Before Augustus: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

By Natale Barca

"...the author does an admirable job of showing just how complicated and interconnected all the great patrician families were and how their jealousies and rivalries ultimately led to their undoing and the end of the great Roman Republic." — New York Journal of Books

The political process that culminated in the transition from Republic to Empire in ancient Rome began with the military reform of Caius Marius in the last decades of the 2nd century BC. Following the Civil War and Sulla’s dictatorship, it developed further with the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, and two further civil wars. These wars, which saw Caesar pitted against Pompey, and Octavian fighting Anthony, ended in 27 BC with the rise to power of Octavian, the adoptive son of Caesar.

Before Augustus outlines a summary of the last years of the Roman Republic, weaving together the military, political, and social aspects. Scholar Natale Barca sets the protagonists within the complex societal and political system that they operated, analyzing their actions, and the epic battles that ensued.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casemate
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781636242330

Natale Barca

Natale Barca was a visiting scholar researcher at University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, and an academic visitor at the University of London’s Institute of Classical Studies and is a member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (Roman Society), London. He is the author of thirteen monographs, many focused on the political and military history of the Roman Late Republic.

Book preview

CHAPTER I

Caesar

Family Origins

A clan is a group of families with a common ancestor. In the cast of the gens Iulia, the ancestor is Iulus, son of Aeneas, founder of Alba Longa and of the dynasty of Alban kings; family members include Romulus, in turn founder and first king of Rome. Therefore, the Iulii are a clan as illustrious, noble, and ancient as few others can claim to be in Rome, one of those who constitute the crème de la crème of Roman society, all patricians, and all descending from the 100 original clans, the first inhabitants of the city founded by Romulus. There are at least five families that make up the gens Iulia: Caesar, Iullus, Mento, Libo, and Strabo. The most prominent is the first, and it is this one that we will henceforth be dealing with. Firstly, it must be said that the cognomen Caesar should be pronounced Kaesar. This family is so ancient that its origins are lost in the mists of myth. It trumpets that it descends from the goddess Venus, because Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, later assimilated into the Roman pantheon. Over the years, the family has held more religious posts than civic or military ones, the most prestigious of which is the rex sacrorum, the priest who, during the res publica, carries out the same functions that had been the prerogative of the kings during the period of the monarchy.¹ Before 60 BC, 29 of the Iulii had held the consulship; some of them were members of the Caesar family. We don’t know how many exactly, only that a Caesar was consul in 267, another in 157, and a another in 91. We also know that three other Caesars came close to the consulship in their political career: one was praetor in 208, one in 123, and the third in 92. The latter—Caius Julius Caesar the Elder, the father of the more famous Julius Caesar—was also the governor of the Roman province of Asia (either in 91, or in the early 80s). He died suddenly in 85 from a heart attack that struck him down while he was lacing his sandals. He was the brother of Sextus, consul in 91, and had two sisters: Julia Major, who had married Caius Marius, and Julia Minor, who was married to Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It is important to highlight these family ties, starting with the bond with Marius.

Caius Marius (157–86) was among the most famous and discussed politicians and military commanders of his era, but he was also a controversial character due to the two sides of his strong-willed personality and his actions both for and against Rome. He was consul seven times (an unmatched feat), celebrated two triumphs (for having won as many wars: the Cimbrian War and the Jugurthine War), reformed the draft and the army, and was hailed by the Senate and the people as the Savior of the Fatherland and the Third Founder of Rome (the first two founders being Romulus and Marcus Furius Camillus²). For a quarter of a century, he was one of the major figures of public life in Rome and, for no short period of time, he was First Man in Rome. Even when he was no longer a magistrate, he maintained his ability to influence legislative function, manipulating the tribunes of the plebs aligned to the Populares, a political faction. He continued to do sountil his sixth consulship (100), when one of his protégés, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, launched a seditious policy that was to cost him his life and compromise Marius politically. Marius only re-emerged from the shadow of his political eclipse in the years from 88 to 86. He returned to public life and was a major player on the political and military scene during the 90s, when his personal conflict with Lucius Cornelius Sulla (139–78)—himself twice a consul (88, 80), winner of the First Mithridatic War (89/88–85), imperator, triumphator, and dictator—degenerated into civil war. During that conflict, Marius took Rome after a siege and unleashed terror there before becoming consul for the seventh time (end of 87). He died of illness shortly after, in his bed.

Caius Julius Caesar the Elder married Aurelia Cotta, daughter and granddaughter of consuls, an intelligent, even-tempered woman gifted with great practicality and an independent character. Famous for her beauty, she was universally respected and admired. The couple had three children: one son, Caius, born in 101 or 100, and two daughters, both named Julia, like their aunts (all the women of the gens Iulia are called Julia).

The male child born of the marriage of Caius Julius Caesar the Elder and Aurelia Cotta was destined to become very famous as the conqueror of Gaul, five-time consul (59, 48, 46, 45, 44), triumphator, and dictator for life (49–44). From now on, in short, we will call him Julius Caesar, or more simply Caesar.

