The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (20 page)

Caesar expanded Roman conquests in Gaul to the Rhine river and crossed over the channel to Britain. These conquests were hard fought, involving the Helvatians of Switzerland, king Ariovistus of Germany, the Belgians of northern Gaul, and the Veneti of Brittany. He returned to northern Italy in 56
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. to renew a strained triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus, who stood for consuls in 56
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. Caesar returned to Gaul and accomplished two remarkable feats: He crossed over into Britain and established a Roman presence there (55
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.), and returned to Gaul where he (barely) won the decisive battle at the siege of Alesia (52
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.). This incredible battle, in which Caesar had to construct one set of defenses to keep a Gallic army in Alesia and another line of defenses to keep out an enormous army of Gallic reinforcements, broke the Gauls' struggle for independence and determined the future of Europe.

Back in Rome, however, another crisis was erupting. Crassus was killed by the Parthians in Asia Minor, leaving Pompey and Caesar to compete for preeminence. Pompey, in Rome, drifted toward the optimates, and the two men, rivals but never enemies, became polarized by factions as Rome descended into mob rule by political gangs. A political battle to deprive either Caesar or Pompey (or both) of their command authority eventually led to a
senatus consultum ultimum
(the senate's martial law decree) against Caesar in 49
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. Caesar's tribunes, Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) and Quintus Cassius, tried to veto the legislation but were censored and fled for their lives. Caesar was stationed at Ravenna in northern Italy with only one legion. There he marshalled his troops on the northern bank of the Rubicon river, which separated his province from Italy. “The die is cast,” he said, and led them across.

Caesar's swift attack stunned the forces of Pompey. The Republicans fled Rome, and Caesar met with little opposition as he raced down the eastern coast in an effort to cut the Pompeians off from leaving Italy. He was too late: Pompey fled with loyalists to Greece to martial a great army, and Caesar returned to Rome. There he pardoned enemies, increased the senate with Italians outside of Rome, reduced debts, granted citizenship to his loyal northern Italian Gauls, and in a grand gesture, recalled those exiled by both Pompey and Sulla. He then won victories over Pompeian loyalists in Spain and, in another surprise move, sailed seven legions into Greece in the dead of winter to attack Pompey.

In Greece, Pompey already had assembled twice Caesar's infantry and seven times his cavalry, but the careful and deliberate general was caught off balance by Caesar's swift deployment. Instead of pinning Caesar in Greece and invading Italy, Pompey pursued Caesar into Greece to stamp him out. At Pharsalus in 48
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., Caesar's confidence in his well-trained and experienced army proved better founded than Pompey's confidence in overwhelming force: Caesar routed the Republicans. Pompey fled farther east where he still had veterans and connections, but was stabbed and killed by a Roman when he got off the boat in Egypt.

Ptolemy XIII was fighting for the throne of Egypt against his sister, Cleopatra. Ptolemy's advisors cut off Pompey's head and brined it for Caesar when he arrived, hoping to curry a bit of favor. Caesar was not amused. He placed Cleopatra (with whom he became, shall we say, familiar) on the throne, and after almost being overrun by Ptolemy's army and the mobs of Alexandria, restored order to Egypt and the eastern provinces. He then returned to Rome in 47
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. where more unrest, economic plight, disgruntled legions, and campaigns in Africa and Spain awaited him.

After settling Africa and Spain, Caesar set about transforming Rome into the capital of an integrated world state, and himself into the sole ruler of that world.

Caesar reorganized Italy, set out colonies into the provinces, reformed legal and civil administration throughout the Roman empire, and embarked upon a massive building program of public works. In particular, he transformed both eastern and western provinces into viable regions, and reformed the currency so that there could be economic cohesion.

The new Rome needed central authority and decision making and to keep military power away from the hands of provincial governors. Caesar did this by being appointed
dictator perpetuus
(dictator for life) in 44
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. This gave him the power of a king, which seems to be how he envisioned his role in the new world order. He began to act and dress in a regal manner, issued coins with his likeness, and sat on a golden throne. It seemed that the Etruscan monarchy had returned, and a king was the one thing that the Roman nobility could not abide.

Many senators, even Caesar's former friends, feared that his power and popularity were leading to a monarchy. Over 60 of them conspired to assassinate him. Caesar was about to embark on a sweeping military campaign in the east, and success there would render him even more powerful. Three days before he left, on March 15, 44
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, Caesar met the senators next door to the Theater of Pompey. Senators crowded around and stabbed him repeatedly. Ironically, Caesar died at the foot of the statue of his political and military rival, Pompey. Nevertheless, Caesar's successes had
not only shown the way forward, but also left behind a huge and mobilized army with which to complete the task.

 
Veto!
The famous quote,
et tu, Brute?
(and also you, Brutus?) comes from Shakespeare (
Julius Caesar,
Act III, scene 1), not Caesar. According to the biographer Suetonius (
Life of Caesar
), Caesar said, in Greek,
kai su teknon
(“and you too, my son).

The city of Rome did not welcome being freed from the tyrant as the conspirators hoped. In fact, by the time the senators met to annul Caesar's acts, they were convinced by Caesar's colleague Mark Antony and the howling mobs outside to ratify them instead. Antony secured Caesar's legislation and brokered an amnesty for the conspirators. He also took possession of Caesar's personal papers and will. The next day he read the will (which included Brutus as a minor heir) and displayed Caesar's bloody toga with a wax image of Caesar's corpse. The mob went wild, rampaged through the city, and burned the senate house along with Caesar's body. The conspirators decided it was a good idea to get out of town.

