Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic (42 page)

Except that, on the gravest and most insoluble problem of the day, this was becoming ever more tricky. Ironically, it was Caelius himself who had brought the issue to a head. Midway through 52 the news had reached Rome of Caesar’s victory at Alesia. The city had been full of dark forebodings about the situation in Gaul, and so the realisation that war bands of vengeful barbarians would not be sweeping southwards after all was greeted with an immense outpouring of relief. Twenty days of thanksgiving were voted by the
Senate, while Caelius, in his role as tribune, proposed a complementary bill of his own. By its terms Caesar was to be awarded a unique privilege: rather than being obliged to arrive at Rome in person to stand for the consulship – as he had had to do, for instance, in the previous decade – he was to have the right to run for election while remaining in Gaul. All nine of Caelius’ colleagues in the tribunate backed this proposal. The bill duly became law.

But this hardly settled the matter. Instead, it served to open a division in the Senate that was to widen with each passing month, polarising opinion in a way that was to grow steadily more dangerous, until it would finally yawn so unbridgeably that the entire Roman people would find themselves teetering on the edge of a fatal abyss. At the heart of the crisis lay the simple fact that Caesar, if he were permitted to progress seamlessly from Gaul to a second consulship, would at no stage be a private citizen. This, to many, was intolerable – for only a private citizen could be brought to trial. No sooner had Caelius’ bill been passed than Cato was fulminating against it. The criminal actions of Caesar’s first consulship had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. For almost a decade his enemies had been waiting for the opportunity to bring him to account. Now that the chance was nearing they had no intention of being denied their prey.

There were plenty who tried to reconcile the irreconcilable. Caelius, in bringing his bill, had been prompted by Cicero, who counted himself as a friend of both Caesar and Cato. Of course, too – and far more crucially – did Pompey. For a precarious few months he had succeeded in balancing the interests of his old ally and a host of Caesar’s opponents, Cato not least. Having at last won for himself the undisputed pre-eminence he had always craved, Pompey had no wish to see it threatened by having to choose between rival blocs of his supporters. Yet no matter how determinedly he closed his eyes to it, the dilemma refused go away. In
the debate on Caesar’s future neither side would accept any hint of a compromise. Both believed themselves utterly, implacably in the right.

For Caesar himself, still wading through the mud and slaughter of Gaul, it was an outrage that he, a proconsul of the Roman people, should be obliged to guard his back against the machinations of petty stay-at-homes like Cato. For almost a decade he had been exerting himself titanically in the cause of the Republic – and was he now, as his reward, to face the ignominy of a trial? Milo’s conviction offered a grim precedent of what might happen to him: the Forum ringed with steel, the defence intimidated, the conviction hurried through. Once he had been found guilty in a court of law, Caesar’s great achievements would help him not a whit. To the cheering of pygmies who had never in their lives rallied an ambushed legion, or planted an eagle beyond the icy northern seas, or defeated in one battle two colossal hordes of barbarians, he would be forced into exile, to spend the rest of his life in the company of men such as Verres, his expectations withering to nothing in the sunshine of Marseille.

Yet the more that Caesar vaunted the exceptional nature of his claims, the more disgusted his many enemies became. Unspoken behind his demands lay the menace of his army, swollen by illegal levies and battle-hardened in the fire of his adventuring. If Caesar were to return home as consul, then he would have no problem in ramming through legislation that would secure farms for his veterans, and a reservoir of armed strength for himself that would put even Pompey in the shade. Rather than permit that, Cato and his allies were prepared to go to any lengths. Interminable disputes over Caesar’s command began to dominate the Senate’s every session. How many legions should he be permitted to keep? When should a successor be nominated? When should Caesar himself have to stand down? ‘You know the form,’ drawled Caelius to
Cicero. ‘Some decision will be reached about Gaul. Then someone stands up and complains about it. Then someone else stands up in turn … and so it drags on – a long, elaborate game.’
³⁰

