When Cæsar Turned the Tables
October 23, 2014Plutarch's Lives |
Plutarch (A.D.
46?–c.A.D. 120). Plutarch’s Lives.
Vol. 12, pp. 264-273 of
The Harvard Classics
When only a boy,
Cæsar was captured by pirates. While awaiting ransom he entered into
every sport and game with them. Once freed, he quickly returned with
forces that captured the outlaws. Then he took deliberate revenge.
Cæsar
AFTER Sylla became master
of Rome, he wished to make Cæsar put away his wife Cornelia,
daughter of Cinna, the late sole ruler of the commonwealth, but was
unable to effect it either by promises or intimidation, and so
contented himself with confiscating her dowry. The ground of Sylla’s
hostility to Cæsar, was the relationship between him and Marius; for
Marius, the elder, married Julia, the sister of Cæsar’s father,
and had by her the younger Marius, who consequently was Cæsar’s
first cousin. And though at the beginning, while so many were to be
put to death and there was so much to do, Cæsar was overlooked by
Sylla, yet he would not keep quiet, but presented himself to the
people as a candidate for the priesthood, though he was yet a mere
boy. Sylla, without any open opposition, took measures to have him
rejected, and in consultation whether he should be put to death, when
it was urged by some that it was not worth his while to contrive the
death of a boy, he answered, that they knew little who did not see
more than one Marius in that boy. Cæsar, on being informed of this
saying, concealed himself, and for a considerable time kept out of
the way in the country of the Sabines, often changing his quarters,
till one night, as he was removing from one house to another on
account of his health, he fell into the hands of Sylla’s soldiers,
who were searching those parts in order to apprehend any who had
absconded. Cæsar, by a bribe of two talents, prevailed with
Cornelius, their captain, to let him go, and was no sooner dismissed
but he put to sea, and made for Bithynia. After a short stay there
with Nicomedes, the king, in his passage back he was taken near the
island Pharmacusa by some of the pirates, who, at that time, with
large fleets of ships and innumerable smaller vessels infested the
seas everywhere.
When these men at first demanded of
him twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not
understanding the value of their prisoner, and voluntarily engaged to
give them fifty. He presently despatched those about him to several
places to raise the money, till at last he was left among a set of
the most bloodthirsty people in the world, the Cilicians, only with
one friend and two attendants. Yet he made so little of them, that
when he had a mind to sleep, he would send to them, and order them to
make no noise. For thirty-eight days, with all the freedom in the
world, he amused himself with joining in their exercises and games,
as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards. He wrote verses
and speeches, and made them his auditors, and those who did not
admire them, he called to their faces illiterate and barbarous, and
would often, in raillery, threaten to hang them. They were greatly
taken with this, and attributed his free talking to a kind of
simplicity and boyish playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come
from Miletus, he paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once
to man some ships at the port of Miletus, and went in pursuit of the
pirates, whom he surprised with their ships still stationed at the
island, and took most of them. Their money he made his prize, and the
men he secured in prison at Pergamus, and made application to Junius,
who was then governor of Asia, to whose office it belonged, as
prætor, to determine their punishment. Junius, having his eye upon
the money, for the sum was considerable, said he would think at his
leisure what to do with the prisoners, upon which Cæsar took his
leave of him, and went off to Pergamus, where he ordered the pirates
to be brought forth and crucified; the punishment he had often
threatened them with whilst he was in their hands, and they little
dreamed he was in earnest.
In the mean time Sylla’s power being
now on the decline, Cæsar’s friends advised him to return to Rome,
but he went to Rhodes, and entered himself in the school of
Apollonius, Molon’s son, a famous rhetorician, one who had the
reputation of a worthy man, and had Cicero for one of his scholars.
