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country," was echoed by Pompeius himself. Such was the ominous language which resounded in the Senatorial camp as soon as it was pitched in Epirus, and the opposite shores assumed the character of a foreign and hostile strand. The consuls listened to it without a murmur, for it was their own champion who held it or allowed it. "He left the city," says Cicero, "not because he could not defend it; and Italy, not as driven out of it; but this was his design from the first, to move every land and sea, to call to arms the kings of the barbarians, to lead savage nations into Italy, not as captives, but as conquerors. He is determined to reign like Sulla, as a king over his subjects; and many there are who applaud this atrocious design."

The flight of the consuls and the Senate left Cæsar in possession of the centre of his enemy's position. He might decide at his leisure on which wing of their army he should first concentrate his forces. Meanwhile the occupation of Italy and Rome, which opened its gates to receive him, gave him command of all the material and moral resources he required. Cicero, whom he met in Campania, declined to follow him; and his scruples Cæsar could afford to respect. To the citizens he explained the substantial justice of his claims, which the consuls had deserted their post rather than concede; but it was of more importance to assure them that, in spite of that desertion, they had no slaughter nor pillage to fear from him. He entered the city unattended; and while he engaged to give 2000 sesterces to each of his soldiers, and 300 to every citizen, he made no requisitions to supply himself with the sums he needed, but demanded only the treasure hoarded in the temple of Saturn, beneath the Capitol. It was popularly believed that the gold here accumulated was the actual ransom of the city which the Romans had paid to Brennus, and Camillus had recovered from him. A curse had been denounced against the sacrilegious hand which should remove it for any purpose but to repel a Gallic invasion. The tribune Metellus forbade it to be seized, but Cæsar pushed him aside: "The fear of a Gallic invasion," he said, "is forever at an end. I have subdued the Gauls."

From this time affairs at Rome resumed their usual course, except that the civil government having been withdrawn, the city was necessarily placed for a time under military control. But one day's interruption of the usual supplies would have thrown the vast population into confusion, and the granaries of the city-Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa-were all held by Pompeian lieutenants. Cæsar's care was immediately directed to the recovery of these provinces. The legion which he sent to Sardinia was received by the inhabitants with open arms. Cato abandoned Sicily as soon as Curio appeared before it. Africa still remained unconquered,

CHAP. XLIV.

CÆSAR ENTERS SPAIN.

351

and thither Curio transported the troops under his command. Here, however, the Pompeians held out, and, supported by the Numidian chieftain Juba, engaged their assailant upon his landing, and speedily overpowered him. Curio was slain, his troops were carried hastily back to Italy, and Africa remained Pompeian.

Cæsar had left the city under the control of his lieutenant, Æmilius Lepidus, and gave the command in Italy to Antonius, while he set out himself for Spain. "I go," he said, "to engage an army without a general: I shall return to attack a general without an army." The three Iberian provinces were governed by Varro, Afranius, and Petreius. The first was a civilian and a scholar, without experience of arms or interest in the cause he served; the second was a weak profligate; the third alone a veteran of courage and loyalty, though destitute of the higher qualities of a general. Between them there was little concert. But Cæsar was detained on his march by the defection of Massilia, which, already well-inclined to the side of the nobles, by whom the province had been organized and long administered, was now secured to them by the energy of Domitius, who had escaped from Italy and thrown himself into it. To save delay Cæsar left a large portion of his forces to blockade this place, and boldly entered Spain, where only three legions had preceded him. Afranius and Petreius confronted these forces at Ilerda. Cæsar was in want of money, and he soon found himself straitened for provisions. His position between the waters of the Segre and the Cinga was threatened by a sudden flood, which swept away his bridges. The enemy exulted in the certainty of his destruction; but by the use of light coracles, such as he had seen in Britain, he maintained his communications; and when he brought the two armies once more face to face, a parley ensued, and the Pompeian forces with little hesitation passed over to his side. Such was the fame of Cæsar's exploits, and such his reputation for generosity, throughout the ranks of the Roman soldiery.

When Spain was thus speedily conquered Cæsar departed in all haste for Massilia, where the inhabitants, confined to their walls by two defeats at sea, were already reduced to extremity. They surrendered to him, and delivered up their arms, their vessels, and their public treasure, in anticipation of his accustomed clemency. Domitius, however, escaped once more and rejoined his associates in Epirus. Massilia was allowed to retain her independence, but her disasters seemed to shatter the foundations of her prosperity, and she never recovered her former eminence as an emporium of ancient commerce. The Western provinces of the empire were now completely Cæsarian. Thus secure in his rear, the conqueror could direct his undivided forces against the only general who could vent

ure to measure himself with him, and from that general he had just wrested the principal strength of his army.

Cæsar was still at Massilia when he learned that the people of Rome had declared him dictator. Many of the prescribed formalities had been omitted, but the strictness of legal forms had been little observed on many recent occasions. What did it matter, however, that the dictator was created in this instance by the prætor and not by the consul, with the acclamations of the people and not by the suffrage of the Senate? It was better at least that Cæsar should rule under a known historical title than with none at all, and there was no possibility of investing him with any title in the regular form. The people, who saw the hateful rule of the dictator wielded at last by a champion of their own, rejoiced in the master they had chosen, and forgot for the moment that Cæsar ruled by the army, and not by themselves. Cæsar himself did not forget it, neither did his soldiers. The ninth legion mutinied at Placentia, and demanded the rewards he had promised them at Brundisium. But he suppressed the revolt with firmness and severity. His position was once more secure.