Yet arcane though the debate frequently appeared, Caelius’ yawns of boredom were an affectation. He was as penetrating an analyst of folly and ambition as anyone in Rome, and he was starting to recognise what was threatening: a catastrophe so appalling as to seem almost beyond belief. What had begun as a feud of the kind that had always existed in the Republic – indeed, had formed the essence of its politics – was now spreading a contagion of bitterness and antagonism far beyond the ranks of the two rival factions. Cato, determined to destroy Caesar once and for all, was repeating his favourite tactic by spurning all hint of compromise, seeking to isolate his enemy, arraying legitimacy and the name of the Republic itself against him. Caesar, for his part, was flooding Rome with bribes, wooing and cajoling his fellow citizens with all his effortless powers of charm. Most still wished to remain neutral. It was not their quarrel. Yet such were the stakes, they could not help but be caught up on the swell and wash of the arguments. Day by day, month by month, the Roman people were dividing into two. An ill-omened phrase, rarely spoken of as a foreboding since the dark days of Sulla, began to be whispered again: civil war.

Not that anyone truly believed that this could happen. Win over Pompey and win the argument – such was the expectation. The great man himself, desperately struggling to maintain control of the situation, vacillated. Still not wishing to alienate either side, he gave to Caesar with one hand and took away with the other. The problem with this strategy, as Caelius pointed out, was that ‘he lacks the cunning to keep his real views out of sight.’
³¹
Those views, by the summer of 51
BC
, were coming ever more clearly into focus. Cato’s grisly warnings were having their effect. Since Caesar’s ultimate sanction was his army, this could not help but strike Pompey
as a challenge to himself. Honour and vanity alike obliged him to dig in his heels. Rome’s greatest general could not appear to be nervous of the legions of Gaul. At the end of September he finally delivered an unambiguous verdict: Caesar should give up his command the following spring. This would be months before the consular elections, and provide Cato, or anyone else, with plenty of time to bring a prosecution. And what if Caesar put up a tribune to veto such a proposal and still sought to win the consulship while keeping hold of his army? Pompey was asked. The answer was softly spoken, but delivered with unmistakable menace: ‘You might as well ask, What if my son chooses to raise a stick against me?’
³²

Now at last the rupture between the two old allies was in the open. Pompey, the son-in-law, had claimed the fearsome rights of a Roman father over Caesar. The conqueror of Gaul was to be treated – and presumably punished – like a rebellious child. Since this was an attack as much upon Caesar’s self-regard as upon his interests, it was doubly unforgivable. But if he were to stay in the fight, then he would need fresh supporters. Above all, he would need a tribune, a heavyweight with the nerve and spirit to stand up to proposals that now had the full muscle of Pompey behind them. Unless they could be vetoed, Caesar knew that he was finished.

But when the results of the elections for 50
BC
were announced it appeared that his fortunes had taken a further turn for the worse. Ablest and most charismatic of the new tribunes was none other than Curio, reaping due reward for his spectacular theatre. He had been the darling of the Roman people for almost a decade, ever since the summer of Caesar’s consulship. Then, still in his twenties, he had dared to defy the menaces of the consul and been cheered for it in the streets. In the ensuing nine years the bad blood between the two men had worsened. As a result there could be no doubt who had most to fear from the energies of the combustible new
tribune. Surely now, people began to hope, Caesar would have to back down? Surely the crisis might be abating?

That winter, as Rome shivered, it certainly appeared so. The city, it struck Caelius, was numb with cold and lethargy. Most surprisingly of all, Curio’s tribunate had nothing to show for itself. As Caelius wrote to Cicero, in a tone of half regret, ‘it’s deep frozen’. But midway through his letter he suddenly had to eat his words: ‘I take back everything I wrote above, when I said that Curio was taking things coolly – because, to be sure, he’s suddenly started turning up the temperature – and how!’
³³
The news was astonishing, barely believable. Curio had swung behind his old enemy. The man who had confidently been expected to take the side of Cato and the constitutionalists had done just the opposite. Caesar had his tribune after all.

It was a sensational ambush. Caelius himself attributed his friend’s
volte-face
to irresponsibility, but that, as he would later recognise, was unfair. Others were to assume that Curio had been bought with Gallic gold, which was probably closer to the mark, but again did not tell the whole story. In fact, the tribune was playing a classic game. By working to outflank Cato’s obstructions, he hoped to do for Caesar what Caesar himself had done for Pompey – and to reap similar rewards. It was hardly principled, but Curio was doing nothing that had not been sanctioned by centuries of similar sharp practice.