Cæsar is said to have been admirably fitted by nature to make a
great statesman and orator, and to have taken such pains to improve
his genius this way, that without dispute he might challenge the
second place. More he did not aim at, as choosing to be first rather
amongst men of arms and power, and, therefore, never rose to that
height of eloquence to which nature would have carried him, his
attention being diverted to those expeditions and designs which at
length gained him the empire. And he himself, in his answer to
Cicero’s panegyric on Cato, desires his reader not to compare the
plain discourse of a soldier with the harangues of an orator who had
not only fine parts, but had employed his life in this study.
When he was returned to Rome, he
accused Dolabella of maladministration, and many cities of Greece
came in to attest it. Dolabella was acquitted, and Cæsar, in return
for the support he had received from the Greeks, assisted them in
their prosecution of Publius Antonius for corrupt practices, before
Marcus Lucullus, prætor of Macedonia. In this cause he so far
succeeded, that Antonius was forced to appeal to the tribunes at
Rome, alleging that in Greece he could not have fair play against
Grecians. In his pleadings at Rome, his eloquence soon obtained him
great credit and favor, and he won no less upon the affections of the
people by the affability of his manners and address, in which he
showed a tact and consideration beyond what could have been expected
at his age; and the open house he kept, the entertainments he gave,
and the general splendor of his manner of life contributed little by
little to create and increase his political influence. His enemies
slighted the growth of it at first, presuming it would soon fail when
his money was gone; whilst in the mean time it was growing up and
flourishing among the common people. When his power at last was
established and not to be overthrown, and now openly tended to the
altering of the whole constitution, they were aware too late, that
there is no beginning so mean, which continued application will not
make considerable, and that despising a danger at first, will make it
at last irresistible. Cicero was the first who had any suspicions of
his designs upon the government, and, as a good pilot is apprehensive
of a storm when the sea is most smiling, saw the designing temper of
the man through this disguise of good-humor and affability, and said,
that in general, in all he did and undertook, he detected the
ambition for absolute power, “but when I see his hair so carefully
arranged, and observe him adjusting it with one finger, I cannot
imagine it should enter into such a man’s thoughts to subvert the
Roman state.” But of this more hereafter.
The first proof he had of the people’s
good-will to him, was when he received by their suffrages a
tribuneship in the army, and came out on the list with a higher place
than Caius Popilius. A second and clearer instance of their favor
appeared upon his making a magnificent oration in praise of his aunt
Julia, wife of Marius, publicly in the forum, at whose funeral he was
so bold as to bring forth the images of Marius, which nobody had
dared to produce since the government came into Sylla’s hands,
Marius’ party having from that time been declared enemies of the
State. When some who were present had begun to raise a cry against
Cæsar, the people answered with loud shouts and clapping in his
favor, expressing their joyful surprise and satisfaction at his
having, as it were, brought up again from the grave those honors of
Marius, which for so long a time had been lost to the city. It had
always been the custom at Rome to make funeral orations in praise of
elderly matrons, but there was no precedent of any upon young women
till Cæsar first made one upon the death of his own wife. This also
procured him favor, and by this show of affection he won upon the
feelings of the people, who looked upon him as a man of great
tenderness and kindness of heart. After he had buried his wife, he
went as quæstor into Spain under one of the prætors, named Vetus,
whom he honored ever after, and made his son his own quæstor, when
he himself came to be prætor. After this employment was ended, he
married Pompeia, his third wife, having then a daughter by Cornelia,
his first wife, whom he afterwards married to Pompey the Great. He
was so profuse in his expenses, that before he had any public
employment, he was in debt thirteen hundred talents, and many thought
that by incurring such expense to be popular, he changed a solid good
for what would prove but a short and uncertain return; but in truth
he was purchasing what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable
rate. When he was made surveyor of the Appian Way, he disbursed,
besides the public money, a great sum out of his private purse; and
when he was ædile, he provided such a number of gladiators, that he
entertained the people with three hundred and twenty single combats,
and by his great liberality and magnificence in theatrical shows, in
processions, and public feastings, he threw into the shade all the
attempts that had been made before him, and gained so much upon the
people, that every one was eager to find out new offices and new
honors for him in return for his munificence.