A Man Who Doesn’t Go Unnoticed

In 60, Julius Caesar is a tall 40-year-old, rather thin and wiry but well-proportioned, with sharp, dark eyes and a pale complexion. ³ He has maintained the athletic physique he developed as a boy through physical exercise and sport, and training in wrestling and combat. As a boy he wore his hair short and neatly combed, with locks that fell low over his forehead. Now he tries to cover up his baldness by combing the hair on the sides and the front of his head toward the top. He is in excellent health,⁴ takes care of his hygiene and personal appearance, shaves his beard, plucks his eyebrows, keeps his nails well-trimmed, and makes sure his breath isn’t unpleasant. Some people make fun of him for this, but he doesn’t care.

Caesar dresses in a traditional way, but with elegance and a touch of originality. He is keen on personally choosing the fabric of his clothes. He wears a bordered toga and secures it with a belt, which holds it quite loosely. He makes sure that it is spotless and is always careful to ensure that the folds fall straight. He wears calcei (shoe-boots) and sandals of an appropriate size. He is a handsome and dashing man, partly a result of having always played sports (fencing, horse riding, swimming), and he can still display his athletic skills now. He has always been the subject of women’s desires, which he reciprocates with gallantry and love. The list of his amorous conquests is long and starts with Servilia Caepio, a descendant of a noble house (founded by Caius Servilius Structus Ahala, consul in 478). Servilia is the wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, a patrician and the descendant of a consul of the same name of 509, one of the founders of the res publica. In 85, she gave birth to a son: Marcus. It is rumored that this child isn’t the son of Marcus Junius Brutus, but of Caesar. The rumor is not particularly convincing.

Caesar has been educated like all young offspring of the great Roman families, that is, by one or more tutors of good standing, who taught their students in their own homes. One of his grammar teachers was Marcus Antonius Gnipho. Among other things, Caesar studied Latin language and literature, as well as Greek language and literature. To hone his philosophy, oratory, and rhetoric, he went on a study trip to Athens and Rhodes, where he attended lessons given by Apollodorus of Tarsus and Apollonius Molon (Molo of Rhodes). He thus became perfectly bilingual (Latin and Greek, in the form of the Ionic dialect). As for philosophy, he was instinctively inclined to stoicism, the philosophical and spiritual current of a rational and pantheistic imprint, which was founded by Zeno of Citium (336/335–263). It took its name from the Stoa Poikile (Painted Porch), where Zeno used to present and discuss his ideas with his followers in the Athenian Agora. Stoicism was spread in Rome by Caius Blossius of Cumae, who was the tutor, advisor, and friend of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs in 133.

From an early age, Caesar was drawn toward politics and war, he loved to read, and he familiarized himself with a number of literary works that would become the basis of his military training: De re militari by Marcus Porcius Cato the Censor; On the Cavalry Commander by Xenophon; the memoirs of Lucius Cornelius Sulla; De consulatu et de rebus gestis suis by Lucius Papirius Paetus, a Latin author who was a contemporary of Caesar and a friend of the orator Marcus Tullius Cicero; and various other works by Hellenistic authors, including some technical treatises on the art of besieging and conquering cities and fortifications. Since then, his idol has always been Alexander the Great (356–323), king of Macedon and ruler of Asia and Egypt.

Caesar is very skilled in the art of knowing how to speak in public and shows a particular inclination for writing. He has published a number of orations, the short poem Laudes Herculis, and a collection of maxims.⁵

He is captivated by the memories of antiquity, philosophy, and religion in general, but traditional Roman religion in particular. He is a connoisseur of works of art, especially antiques. He has a passion for pearls and gems, primarily because they come from distant lands such as the East. He likes to collect precious cut gems—loose rather than set in rings, for their artistic value—as well as paintings and other works of art. His collection is comparable to other very famous ones such as that of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus—son of the consul of 115 and princeps senatus, who died in about 89 and shared his son’s name—and that of Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus, which is of great value. It originated in the looting of the treasure of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, and was dedicated on the Capitoline hill.

Caesar is a vain man, but within limits. He likes to parade around mounted on a fine horse. He gives private banquets that might be talked about throughout the city for their excellent food, tastefully decorated rooms, their adornments, their dancers, musicians, and actors, and their fine tableware. (Perhaps this praise would be in whispers if a sumptuary law has been broken⁶). However, he is also keen to promote an image of himself as a man with dignitas, understood as the expression of a traditional personal commitment to the public good and a measured lifestyle that reflects both his aristocratic heritage and his instinctive propensity for stoicism.

His family did not swim in gold; in fact, in an effort to get the family’s budget back in order, his father felt inclined to give the hand of Julia Minor in marriage to Caius Marius, a very rich man. However, Caesar has never lacked funds, especially after he took on the praetorship.