Nor was Cato, nor was Pompey. Nor even was Caesar. Throughout the centuries of the Republic’s history, its great men had sought to win glory, and to do their enemies down. Nothing had changed over the years save the scale of opportunities on offer and the scope for mutual destruction that they had brought. To the Romans of a later age, mourning the death of their freedom, this was to be tragically clear. ‘By now,’ wrote Petronius of the Republic’s last generation, ‘the conquering Roman had the whole
world in his hand, the sea, the land, the course of the stars. But still he wanted more.’
³⁴
And because he wanted more, he took more; and because he took more, he wanted more. It was almost impossible for appetites so monstrous to be sated within the ancient limits of custom or morality. Pompey and Caesar, Rome’s greatest conquerors, had won resources for themselves beyond all the imaginings of previous generations. Now the consequences of such obscene power were becoming grimly apparent. Either man had the capability to destroy the Republic. Neither wished to do so, but deterrence, if it were to have any value, obliged both to prepare for the worst. Hence Caesar’s recruitment of Curio. So high were the stakes, and so finely poised the equilibrium of power, that the activities of a single tribune, Caesar hoped, might prove sufficient to tip the balance of terror – to make the difference between peace with honour and catastrophe beyond recall. So Curio trusted too.

But their enemies remained as determined as ever to call their bluff. As Curio vetoed their every effort to prise Caesar away from his command, demands began to be made of Pompey that he should make good his boasts of forcing the proconsul to back down. Pompey responded by taking to his bed. Whether his illness was diplomatic or not, it certainly convulsed Italy with anxiety. In every town, the length and breadth of the country, sacrifices were offered up for the great man’s preservation. The invalid, unsurprisingly, was gratified in the extreme. By the time he finally emerged from his sickroom, he felt a perfect confidence in his popularity. He had been given the reassurance he needed to prepare for the ultimate sanction of war. When a nervous supporter asked what forces he would be able to put into the field should Caesar do the unthinkable and march on Rome, Pompey smiled calmly and told him not to worry. ‘I only have to stamp my foot, and all over Italy legionaries and cavalry will rise up from the ground.’
³⁵

But many were not so sure. To Caelius, it appeared self-evident that Caesar’s army was incomparably superior to anything that Pompey could muster. ‘In peacetime,’ he wrote to Cicero, ‘while taking part in domestic politics, it is most important to back the side that is in the right – but in times of war, the strongest.’
³⁶
Nor was he alone in this cynical judgement. Behind it lay the same calculation arrived at by Curio: that support for Caesar might offer a short cut to power. Hungry for immediate pickings, an entire generation was turning away from the cause of legitimacy. Between the fast set and the senior statesmen of the Senate, draped in the dignity of their offices and years, there had always been tensions, but now, amid all the war talk, the mutual contempt was widening into something truly ominous.

A bitter election, with that snooty epitome of the establishment Domitius Ahenobarbus on one side and the young Mark Antony on the other, made it obvious to all. Amid the smog and forebodings of an oppressive summer, Hortensius had died, leaving behind him the largest private zoo in Italy, ten thousand bottles of wine, and an augurate. With the Republic seemingly lurching towards disaster, it was certainly no time to tolerate a vacancy in the augural college – for whenever Rome’s magistrates, whether by studying the flight of birds, or the pattern of lightning, or the eating habits of sacred chickens, sought to interpret the will of the gods and prescribe how best their anger could be appeased, it was the augurs who would confirm that the correct ruling had been made. Since the office was immensely prestigious, Domitius naturally regarded it as his by right. His young opponent disagreed. True, a hint of the disreputable still clung to the rake who had cohabited so outrageously with Curio and tangled with Clodius over the affections of his wife, but Antony had come a long way since the wild days of his youth. Serving in Gaul, he had covered himself in glory, and now, back in Rome, was fêted as one of Caesar’s most brilliant officers. Domitius,
with the full weight of the senatorial establishment behind him, remained overwhelmingly the favourite, but Antony, at Alesia and elsewhere, had grown used to seeing off high odds. So he did again now. In a famous victory, worthy of being set beside Caesar’s own election as
pontifex maximus
, he won the augurate. Domitius was left incandescent with fury, and the chasm between the two factions in the Republic grew a little wider still.