The History of Rome, Theodor Mommsen [good english books to read txt] 📗

the populace, especially the freedmen and slaves, had lost in Clodius their patron and future deliverer;(11) the requisite excitement was thus easily aroused. After the bloody corpse had been exposed for show at the orators' platform in the Forum and the speeches appropriate to the occasion had been made, the riot broke forth. The seat of the perfidious aristocracy was destined as a funeral pile for the great liberator; the mob carried the body to the senate-house, and set the building on fire. Thereafter the multitude proceeded to the front of Milo's house and kept it under siege, till his band drove off the assailants by discharges of arrows. They passed on to the house of Pompeius and of his consular candidates, of whom the former was saluted as dictator and the latter as consuls, and thence to the house of the interrex Marcus Lepidus, on whom devolved the conduct of the consular elections. When the latter, as in duty bound, refused to make arrangements for the elections immediately, as the clamorous multitude demanded, he was kept during five days under siege in his dwelling house.

Dictatorship of Pompeius

But the instigators of these scandalous scenes had overacted their part. Certainly their lord and master was resolved to employ this favourable episode in order not merely to set aside Milo, but also to seize the dictatorship; he wished, however, to receive it not from a mob of bludgeon-men, but from the senate. Pompeius brought up troops to put down the anarchy which prevailed in the capital, and which had in reality become intolerable to everybody; at the same time he now enjoined what he had hitherto requested, and the senate complied. It was merely an empty subterfuge, that on the proposal of Cato and Bibulus the proconsul Pompeius, retaining his former offices, was nominated as "consul without colleague" instead of dictator on the 25th of the intercalary month(12) (702)—a subterfuge, which admitted an appellation labouring under a double incongruity(13) for the mere purpose of avoiding one which expressed the simple fact, and which vividly reminds us of the sagacious resolution of the waning patriciate to concede to the plebeians not the consulship, but only the consular power.(14)

Changes of in the Arrangement of Magistracies and the Jury-System

Thus in legal possession of full power, Pompeius set to work and proceeded with energy against the republican party which was powerful in the clubs and the jury-courts. The existing enactments as to elections were repeated and enforced by a special law; and by another against electioneering intrigues, which obtained retrospective force for all offences of this sort committed since 684, the penalties hitherto imposed were augmented. Still more important was the enactment, that the governorships, which were by far the more important and especially by far the more lucrative half of official life, should be conferred on the consuls and praetors not immediately on their retirement from the consulate or praetorship, but only after the expiry of other five years; an arrangement which of course could only come into effect after four years, and therefore made the filling up of the governorships for the next few years substantially dependent on decrees of senate which were to be issued for the regulation of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section ruling the senate at the moment. The jury-commissions were left in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea, and—what was perhaps still more important—the liberty of speech in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates and the time of speaking apportioned to each were restricted by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which had prevailed of adducing, in addition to the witnesses as to facts, witnesses to character or -laudatores-, as they were called, in favour of the accused was prohibited. The obsequious senate further decreed on the suggestion of Pompeius that the country had been placed in peril by the quarrel on the Appian Way; accordingly a special commission was appointed by an exceptional law for all crimes connected with it, the members of which were directly nominated by Pompeius. An attempt was also made to give once more a serious importance to the office of the censors, and by that agency to purge the deeply disordered burgess-body of the worst rabble.

All these measures were adopted under the pressure of the sword. In consequence of the declaration of the senate that the country was in danger, Pompeius called the men capable of service throughout Italy to arms and made them swear allegiance for all contingencies; an adequate and trustworthy corps was temporarily stationed at the Capitol; at every stirring of opposition Pompeius threatened armed intervention, and during the proceedings at the trial respecting the murder of Clodius stationed contrary to all precedent, a guard over the place of trial itself.