Under the dictatorship of Sulla (82–79), he found himself at loggerheads with the dictator for refusing to divorce his wife Cornelia, daughter of the Marian Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who had been consul from 87–84 and had been declared a public enemy. Because of this Caesar became a fugitive, but was eventually pardoned by Sulla, albeit with much hesitation, following the intercession of Caesar’s mother Aurelia, the Vestal Virgins, and other individuals who were very close to the dictator. However, Caesar needed a change of scene, if only temporarily, so he began his military service in the East. As an officer in the army of Marcus Minucius Thermus, engaged in the siege of Mytilene, a town on Lesbos, he distinguished himself for his bravery and valor. For having saved the life of a Roman citizen in the final assault on the city, he was awarded the corona civica, one of the highest honors available in the Roman army.⁷ The corona civica is a wreath made of oak leaves, the tree sacred to Jupiter. It gives great prestige to the one who has been awarded it, guaranteeing him a series of privileges (for example, a reserved seat in the front row for public shows and events), and greases the wheels of his career as a magistrate, having a major effect on the opinion of the electorate.⁸

Caesar, during the consulship of Cinna, was appointed to the priesthood of Jupiter (flamen dialis), the god of the civilized collective, tutelary deity of Rome, and guarantor of its destiny. In 63, he was elected to another highly prestigious religious office, that of pontifex maximus, which is conferred for life. ⁹

Returning to his homeland from his military service with the reputation of a war hero, Caesar begins a career as a judicial orator and plays a key role in a number of important criminal trials. His eloquence is highly regarded by Cicero, champion of the Forum. A judicial orator supports prosecution in the courts as a private citizen who is representing the interests of a third party or an entire community, that is, acting in place of the interested party in the exercise of their rights and authority. Caesar is naturally inclined to political oratory and cultivates this inclination with great diligence and success.

Legal Practice

In his exercise of legal advocacy, Caesar makes use of the lessons he learned from his uncle Caius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus and, after the latter’s death, from the works that survived him, such as the oration he gave in the trial against Titus Albucius, held in 103. Strabo blamed Albucius for having governed the province of Sardinia and Corsica in 104 in a way that went against the law, for intentionally causing harm to the provincials, and for favoring himself or others. Strabo managed to have Albucius sentenced to exile.

Caesar is in no way inferior to the best of his colleagues. In fact, he even outdoes them. He declaims with a high, piercing voice, gesticulating in an agitated and fervent manner, but is not ungentlemanly. He constructs arguments that are sharp, rich in content, elegant, brilliant, and, in a certain way, extraordinary and magnanimous.¹⁰ He achieves great success due to having proved that he knows how to speak in public while also being well-liked by his fellow citizens for his affability and his courtesy when greeting them and conversing with them.¹¹

Legal practice is a good way to put together or reinforce political alliances, find clients, and make oneself known to potential voters. In Rome, it’s an obligatory step for all those who aspire to become a politician and hold a civic magistracy. Challenging an established politician whose behavior left something to be desired might be a worthy ideal for an ambitious man trying to make a name for himself, but it also could turn out to be against one’s own long-term interests. Moreover, if the lawsuit is directed against rich and powerful men, it could end up being very dangerous. Despite his verbal brilliance, and the worthiness of his argument, Caesar was to experience this in 77, after the trial against a Sullan, Cnaeus Cornelius Dolabella,¹² whom he had accused of having extorted or accepted money and/or other benefits in the exercise of his functions while he was proconsul of Macedonia¹³ in Thessalonica.¹⁴

Cornelia, Caesar’s wife, can see the risk to which her husband is exposing himself and fears she will find herself a widow, with a daughter to raise alone. The passage of time does not calm her anxiety but, on the contrary, aggravates it.

At the time of the trial against Dolabella, Caesar was 23 years old. He had accepted the proposal to represent the interests of the provincials in court because this allowed him, at the same time, to go up against a supporter of Sulla, to demonstrate his oratorical ability, and to promote himself. During the debate, he gives some impressive speeches and calls on a group of witnesses from Macedonia to testify. Dolabella is defended by Caius Aurelius Cotta and Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, both influential and esteemed orators. They each make every effort to give their client the best protection so that the jury’s decision will not conform with justice but rather with their own overriding interests. Cotta is the primary lawyer, but it is Hortensius who plays the leading role in the trial. The presence of the crowd and the clamor of the Forum requires a vigorous, ardent speaker with efficaciously energetic actions and a resonant voice.¹⁵ From this point of view, Hortensius has better cards to play than Cotta. Despite his brilliant performance, Caesar is beaten by the eloquence of Cotta and Hortensius.¹⁶ As a result, Dolabella is acquitted.