There being two factions in the city,
one that of Sylla, which was very powerful, the other that of Marius,
which was then broken and in a very low condition, he undertook to
revive this and to make it his own. And to this end, whilst he was in
the height of his repute with the people for the magnificent shows he
gave as ædile, he ordered images of Marius, and figures of Victory,
with trophies in their hands, to be carried privately in the night
and placed in the capitol. Next morning, when some saw them bright
with gold and beautifully made, with inscriptions upon them,
referring to Marius’ exploits over the Cimbrians, they were
surprised at the boldness of him who had set them up, nor was it
difficult to guess who it was. The fame of this soon spread and
brought together a great concourse of people. Some cried out that it
was an open attempt against the established government thus to revive
those honors which had been buried by the laws and decrees of the
senate; that Cæsar had done it to sound the temper of the people
whom he had prepared before, and to try whether they were tame enough
to bear his humor, and would quietly give way to his innovations. On
the other hand, Marius’ party took courage, and it was incredible
how numerous they were suddenly seen to be, and what a multitude of
them appeared and came shouting into the capitol. Many, when they saw
Marius’ likeness, cried for joy, and Cæsar was highly extolled as
the one man, in the place of all others, who was a relation worthy of
Marius. Upon this the senate met, and Catulus Lutatius, one of the
most eminent Romans of that time, stood up and inveighed against
Cæsar, closing his speech with the remarkable saying, the Cæsar was
now not working mines, but planting batteries to overthrow the state.
But when Cæsar had made an apology for himself, and satisfied the
senate, his admirers were very much animated, and advised him not to
depart from his own thoughts for any one, since with the people’s
good favor he would erelong get the better of them all, and be the
first man in the commonwealth.
At this time, Metellus, the
High-Priest, died, and Catulus and Isauricus, persons of the highest
reputation, and who had great influence in the senate, were
competitors for the office; yet Cæsar would not give way to them,
but presented himself to the people as a candidate against them. The
several parties seeming very equal, Catulus, who, because he had the
most honor to lose, was the most apprehensive of the event, sent to
Cæsar to buy him off, with offers of a great sum of money. But his
answer was, that he was ready to borrow a larger sum than that, to
carry on the contest. Upon the day of election, as his mother
conducted him out of doors with tears, after embracing her, “My
mother,” he said, “to-day you will see me either High-Priest, or
an exile.” When the votes were taken, after a great struggle, he
carried it, and excited among the senate and nobility great alarm
lest he might now urge on the people to every kind of insolence. And
Piso and Catulus found fault with Cicero for having let Cæsar
escape, when in the conspiracy of Catiline he had given the
government such advantage against him. For Catiline, who had designed
not only to change the present state of affairs, but to subvert the
whole empire and confound all, had himself taken to flight, while the
evidence was yet incomplete against him, before his ultimate purposes
had been properly discovered. But he had left Lentulus and Cethegus
in the city to supply his place in the conspiracy, and whether they
received any secret encouragement and assistance from Cæsar is
uncertain; all that is certain is, that they were fully convicted in
the senate, and when Cicero, the consul, asked the several opinions
of the senators, how they would have them punished, all who spoke
before Cæsar sentenced them to death; but Cæsar stood up and made a
set speech, in which he told them, that he thought it without
precedent and not just to take away the lives of persons of their
birth and distinction before they were fairly tried, unless there was
an absolute necessity for it; but that if they were kept confined in
any towns of Italy Cicero himself should choose, till Catiline was
defeated, then the senate might in peace and at their leisure
determine what was best to be done.