Humiliation of the Republicans

The scheme for the revival of the censorship failed, because among the servile majority of the senate no one possessed sufficient moral courage and authority even to become a candidate for such an office. On the other hand Milo was condemned by the jurymen (8 April 702) and Cato's candidature for the consulship of 703was frustrated. The opposition of speeches and pamphlets received through the new judicial ordinance a blow from which it never recovered; the dreaded forensic eloquence was thereby driven from the field of politics, and thenceforth felt the restraints of monarchy. Opposition of course had not disappeared either from the minds of the great majority of the nation or even wholly from public life—to effect that end the popular elections, the jury-courts, and literature must have been not merely restricted, but annihilated. Indeed, in these very transactions themselves, Pompeius by his unskilfulness and perversity helped the republicans to gain even under his dictatorship several triumphs which he severely felt. The special measures, which the rulers took to strengthen their power, were of course officially characterized as enactments made in the interest of public tranquillity and order, and every burgess, who did not desire anarchy, was described as substantially concurring in them. But Pompeius pushed this transparent fiction so far, that instead of putting safe instruments into the special commission for the investigation of the last tumult, he chose the most respectable men of all parties, including even Cato, and applied his influence over the court essentially to maintain order, and to render it impossible for his adherents as well as for his opponents to indulge in the scenes of disturbance customary in the courts of this period. This neutrality of the regent was discernible in the judgments of the special court. The jurymen did not venture to acquit Milo himself; but most of the subordinate persons accused belonging to the party of the republican opposition were acquitted, while condemnation inexorably befell those who in the last riot had taken part for Clodius, or in other words for the regents, including not a few of Caesar's and of Pompeius' own most intimate friends—even Hypsaeus his candidate for the consulship, and the tribunes of the people Plancus and Rufus, who had directed the -emeute- in his interest. That Pompeius did not prevent their condemnation for the sake of appearing impartial, was one specimen of his folly; and a second was, that he withal in matters quite indifferent violated his own laws to favour his friends— appearing for example as a witness to character in the trial of Plancus, and in fact protecting from condemnation several accused persons specially connected with him, such as Metellus Scipio. As usual, he wished here also to accomplish opposite things; in attempting to satisfy the duties at once of the impartial regent and of the party-chief, he fulfilled neither the one nor the other, and was regarded by public opinion with justice as a despotic regent, and by his adherents with equal justice as a leader who either could not or would not protect his followers.

But, although the republicans were still stirring and were even refreshed by an isolated success here and there, chiefly through the blunders of Pompeius, the object which the regents had proposed to themselves in that dictatorship was on the whole attained, the reins were drawn tighter, the republican party was humbled, and the new monarchy was strengthened. The public began to reconcile themselves to the latter. When Pompeius not long after recovered from a serious illness, his restoration was celebrated throughout Italy with the accompanying demonstrations of joy which are usual on such occasions in monarchies. The regents showed themselves satisfied; as early as the 1st of August 702 Pompeius resigned his dictatorship, and shared the consulship with his client Metellus Scipio.

CHAPTER IX

Death of Crassus—Rupture between the Joint Rulers

Crassus Goes to Syria

Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads of the "three-headed monster," without any proper title to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak more accurately, his weight fell into the scale of Caesar against Pompeius. This part is not a too reputable one; but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open to be dealt with. What was offered to him was not much; but, when more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless, amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with the view of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius after concessions so extensive, Caesar gave to his old confederate Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war in Gaul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early as the beginning of 700; he had not even waited for the expiry of his consulship to depart. Full of impatient ardour he seemed desirous to redeem every minute with the view of making up for what he had lost, of gathering in the treasures of the east in addition to those of the west, of achieving the power and glory of a general as rapidly as Caesar, and with as little trouble as Pompeius.

Expedition against Parthia Resolved on

He found the Parthian war already commenced. The faithless conduct of Pompeius towards the Parthians has been already mentioned;(1) he had not respected the stipulated frontier of the Euphrates and had wrested several provinces from the Parthian empire for the benefit of Armenia, which was now a client state of Rome. King Phraates had submitted to this treatment; but after he had been murdered by his two sons Mithradates and Orodes, the new king Mithradates immediately declared war on the king of Armenia, Artavasdes, son of the recently deceased Tigranes (about 698).(2) This was at the same time a declaration of war against Rome; therefore as soon as the revolt of the Jews was suppressed, Gabinius, the able and spirited governor of Syria, led the legions over the Euphrates. Meanwhile, however, a revolution had occurred in the Parthian empire; the grandees of the kingdom, with the young, bold, and talented grand vizier at their head, had overthrown king Mithradates and placed his brother Orodes on the throne. Mithradates therefore made common cause with the Romans and resorted to the camp of Gabinius. Everything promised the best results to the enterprise of the Roman governor, when he unexpectedly received orders to conduct the king of Egypt back by force of arms to Alexandria.(3) He was obliged to obey; but, in the expectation of soon coming back, he induced the dethroned Parthian prince who solicited aid from him to commence the war in the meanwhile at his own hand. Mithradates did so; and Seleucia and Babylon declared for him; but the vizier captured Seleucia by assault, having been in person the first to mount the battlements, and in Babylon Mithradates himself was forced by famine to surrender, whereupon he was by his brother's orders put to death. His death was a palpable loss to the Romans; but it by no means put an end to the ferment in the Parthian empire, and the Armenian war continued. Gabinius, after ending the Egyptian campaign, was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable opportunity and resuming