Ultimately a scoundrel at heart, Dolabella takes revenge on his accuser. Caesar feels the full force of the mud-slinging machine operated by Dolabella and his friends—so much so that he needs a change of scenery (again), not so much because he fears the revenge of the Sullans, to whom he had made himself vulnerable by taking legal action against one of their most prominent men, but above all because the calumnies being spread about him are harming his honor. To disguise the real reason for his departure, he claims that he is going to Rhodes to attend a course on rhetoric, which would be useful for him to improve his legal activity. Cornelia, who had only recently embraced her husband after his long stay in the East, has to part from him again. All this happened in 74.

The Quaestorship

In 68, Julia Major, widow of Marius and aunt of Caesar, as well as Caesar’s wife, Cornelia, pass away within a few days of each other. During the funerals, Caesar gives the eulogy and displays the imagines (singular imago, portrait busts) of Caius Marius and Caius Marius the Younger in such a way that they are visible to everyone. For the first time in Roman history, a eulogy was given for a woman who had died at a young age. And for the first time since the winter of 82/81, when Sulla had removed them from the Forum, the effigies of Marius and his son are shown in public. The gesture has at once symbolic value, political significance, and an electoral purpose (Caesar is a candidate for the quaestorship for 67). But it is also provocative because it was forbidden to refer to Marius in public; one could only do so under one’s breath amongst very loyal friends. What’s more, it wouldn’t have been possible to predict how the crowd would react; the political climate had changed in 70, and in the wake of the reforms to the Sullan constitution undertaken by the consuls Pompey and Crassus the ground was only just settling. In fact, when the busts appear, the few Sullans who are present are indignant. The bulk of the crowd, however, applaud feverishly—indeed, they praise Caesar.

It didn’t take long for Caesar to capitalize on this applause. Caesar is elected to the quaestorship for 67 on a wave of popular favor. Shortly after, he is seconded to the propraetor Caius Antistius Vetus, governor of Hispania Ulterior (the westernmost Roman province, situated in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula),¹⁷ who was headquartered in Corduba (Córdoba), a city in Andalusia. In 206, the Romans had conquered Corduba and made it the capital of Hispania Ulterior. Afterward, Corduba took on typically Roman trappings, and the local society was Romanized.

Caesar remarries before leaving, primarily to give his young daughter Julia a new mother. This would mean she would be able to look after her in his absence and raise and educate her in a better way than he could have himself—Caesar is far from the sort of person who prioritizes staying at home with his family—but also because he is often absent from Rome for long periods and is now leaving it again. Caesar’s second wife is called Pompeia, his distant cousin and the granddaughter of Sulla. Most notably, Pompeia is a descendant of Sulla. This is how Caesar mended his rift with the Sullans, sheltering himself from potential political upheaval that might occur during his upcoming absence from Rome.

As quaestor, Caesar frees the province from the financial burdens that had been imposed upon it by the previous governor, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, and carries out frenetic judicial activity, gaining highly formative experience and creating a clientele for himself (something that always brings prestige and, when necessary, money and testimonies). He considers clients as a basis for and a guarantee of lasting power. In fact, his thoughts are already revolving around power, and he is champing at the bit to seize it. One incident in particular is emblematic of the ambition which he harbors. In Gades (Cádiz, Spain), he bursts into tears in front of a statue of Alexander the Great, asking the people around him Do you think I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?¹⁸

Caesar sets out to return to Rome at the end of 67, before the expiration of his mandate and the arrival of his successor, to whom he should have personally handed over the reins of his position out of institutional courtesy. Later, when justifying himself before the Senate, he says that he had dreamed about having an incestuous relationship with his mother and that a soothsayer had told him that this indicated the need to return home without delay and that it was a presage of world domination.¹⁹ In reality, Caesar has learnt that the colonies of Latin law in Gallia Transpadana (that part of northern Italy to the north of the Po) are in a state of unrest, and he wants to ride the wave of these protests.

The Aedileship, the Praetorship, and the Proprietorship

In 65, Caesar as aedile organizes memorable public games which feature hundreds of gladiators. In 62 he is praetor and in 61 rises to propraetor. In the latter capacity, he returns to Hispania Ulterior. By the end of his mandate, he will have succeeded in extending Rome’s sovereignty to Gallaecia, the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula, north of the River Douro, inhabited by the Callaeci, a mixture of Hispanic peoples who were more or less deeply Celtized.²⁰

In pursuit of glory and riches Caesar overloads the provincials with taxes, a portion of which he retains. He leads his own army of 14,000–15,000 men outside his own province and massacres the Lusitani and Vettones to rob them of their possessions. He ravages the mountains where the Lusitani live, sets fire to their homes, seizes their livestock to feed his men, and captures prisoners of war, whom he then sells as slaves. He mistreats and humiliates the survivors of his slaughter. He doesn’t care whether the oppression and violence that he himself orders is justified by the circumstances or not. His objectives are to obtain as much gold and silver as possible to pay off his debts and to finance his electoral campaign for the consulship, and to fulfill the requirements that would allow him to request the celebration of a triumph (one of the statutory conditions is having killed at least 5,000 enemies in battle). Caesar is a brilliant person in many ways, but he also has a dark side, ranging from boundless ambition to a total absence of scruples (those who know him in a non-superficial way admire and fear him at the same time); in the future, he will give further evidence that he is an ethically deplorable individual—even by the not high standards of his age.