It appeared for a time that Mark Antony would take Caesar's place. But Caesar's heir, his 18-year-old grandnephew Gaius Octavianus Thurnius, became the final victor in the quest for preeminent
gloria, dignitas,
and
auctoritas.
Octavian's power grew upon the power of Caesar's name, and was encouraged by senators, like Cicero, who saw him as a disposable counterbalance to Antony. But by guile, deceit, skillful maneuvering, and his cachet as Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus, Octavian became “Augustus,” the first Roman emperor, in 27
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Antony moved quickly to dominate the state, but was undermined on several fronts. Octavian capitalized on his status as Caesar's heir to undermine Antony's authority with Caesar's troops. Cicero blasted Antony in speech and in print. He, and other senators who sympathized with the conspirators, forced Antony out of Rome. When Antony attacked Brutus at Mutina, the senate, at Cicero's request, sent the young Octavian with an army to help Brutus. Antony was forced to abandon his attack, and the senate, feeling momentum shifting its way, declared Antony a public enemy in 43
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Thinking that Octavian was now disposable, the senate snubbed him, which only forced Octavian back toward Antony, who was conspiring with Caesar's aging governor of Spain, Lepidus. When Antony and Lepidus combined forces and marched into
northern Italy, they found Octavian waiting for them. Caesar's troops were not about to attack Caesar's heir, so the three formed a triumvirate with absolute power for five years.

The triumvirate was legalized by a friendly tribune in the popular assembly and embarked on another round of ruthless proscriptions. Among the victims was Antony's enemy, Cicero, whose tongue and right hand were nailed to the rostrum in Rome. The triumvirs packed the senate with their clients, and the newly constituted senate declared Caesar to be among the gods of the Roman state.

The triumvirate quickly devolved into binary opposition. Antony and Octavian sidelined Lepidus by giving him a forced appointment in Africa, and then attacked and defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi (northern Greece) in 42
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. Octavian and Antony then began to maneuver against each other. Direct confrontation was avoided with the Pact of Brundesium in 40
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., in which Antony took the rich east and left Octavian the troubled west. Antony married Octavian's sister, Octavia, to seal the bargain. The two negotiated a treaty at Misenum (modern Miseno, near Naples) in 39
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. with Pompeius, the son of Pompey the great, who controlled Sicily and Sardinia and was blocking grain importation to Rome.

Antony and Octavian began to consolidate power in their respective hemispheres. Antony's armies reconquered Armenia and Mesopotamia, where he sought to recreate Alexander's empire with Cleopatra. Antony married Cleopatra in 37
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. (this was not a legally recognized marriage—he remained married to Octavia at the time), which served both rulers' ambitions and set the stage for a great campaign against the Parthians. Octavian consolidated power in the west by military and political maneuvering. He improved his connections with the nobility by divorcing his wife, Scribonia (on the day that she bore him a daughter, Julia) and marrying the noble Livia Drusilla. Livia was divorced for this purpose by her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, even though she had one son by him (Tiberius Claudius Nero, the future emperor Tiberius) and was pregnant with another (Tiberius Claudius Drusus).

Although Octavian was no Caesar, his brilliant general, Agrippa, was able to put down rebellions in Gaul and, together with Antony and Lepidus, defeat Pompey for good in 36
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. Octavian used the power of his position as Caesar's heir to take the credit for these victories and became recognized as the savior of the west. As Octavian's power and popularity grew, he waged a fierce propaganda war against Antony and Cleopatra, portraying Cleopatra as a threat to Rome and Antony as her puppet. Antony became more dependent upon Cleopatra's resources and finally broke off his ties with Octavian by divorcing his loyal wife, Octavia, in 35
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The Romans' fears were heightened in 34
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., when Antony recognized Cleopatra and her children as rulers of Egypt and his conquests in the east, and came to a head in 32
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. Octavian illegally seized Antony's will (which may have been a forgery)
and read it to the horrified senate and people. It not only recognized Antony's donations to Cleopatra but also recognized her son, Caesarion (Little Caesar), as Caesar's true heir and asked that Antony be buried beside Cleopatra in Alexandria. Playing upon popular sentiment, Octavian stripped Antony of his right to command and declared war upon Cleopatra.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Antony killed himself with a sword. Cleopatra is reported to have killed herself with the bite of an asp, the sacred messenger of the Egyptian sun god Ra, smuggled in to her in a basket of fruit.

Antony and Cleopatra assembled a huge force and waited for Octavian at Actium in Greece. Their combined force was larger than Octavian's, but Antony's troops were disheartened, his ships large and cumbersome, and his crews poorly trained. In a short sea battle off Actium in 31
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., Antony's ships were being beaten when he saw Cleopatra's ships sailing away. He sailed after her leaving his troops without leadership, and they surrendered to Octavian. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria. When Octavian's army in 30
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. defeated their troops there, both committed suicide and left Octavian not only the kingdom of Egypt and all its riches, but also the whole of the Roman Empire.

• The period from 146
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  . is marked by internal Roman strife inflamed by expansion, inequality of civic and economic privileges, and the acquisition of enormous power and wealth by ambitious Roman nobles.
  
• Roman nobles, such as the Gracchae, learned to pursue their personal ambitions through the popular assembly, often against opposition in the senate.
  
• The creation of professional and personal armies, especially in the provinces, allowed Roman nobles to bring military force into political disputes.
  
• The last century of the Republic was marked by competition among pairs of generals for preeminent power over the state: Marius against Sulla, Julius Caesar against Pompey the Great, and Octavian against Antony and Cleopatra.