This sentence of his carried so much
appearance of humanity, and he gave it such advantage by the
eloquence with which he urged it, that not only those who spoke after
him closed with it, but even they who had before given a contrary
opinion, now came over to his, till it came about to Catulus’ and
Cato’s turn to speak. They warmly opposed it, and Cato intimated in
his speech the suspicion of Cæsar himself, and pressed the matter so
strongly, that the criminals were given up to suffer execution. As
Cæsar was going out of the senate, many of the young men who at that
time acted as guards to Cicero, ran in with their naked swords to
assault him. But Curio, it is said, threw his gown over him, and
conveyed him away, and Cicero himself, when the young men looked up
to see his wishes, gave a sign not to kill him, either for fear of
the people, or because he thought the murder unjust and illegal. If
this be true, I wonder how Cicero came to omit all mention of it in
his book about his consulship. He was blamed, however, afterwards,
for not having made use of so fortunate an opportunity against Cæsar,
as if he had let it escape him out of fear of the populace, who,
indeed, showed remarkable solicitude about Cæsar, and some time
after, when he went into the senate to clear himself of the
suspicions he lay under, and found great clamors raised against him,
upon the senate in consequence sitting longer than ordinary, they
went up to the house in a tumult, and beset it, demanding Cæsar, and
requiring them to dismiss him. Upon this, Cato, much fearing some
movement among the poor citizens, who were always the first to kindle
the flame among the people, and placed all their hopes in Cæsar,
persuaded the senate to give them a monthly allowance of corn, an
expedient which put the commonwealth to the extraordinary charge of
seven million five hundred thousand drachmas in the year, but quite
succeeded in removing the great cause of terror for the present, and
very much weakened Cæsar’s power, who at that time was just going
to be made prætor, and consequently would have been more formidable
by his office.
But there was no disturbance during
his prætorship, only what misfortune he met with in his own domestic
affairs. Publius Clodius was a patrician by descent, eminent both for
his riches and eloquence, but in licentiousness of life and audacity
exceeded the most noted profligates of the day. He was in love with
Pompeia, Cæsar’s wife, and she had no aversion to him. But there
was strict watch kept on her apartment, and Cæsar’s mother,
Aurelia, who was a discreet woman, being continually about her, made
any interview very dangerous and difficult. The Romans have a goddess
whom they call Bona, the same whom the Greeks call Gynæcea. The
Phrygians, who claim a peculiar title to her, say she was mother to
Midas. The Romans profess she was one of the Dryads, and married to
Faunus. The Grecians affirm that she is the mother of Bacchus whose
name is not to be uttered, and, for this reason, the women who
celebrate her festival, cover the tents with vinebranches, and, in
accordance with the fable, a consecrated serpent is placed by the
goddess. It is not lawful for a man to be by, nor so much as in the
house, whilst the rites are celebrated, but the women by themselves
perform the sacred offices, which are said to be much the same with
those used in the solemnities of Orpheus. When the festival comes,
the husband, who is either consul or prætor, and with him every male
creature, quits the house. The wife then taking it under her care,
sets it in order, and the principal ceremonies are performed during
the night, the women playing together amongst themselves as they keep
watch, and music of various kinds going on.
As Pompeia was at
that time celebrating this feast, Clodius, who as yet had no beard,
and so thought to pass undiscovered, took upon him the dress and
ornaments of a singing woman, and so came thither, having the air of
a young girl. Finding the doors open, he was without any stop
introduced by the maid, who was in the intrigue. She presently ran to
tell Pompeia, but as she was away a long time, he grew uneasy waiting
for her, and left his post and traversed the house from one room to
another, still taking care to avoid the lights, till at last
Aurelia’s woman met him, and invited him to play with her, as the
women did among themselves. He refused to comply, and she presently
pulled him forward, and asked him who he was, and whence he came.