The old chieftains, lacerated and broken, prostrate themselves before Caesar, who is seated in the curule seat, wearing a breastplate and a red cloak, with two lictors at his sides. They implore him to have mercy on them and on their people, humbly asking that they be spared further suffering, that the attacks on them and the rounding-up of prisoners be stopped. Caesar wants, demands, then commands that the Lusitani abandon the mountains and move to new villages built on the plains in order to be better able to control them, and that hostages, all their weapons, and half of all their gold and silver be handed over to him. Only in this way would the vanquished be able to live in peace, with the additional obligation of supporting Rome in her wars with payments of money, food supplies, and the supply of support troops (tributum).

As for the Vettones, who were emigrating north of the River Duero, Caesar accuses them of wanting to escape the authority of Rome, their duties of alliance, and the obligation of paying the tributum. Therefore, he goes after them with his cavalry and catches up with them as they start to cross the river on rafts in small groups, where he attacks and exterminates them.

Caesar always wants more: more gold, more silver, and more glory, to be spent in the field of politics. This is why he moves further into Gallaecia, right up to the shores of the Gulf of Ártabro and then further east, along the coast, up to Brigantium (La Coruña). There he kills, ravages, and plunders, leaving a trail of dead behind him and carrying away bountiful spoils of war, including prisoners to be sold as slaves. At the end of the campaign, he is acclaimed as imperator by his soldiers.

This gesture is one of the conditions that must be satisfied to receive authorization to celebrate a triumph. It doesn’t always happen spontaneously since the celebration of a triumph is the objective of all victorious military commanders and is intertwined with their political ambitions. In fact, it sometimes happens to follow a generous gift being handed to the troops. This is what happened in the year 91 with Julius Caesar’s father and in 80 with Pompey. In 61, it happens again with Caesar.

1The rex sacrorum was probably the highest-ranking priest in the religious hierarchy of the Republic, superordinate to the pontifex maximus and the flamines

2According to the legend of the origins of Rome, Romulus, a nephew of Numitor, king of the Latin city of Alba Longa, founded Rome in 753 BC together with Titus Tatius, king of the Sabins, a people different than the Latins, but a neighbor of them. He divided the power with Tatius until the death of the latter. After that, he ruled as the sole king. Remus would be killed by his brother Romulus after the foundation of Rome, but somebody reports this story differently. Marcus Furius Camillus was a military commander and was a dictator for five times. After having resigned from his fourth dictatorship, he did not hesitate to come to the aid of his fellow citizens when, in 390/386, Rome was taken, sacked and forced to pay a ransom by a horde of Gauls led by Brennus. He defeated the Gauls in battle and celebrated the triumph

3Suet., Iul. , 45.

4In 60, the symptoms of the illness (epilepsy?) that Caesar suffered from during the last years of his life had not yet manifested themselves.

5Unfortunately, Caesar’s early works haven’t survived and only their titles are known. We do know, however, that Octavian, after 28 BC—the year he established the large bilingual library on the Palatine—forbade the chief librarian, Pompeius Macer, from circulating them (Suetonius, Life of Caesar , 56). The reason for this prohibition should not be sought in the fact that, probably, they were not masterpieces, but rather in the field of politics or morality.

6The sumptuary laws ( sumptuariae leges ) were intended to limit waste due to excesses of luxury.

7Suet. Caes . 2.2. On the capture of Mytilene: Liv. Per. 89.

8It’s possible that one of the privileges, still in force in Sulla’s time, consisted of automatic admission to the Senate, as it had during the Second Punic War. On this idea, see A. Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 66.

9The pontifex maximus was the highest-ranking of the pontifices , the priests who supervised the procedures of religious rites and practices.

10 See Plut. Caes. 3.2–4, Suet. Iul. 55.1–2. Words of praise for Caesar’s eloquence can also be found in Cic. Brut . 252, 258, and 261. Cicero also speaks very positively of Caesar Strabo: Cic. Or. 2.239.

11 Plut. Caes. 4.1–4.

12 On the trial of Dolabella: ORF, 386–387; M. C. Alexander, Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC to 50 BC (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 71.

13 The Roman province of Macedonia was established after the Third Macedonian War (Revolt of Andriscus, 167) and definitively organized in 146. It is made up of the four regions into which the subjugated Kingdom of Macedon was divided, encompassing Epirus and southern Illyria as well. On the geographical extent of the lands subsumed within the province of Macedonia: C. Letta and S. Segenni, Roma e le sue province. Dalla prima guerra punica a Diocleziano (Roma: Carocci, 2015), 164.

