friend of the new regime, having already survived a murder attempt by one of Cinna’s henchmen. An ex-consul and 51

the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

a famous jurist – the
Pontifex Maximus
was not bound by such oppressive rules as the
flamen
and so could follow an active public career – Scaevola may have objected to Caesar on technical grounds, given Aurelia’s plebian status, or perhaps simply refused to bow to pressure from Cinna. Ultimately this was a very minor issue and Cinna’s preoccupation with other, far more important matters ensured that it was left unresolved.7