Clodius told her he was waiting for Pompeia’s own maid,
Abra, 1 being
in fact her own name also, and as he said so, betrayed himself by his
voice. Upon which the woman shrieking, ran into the company where
there were lights, and cried out, she had discovered a man. The women
were all in a fright. Aurelia covered up the sacred things and
stopped the proceedings, and having ordered the doors to be shut,
went about with lights to find Clodius, who was got in the maid’s
room that he had come in with, and was seized there. The women knew
him, and drove him out of doors, and at once, that same night, went
home and told their husbands the story. In the morning, it was all
about the town, what an impious attempt Clodius had made, and how he
ought to be punished as an offender, not only against those whom he
had affronted, but also against the public and the gods. Upon which
one of the tribunes impeached him for profaning the holy rites, and
some of the principal senators combined together and gave evidence
against him, that besides many other horrible crimes, he had been
guilty of incest with his own sister, who was married to Lucullus.
But the people set themselves against this combination of the
nobility, and defended Clodius, which was of great service to him
with the judges, who took alarm and were afraid to provoke the
multitude. Cæsar at once dismissed Pompeia, but being summoned as a
witness against Clodius, said he had nothing to charge him with. This
looking like a paradox, the accuser asked him why he parted with his
wife. Cæsar replied, “I wished my wife to be not so much as
suspected.” Some say that Cæsar spoke this as his real thought;
others, that he did it to gratify the people, who were earnest to
save Clodius. Clodius, at any rate, escaped; most of the judges
giving their opinions so written as to be illegible, that they might
not be in danger from the people by condemning him, nor in disgrace
with the nobility by acquitting him.
Cæsar, in the mean time, being out of
his prætorship, had got the province of Spain, but was in great
embarrassment with his creditors, who, as he was going off, came upon
him, and were very pressing and importunate. This led him to apply
himself to Crassus, who was the richest man in Rome, but wanted
Cæsar’s youthful vigor and heat to sustain the opposition against
Pompey. Crassus took upon him to satisfy those creditors who were not
uneasy to him, and would not be put off any longer, and engaged
himself to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, upon which
Cæsar was now at liberty to go to his province. In his journey, as
he was crossing the Alps, and passing by a small village of the
barbarians with but few inhabitants and those wretchedly poor, his
companions asked the question among themselves by way of mockery, if
there were any canvassing for offices there; any contention which
would be uppermost, or feuds of great men one against another. To
which Cæsar made answer seriously, “For my part, I had rather be
the first man among these fellows, than the second man in Rome.” It
is said that another time, when free from business in Spain, after
reading some part of the history of Alexander, he sat a great while
very thoughtful, and at last burst out into tears. His friends were
surprised, and asked him the reason of it. “Do you think,” said
he, “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?” As soon as he came into Spain he
was very active, and in a few days had got together ten new cohorts
of foot in addition to the twenty which were there before. With these
he marched against the Calaici and Lusitani and conquered them, and
advancing as far as the ocean, subdued the tribes which never before
had been subject to the Romans. Having managed his military affairs
with good success, he was equally happy in the course of his civil
government. He took pains to establish a good understanding amongst
the several states, and no less care to heal the differences between
debtors and creditors. He ordered that the creditor should receive
two parts of the debtor’s yearly income, and that the other part
should be managed by the debtor himself, till by this method the
whole debt was at last discharged. This conduct made him leave his
province with a fair reputation; being rich himself, and having
enriched his soldiers, and having received from them the honorable
name of Imperator.
There is a law among the Romans, that
whoever desires the honor of a triumph must stay without the city and
expect his answer. And another, that those who stand for the
consulship shall appear personally upon the place. Cæsar was come
home at the very time of choosing consuls, and being in a difficulty
between these two opposite laws, sent to the senate a desire that
since he was obliged to be absent, he might sue for the consulship by
his friends. Cato, being backed by the law, at first opposed his
request; afterwards perceiving that Cæsar had prevailed with a great
part of the senate to comply with it, he made it his business to gain
time, and went on wasting the whole day in speaking. Upon which Cæsar
thought fit to let the triumph fall, and pursued the consulship.
Entering the town and coming forward immediately, he had recourse to
a piece of state-policy by which everybody was deceived but Cato.