14 Thessalonica (Saloniki, Greece) was the most populous city in Macedonia and the capital of the province. Located at the foot of the Kissos massif, with the Axios valley which penetrates into the Balkans behind it, it was at the center of a major road network.

15 Cic. Brut. 317.

16 Val. Max. 8.9.3.

17 The Romans used the name Hispania for the entirety of what is now mainland Spain and Portugal. Therefore, it refers not only to Spain but the whole Iberian Peninsula, contrary to what the assonance of the name might suggest.

18 Plut. Caes. 11.5–6.

19 This episode and that of Gades mentioned just above were reported after the death of Caesar, which occurred in 44. It’s likely that these are legends, invented by who knows who, to feed into the myth of the murdered dictator.

20 Ancient Gallaecia corresponded to the present-day regions of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and part of the provinces of León and Zamora, all in Spain, as well as to part of northern Portugal.

CHAPTER II

Friends and Enemies

All Caesar’s Men

The political game is a continuous struggle between the Optimates and Populares, that is, between the ultraconservatives and those who are, or say they are, close to the populace, the most numerous but also the most disadvantaged part of society. The Populares have taken up the baton of the Gracchi, including Caius Marius, his son, Caius Marius the Younger, and Lucius Cornelius Cinna. The contest is tough, often violent, even bloody. It requires courage and determination, as well as strength and prudence. From this there arises a need to forge friendships, understood as alliances, based on mutual trust. Caesar, from the very beginning of his political career, has woven a protective web around himself. Over time, he has managed to surround himself with many friends, whom we can divide between close friends, such as Marcus Licinius Crassus, and people who, in exchange for his gifts and favors, support him and shield him. Many of these other friends are former or current magistrates.

The Close Friends

Marcus Licinius Crassus was born in Rome in 115/114. He is the son of the rich and noble Publius Licinius Crassus, consul for 97, who was killed in Rome in 87, together with another of his sons, Lucius, during the days of the Marian terror, perhaps by mistake, perhaps due to a personal vendetta. He has two sons of his own: Marcus and Publius. He is a businessman, real estate speculator, and banker. No other citizen of Rome has the sort of riches that he does. His landed properties alone are estimated to be worth 200 million sesterces! Crassus pities those who cannot afford to maintain their own army, as he can, as poor.¹ He considers that his greatest success in terms of military command was having quashed Spartacus’s Revolt (73–71), culminating with the crucifixion of 6,000 prisoners of war along the Via Appia. He is a man who has everything, yet he is consumed by ambition. He longs for military glory, to emulate the deeds of Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey in Asia, to be able to boast of having the title of conqueror, equaling Caesar and Pompey in terms of social prestige, and wishes to go down in history as an immortal hero. Consequently, he is attracted by the idea of undertaking a grand military enterprise. In particular, he wants to wrest Mesopotamia from the Parthian Empire, namely the area between the Syrian border and the city of Babylon.

Crassus is so rich that he is nicknamed the banker of Rome and is in the habit of supporting young people who aspire to get into politics, as long as they are particularly gifted, give guarantees to repay the loan on its maturity, and promise to return the favor if they become magistrates. He does so by funding their electoral campaigns, which means pouring out money to bribe everyone who can help candidates win elections, mobilizing his friends to support the candidate, and placing his enormous prestige in the candidate’s favor. Since electoral campaigns are expensive, the loan amount is very significant, and therefore the bond that is established between Crassus and those who get into debt with him is very close.

One of the young men of ambition who has found in Crassus the friend who can help them to satisfy their ambitions is Caesar. He is heavily indebted to Crassus, both because his ambitions are unlimited and because his family is not particularly rich, and he tends to live beyond his means. Caesar squanders money and is engulfed in debt, some of which is money borrowed to pay interest on other sums he has borrowed previously. This condition, however, is common among young Roman aristocrats. They spend and spend, and they are all up to their necks in debt, which is partly because the first-born males, designated heirs of the family estate, do not have the estate for as long as their father is alive, and he does not always agree to their requests for money.

There exists a very close bond between Caesar and Crassus, which goes beyond their business relationship. Proof of this was found during Catiline’s Conspiracy when Crassus was the only one to defend Caesar at a time when he was risking his life after trying to prevent the seven arrested Catilinarians from being sentenced to death. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Lucius Sergius Catilina (108–62) was an aristocrat who fell from grace, a shady, violent, dishonest man gifted with great charisma and consumed by a desire for revenge because, in his view, he had been unjustly prevented from becoming a consul. He managed to create a following of 12,000–20,000 men and women, mostly those who had lived through the days of Sulla and were nostalgic for Marius, both freemen and those of the colonies, who had enlisted not only from the fringes of society amongst the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed, but also from the ranks of the ruling class who were dissatisfied, up to their necks in debt, or violently inclined. This latter group included a number of magistrates (Caius Antonius Hybrida, among others, perhaps even Caesar and Crassus). His seditious plan aimed at unleashing a social revolution that would lead to the establishment of a dictatorial regime. It involved stoking fires, inciting social unrest, murder, and bloodshed, not just in Rome but also in other parts of Italy and even in Spain and North Africa.