It was for fiscal measures that the creation of a dictator was immediately demanded at this crisis. When, in the middle of the seventh century of the city, the futile laws against usury had been allowed to fall into disuse, a consul was found to carry a sweeping measure for the reduction of all debts by three fourths. The money-lenders, who demanded interest from twelve to forty per cent., exclaimed loudly against this confiscation of their property; but it was clearly impossible to maintain the powers of government unless such exorbitant usury was curtailed from time to time by arbitrary expedients. Nor did the class of money-lenders suffer permanently from this check to their gains. The spirit of luxury and speculation which grew with the wealth and greatness of the empire gave a fresh impulse to their transactions. Large classes of citizens became bowed to the ground under the burden of their obligations; the conspiracy of Catilina, conducted by political adventurers, had been mainly supported by the exigencies of these impoverished debtors. Among the various interests evoked in favor of Cæsar's ambitious schemes, none were more attached to him than those of the debtors and repudiators. His hereditary connection with the party opposed to the noblest and wealthiest classes, his reputed familiarity with Catilina, his own early embarrassments and consequent laxity of principles, all pointed him out as the destined leader of a great fiscal revolution. But the anticipations thus formed of him were deceived. Assailed by clamorous importunity, the dictator, absolute as he was, refused to yield to the cry for confiscation. He appointed arbiters for the valuation

CHAP. XLIV.

CESAR ELECTED CONSUL.

353

of debtors' property, and insisted on its sale; all he required of the creditors was that they would forego their claims for excessive interest. He seems further to have resorted to the old expedient of the tribunes, in distributing grants of land among the bankrupts, and relieving the state from the dangers of a needy aristocracy.

An ample largess of corn added to the general contentment. But many were the claimants on Cæsar's generosity. All who had deemed themselves aggrieved by the late government looked to him for redress. Of the exiles whom Pompeius had condemned in the vigorous exercise of his last consulship several offered him their services, and prayed for recall. Of this class Milo alone, and Antonius, the consul who had taken the field against Catilina, were excepted from the amnesty. Cæsar held the dictatorship only eleven days, and did not even appoint a master of the horse. Before resigning it he presided at the comitia of the tribes, and caused himself to be nominated consul together with Servilius Isauricus. The other magistracies were conferred upon his steadfast adherents with every due formality, and before issuing from Rome to join his legions at Brundisium he declared war against the public enemy who was allying himself with foreign powers, at the Latin feria, on the Alban Mount. Nothing was now wanting to the regularity of the government : neither the decrees of the Senate, for he had assembled more than half that body at Rome, nor the election of the people, the sanction of the armies, and the taking of the auspices on the spot appointed by custom and religion. Cæsar, as proconsul, was a rebel from the moment he quitted his province; but as soon as he became consul, legitiinately installed, the right in the eyes of the Romans passed at once to his side, while his adversaries were straightway transformed into enemies and traitors. This they seemed themselves in some sort to acknowledge; for, although there were as many as two hundred senators in the camp of Pompeius, they dared not enact a law, nor hold an election, nor confer an imperium. The representative of the people had become the guardian of usage and public order, while the champion of the oligarchy derived his arbitrary power from the passions of a turbulent camp. Such was the position the rival parties might now seem to assume; but the character of the antagonists themselves imparted to it the character of personal defiance. Pompeius and Cæsar represented to the citizens the one the venerable oak, the other the divine thunderbolt that shatters and destroys it.

CHAPTER XLV.

Review of the forces pitted against each other.-Cæsar crosses into Epirus and blockades Pompeius in his camp at Petra.-Pompeius makes a successful sally.-Cæsar withdraws from the coast, and the two armies meet at Pharsalia, in Thessaly.—Cæsar's great victory.—Flight of Pompeius.— He seeks an asylum at the court of Ptolemæus, king of Egypt.-His assassination.-Cæsar follows in pursuit, and reaches Alexandria from Syria, and takes the part of Cleopatra against Ptolemæus.-The Alexandrine War.-Cæsar in great peril, finally successful.-Death of Ptolemæus.— Cæsar engages in war with Pharnaces.-His easy victory.-State of affairs in the city.-Cæsar a second and a third time dictator.-His campaign in Africa. Battle of Thapsus; discomfiture of the republicans, and suicide of Cato. (B.c. 48-46.)

POMPEIUS, relying on the support of the Eastern potentates, who still regarded him as the greatest captain and statesman in the world, had appointed his allies to meet at Thessalonica. Deiotarus and Dorilaus, princes of Galatia; Rhascuporis and Sadales of Thrace, Tarcondimotus of Cilicia, Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Commagene, were among the most conspicuous chiefs who flocked to his standard, and brought with them the horsemen, the bowmen, the slingers, and all the various armaments of the East. These were only the auxiliaries; his main body consisted of five Roman legions which he had carried over from Italy, together with four others which had been summoned from the Eastern provinces, while C. Metellus Scipio was expected to bring two more from his distant government in Syria. Nine complete legions may have amounted to 45,000 men; the cavalry and aux iliaries may have swelled this number to 100,000, while the motley forces of the allies defied all calculation. But these swarms were more than could be maintained together, and even of the legionaries the greater number were raw levies, which required much time and care in training. Meantime the plans of their commander were even more disconcerted by the rival pretensions of his lieutenants, both Roman and barbarian. Pompeius found himself thwarted especially by the chiefs of the Senate who surrounded him. The Lentuli and Marcelli, the Domitii and Metelli, the renegade Labienus, the vanquished Afranius, Cato also and Cicero, who had recently arrived at the camp, formed with many others a council of war, which filled the general's tent with dis

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