This was the reconciling of Crassus and Pompey, the two men who then
were most powerful in Rome. There had been a quarrel between them,
which he now succeeded in making up, and by this means strengthened
himself by the united power of both, and so under the cover of an
action which carried all the appearance of a piece of kindness and
good-nature, caused what was in effect a revolution in the
government. For it was not the quarrel between Pompey and Cæsar, as
most men imagine, which was the origin of the civil wars, but their
union, their conspiring together at first to subvert the aristocracy,
and so quarreling afterwards between themselves. Cato, who often
foretold what the consequence of this alliance would be, had then the
character of a sullen, interfering man, but in the end the reputation
of a wise but unsuccessful counsellor.
Thus Cæsar being doubly supported by
the interests of Crassus and Pompey, was promoted to the consulship,
and triumphantly proclaimed with Calpurnius Bibulus. When he entered
on his office, he brought in bills which have been preferred with
better grace by the most audacious of the tribunes than by a consul,
in which he proposed the plantation of colonies and division of
lands, simply to please the commonalty. The best and most honorable
of the senators opposed it, upon which, as he had long wished for
nothing more than for such a colorable pretext, he loudly protested
how much against his will it was to be driven to seek support from
the people, and how the senate’s insulting and harsh conduct left
no other course possible for him, than to devote himself henceforth
to the popular cause and interest. And so he hurried out of the
senate, and presenting himself to the people, and there placing
Crassus and Pompey, one on each side of him, he asked them whether
they consented to the bills he had proposed. They owned their assent,
upon which he desired them to assist him against those who had
threatened to oppose him with their swords. They engaged they would,
and Pompey added further, that he would meet their swords with a
sword and buckler too. These words the nobles much resented, as
neither suitable to his own dignity, nor becoming the reverence due
to the senate, but resembling rather the vehemence of a boy, or the
fury of a madman. But the people were pleased with it. In order to
get a yet firmer hold upon Pompey, Cæsar having a daughter, Julia,
who had been before contracted to Servilius Cæpio, now betrothed her
to Pompey, and told Servilius he should have Pompey’s daughter, who
was not unengaged either, but promised to Sylla’s son, Faustus. A
little time after, Cæsar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso and
got Piso made consul for the year following. Cato exclaimed loudly
against this, and protested with a great deal of warmth, that it was
intolerable the government should be prostituted by marriages, and
that they should advance one another to the commands of armies,
provinces, and other great posts, by means of women. Bibulus, Cæsar’s
colleague, finding it was to no purpose to oppose his bills, but that
he was in danger of being murdered in the forum, as also was Cato,
confined himself to his house, and there let the remaining part of
his consulship expire. Pompey, when he was married, at once filled
the forum with soldiers, and gave the people his help in passing the
new laws, and secured Cæsar the government of all Gaul, both on this
and the other side of the Alps, together with Illyricum and the
command of four legions for five years. Cato made some attempts
against these proceedings, but was seized and led off on the way to
prison by Cæsar, who expected he would appeal to the tribunes. But
when he saw that Cato went along without speaking a word, and not
only the nobility were indignant, but that the people, also, out of
respect for Cato’s virtue, were following in silence, and with
dejected looks, he himself privately desired one of the tribunes to
rescue Cato. As for the other senators, some few of them attended the
house, the rest being disgusted, absented themselves. Hence
Considius, a very old man, took occasion one day to tell Cæsar, that
the senators did not meet because they were afraid of his soldiers.
Cæsar asked, “Why don’t you then, out of the same fear, keep at
home?” To which Considius replied, that age was his guard against
fear, and that the small remains of his life were not worth much
caution. But the most disgraceful thing that was done in Cæsar’s
consulship, was his assisting to gain the tribuneship for the same
Clodius who had made the attempt upon his wife’s chastity, and
intruded upon the secret vigils. He was elected on purpose to effect
Cicero’s downfall; nor did Cæsar leave the city to join his army,
till they two had overpowered Cicero, and driven him out of Italy.
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