Cicero, a consul at the time, was one of those who was to be killed first. However, the conspiracy failed after it was unmasked and then bloodily suppressed. Many individuals betrayed their fellows, starting with a criminal hooligan by the name of Quintus Curius, who, pressured by his lover, revealed to Cicero the names of the conspirators and all the details of their plan of action in order to receive a reward, which he then didn’t get. Some of Curius’s revelations were confirmed by Caesar and Crassus, who offered this information voluntarily to distance themselves from suspicions of being involved in the affair. This was followed by Cicero exposing the existence of the conspiracy to the Senate, the arrest of seven conspirators caught in flagrante delicto. The Senate, under the watchful eye of Cicero, ordered their execution as an act of political justice, without a trial and without allowing them the right to appeal, recognized by law for every Roman citizen. Caesar attempted—without success—to spare the lives of the arrested Catilinarians, proposing that instead of being sentenced to death they serve life imprisonment, contrary to the argument of Cato and others. Following this, Caesar had to escape being ambushed by a group of senators who were waiting for him outside the Curia. Caius Scribonius Curio helped him to slip away, wrapped in a big cloak.

Catiline was arrested, but he managed to get away from Rome. The affair ended in January 62 in the Pistoia Apennines (near the modern village of Campo Tizzoro), where Catiline and 3,000 followers (those who had remained steadfast beside their leader after all those who had joined the conspiracy in the expectation of carrying out robberies or with a desire for social upheavals had deserted) met the legions of the proconsul Caius Antonius Hybrida, led by Marcus Petreius, at the Battle of Pistoia, and were exterminated. Petreius won an overwhelming victory, with a modest toll to his own forces: around 100 dead. The winners shouted with joy.

The Battle of Pistoia was the tragic end to an unsuccessful revolution. In theory, Catiline could have won. In the event, he came up against an established power that was more determined to fight than he probably expected, with one major obstacle in particular: Cicero. Moreover, when the hope of being able to plunder or turn society on its head disappeared, he was abandoned by most of his supporters. His had been an ugly life, but it was redeemed by a good death. The fires of revolution were put out before they became an inferno. The praetors—including Quintus Tullius Cicero, brother of Marcus—prevented the flames from being rekindled, intervening across the Italian peninsula.

The Other Friends

Caesar’s other friends include, among others, Lucius Caesetius Flavus, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, Lucius Ninnius Quadratus, Caius Herennius, Aelius Ligus, and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Let’s focus on the latter.

Scaurus is the son of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Caecilia Metella Dalmatica. His father was consul in 115 and celebrated a triumph for his victories over the Carni Gauls. He was censor in 109 and princeps senatus from 115 until his death in 89. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (the son) married Mucia Tertia after she had been divorced by Pompey. They had a son, also called Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (the son) married Mucia Tertia after she had been divorced by Pompey and they had a son, who carried on the family names. Scaurus (the latter, son of the consul of 115) served under Pompey as military tribune in the Third Mithridatic War (73–63). He was the first governor of the province of Syria (from 63 to 61), during which time he commanded two legions. In 62 he besieged Petra, capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. In 58, as aedile, he organized lavish games during which a wooden theater with marble columns was temporarily set up.

Caesar’s friends also include Quintus Fufius Calenus; Publius Vatinius; his maternal uncle Lucius Aurelius Cotta, consul in 65; his cousin Lucius Julius Caesar, consul in 64; his nephew Quintus Pedius; Caius Fabius; Lucius Cornelius Balbus; Caius Oppius; and Mark Antony. It is worth dwelling on some of these individuals, and in the following pages, others will be mentioned too.

Calenus was tribune of the plebs in 61. He spoke in the trial concerning the scandal of the festival of Bona Dea, which we will come to later, as a rebuttal witness.

Publius Vatinius, born in 93, was elected as tribune of the plebs for 59 following crucial support from Caesar. He is a shady figure. In 62 and 61, while he was serving as the commander of a legion in the army of the proconsul Caius Cosconius in Hispania Ulterior, he was accused of theft and embezzlement. Even before this, however, he had made a bad name for himself. In 63 he was quaestor in Puteolis (Puteoli), and one of his duties was supervising port traffic, where the grain imports from Sicily and North Africa were particularly important. Cicero, the consul at the time, was forced to issue a harsh reprimand against him. In fact, he had aroused intense protests from the townsfolk, who were accusing him of abusing his position for personal benefit to the detriment of individuals and of the community as a whole.

Pedius is the son of Marcus Pedius and Julia Major, Caesar’s sister, making him Caesar’s nephew. He married a Roman noblewoman called Valeria, daughter of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger and his wife Polla, and sister of the senator Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. He has a son, Quintus Pedius Publicola.

Cotta is Caesar’s maternal uncle. He was praetor in 70, consul in 65, and censor in 64. As praetor, he contributed to dismantling the Sullan system of power, of which he himself had been a part as one of Sulla’s closest friends. But he remained a Sullan and an Optimate. Therefore, after being among those who had saved Caesar’s life, he opposed him during the early phase of his political career. More recently, however, he has drawn closer to him. He will play an important role in the conquest of independent Gaul and thereafter.

Lucius Julius Caesar is the son of the homonymous consul of 90, and brother of Julia Antonia, the mother of Mark Antony. Therefore, he is a relative (a cousin) of Julius Caesar. He was consul in 64. In the Senate, he supported the proposed death sentence for the arrested supporters of Catiline, even though his brother-in-law Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura was among them. Later, he was co-opted into the college of augurs.

Fabius was praetor in 58, propraetor of Asia in 57, and tribune of the plebs in 55. He will serve as a legionary commander in the Gallic Wars, reporting to Caesar, from 54 to 49.

Although Balbus and Oppius are absolutely loyal to Caesar, he never mentions them, or only does so in passing. They often serve him in silence and in the shadows. As befits informers, they are inconspicuous figures, but very alert and attentive. Balbus is Hispanic, a member of an ancient and powerful family from Gades (Cádiz in Andalusia, Spain) that claims descent from the god Baal. He was born around 100, so he’s the same age as Caesar. He obtained Roman citizenship for excellent services rendered to Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer during the Sertorian War, which ended in 72.² In 61, he served as chief engineer in Caesar’s army (and will do so again in the future). Oppius is an eque. Caesar uses him for his relations with other politicians. Oppius, however, is also a friend of Cicero, who makes use of him as an intermediary in his own relations with Caesar. He is the author of various biographies, among which are those of Caesar, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, and Caius Cassius Longinus. In the future, the Bellum Hispaniense, an account of Caesar’s military campaigns in Spain, will also be attributed to him.

Antony, 23 years old (he was born in 83), is the grandson of Marcus Antonius the Orator on his father’s side, one of the most lauded judicial orators of the first quarter of the I century. Antonius the Orator had been consul in 99, censor in 97, and an excellent military commander; in 102, as propraetor of Cilicia, he waged a successful campaign against piracy. He died at the hands of Caius Marius’s killers during the days of the Marian terror (late 87–early 86). Antony’s father, Marcus Antonius, praetor in 75, had taken on the cognomen Creticus for having fought against the pirates in 74, but his expedition had been a disaster, and he died at a young age in 71, leaving his wife and four children (Antony himself, Lucius, Caius, and Antonia) in debt. Antony’s mother, Julia Antonia, is the sister of Lucius Julius Caesar and a second cousin to Caesar. Therefore Antony is a distant relation of the latter on his mother’s side. Antony’s widowed mother married again, this time to Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, who later became a follower of Catiline. Lentulus Sura was one of the Catilinarians who were arrested and executed in 63. He didn’t adopt Antonius Creticus’s orphans, and this resulted in their statutory demotion from senatorial rank to eques. Antony is a restless young man with an unruly and lascivious lifestyle. He used to prostitute himself for money and had a homosexual relationship with Caius Scribonius Curio.³ He is a lover of luxury, a kept man, a heavy drinker, and a spendthrift. He is up to his neck in debt. Before the age of 20 (that is, before 63), he had already run up total debts of around 250 talents, equivalent to 6 million sesterces, an enormous sum. He was the friend, albeit for a short time, of Publius Claudius Pulcher, himself a youth with many excesses and a taste for the good life. He then studied rhetoric in Greece and became a skilled orator with a grandiose Asian style. On his return to Rome, he had every interest in handing himself over to a patron, and he chose to place himself at Caesar’s side.

Publius Claudius Pulcher has also recently entered the magic circle of Caesar and Crassus. He will play a particularly important role in the political events of his time, and it is therefore worth devoting ample space to him. He will change his name to Clodius for political reasons, which is fully explained in Chapter VII, but we’ll start to use it now as it is the name he is best known by.

Clodius

The members of the Pulcher family are well-known among their fellow citizens, not only because they enjoy great social prestige, have a vast following of friends and clients, and are able to get their opinions or proposals approved by the Senate, but also because they have shown that they have fierce, sometimes excessive self-confidence, an unshakable belief in their own abilities, a great desire to express themselves anytime and anywhere, and no little hubris, which makes them proud if warranted, or vain and arrogant if groundless. In addition, they are held to be heartless people. One of them is a great friend of Caesar’s.

This is Publius Claudius Pulcher. In 60, he is 32 or 33 years old. He is the son of Appius Claudius Pulcher, who was praetor in 89 and 88, a supporter of Sulla in the First Civil War (83–82), consul in 79, and proconsul of Macedonia in 77, where he fought against the Thracians.⁴ He has two brothers and three sisters. He is a young man who is already at the center of a great deal of attention for a series