In 54, the ties between Caesar and Cicero grew much closer thanks to the appointment of Cicero’s brother Quintus as a legate of Caesar in the spring of that year (serving in 53 and 52 as well). Writing to Quintus in July, Cicero remarks that he is confident of the backing of Pompey and Caesar, and he reminds Quintus of one of his brother’s chief goals in becoming an officer in Caesar’s army, namely the accumulation of enough wealth to settle his considerable debts (Qfr. 2.15.2-3). In a letter of the same period to his friend Atticus, Cicero pairs his own name with that of Caesar’s agent Oppius and describes the two of them as ‘‘friends of Caesar’’ (Caesaris amici, Cic. Att. 4.16.8). Cicero goes on to relate their joint activity on behalf of Caesar, who in this year was embarking upon an ambitious building program in Rome.6 Cicero states that he and Oppius have expended, with Caesar’s authorization, 60 million sesterces to purchase land in the heart of Rome that was to become Caesar’s new Forum lulium, extending to the north of the old Roman Forum. This outlay was clearly an enormous sum when we bear in mind that 40 million sesterces was the annual tribute later imposed upon the whole of the new province organized from Caesar’s conquests (Suet. lul. 25.1). The purchase of this land reveals the size of the vast financial resources at Caesar’s disposal, and it is, in fact, but one part of the whole picture. In the same letter, Cicero describes another building project in which he was also assisting as Caesar’s agent, namely the construction of a marble enclosure (Saepta) in the Campus Martius for the voting assemblies.
In 54, Cicero exploited his friendship with Caesar to help advance the careers of young men in his orbit. In April of this year Cicero sent his friend, the up-and-coming jurist C. Trebatius Testa, to join Caesar, and in a surviving letter of introduction addressed to Caesar himself (Fam. 7.5) Cicero reveals (§2) both that he had already been in touch with Caesar to press for an appointment on behalf of another young friend, and that Caesar had written to his agent in Rome, the ever-efficient and trusted Balbus, to encourage Cicero to send him more proteges who wanted to seek fame and fortune in Gaul. Both from letters to Cicero’s brother
(e. g. Qfr. 2.14.3) and from letters to Trebatius after he arrived in Gaul (Fam. 7.6-18, spanning May 54 to June 53), we can form a vivid impression of the challenges facing young city folk who joined Caesar on campaign with the hope of snatching quick riches and returning to the civilized world of Roman society.
In August 54, one of the bonds that had joined Caesar and Pompey was suddenly and unexpectedly severed by the tragic death of Pompey’s young wife Julia, the daughter of Caesar. She died in giving birth to a daughter, who herself died a few days later. Pompey’s plans to bury his wife on his country estate at Alba were overridden by the Roman populace, which forced the body to be cremated and buried in the Campus Martius, and this show ofpopular affection provides a stunning indication of Caesar’s standing with the common man in this period (Liv. Per. 106; Val. Max. 4.6.4; Vell. 3.47.2; Plut. Pomp. 53.4-5, Caes. 23.4; Flor. 2.13.13; App. B Civ. 2.10; Dio 39.64; cf. Fam. 7.9.1, Qfr. 3.1.7, 8.3). At that time, Caesar had not yet returned from his second invasion of Britain, and hopes of vast riches from that enterprise were still high, though they were soon to be dashed. Despite the fact that Pompey declined Caesar’s later offer to form another marriage connection (Suet. lul. 27), their political alliance showed no signs of strain for the next several years.
As proof that the dynasts continued to be all-powerful, Cicero (Qfr. 3.4.1) points to the influence that Pompey had been able to exert in rescuing his old follower A. Gabinius, the ex-consul of 58, from certain conviction on a charge of maiestas (treason) in October (TLRR no. 296). Although Cicero had little to do with that trial (apart from appearing as a hostile witness), despite his undying hatred for Gabinius because of the aid he had given Clodius in bringing about Cicero’s exile, Cicero found himself increasingly pressed into service on behalf of clients who were forced on him by the dynasts. One of these was Caesar’s man P. Vatinius, the ex-tribune of 59, whom Cicero defended successfully in August 54 on charges arising out of Vatinius’ campaign for the praetorship of 55 (TLRR no. 292). Another was the odious Gabinius himself, whom Cicero was compelled to defend at a second trial, when Gabinius was charged with extortion (TLRR no. 303). By the time of that trial in November-December, Caesar had returned from his expedition to Britain (BG 5.23) but was prevented by an uprising in Gaul from returning south of the Alps in keeping with his usual custom. Therefore, he sent a letter in support of Gabinius, which Pompey read at an assembly of the people (Dio 39.63.4), yet despite the best efforts of the two dynasts and Cicero’s defense speech, Gabinius was convicted and went into exile. This setback for the coalition was compounded by the failure of Pompey and Caesar to elect their slate of consuls for 53. In fact, because of a scandal that arose from a bribery scheme that burst out into the open in September of 54 (Cic. Att. 4.17.2), the year ended in chaos, without elections having been held. This state of affairs generated a persistent rumor that Pompey was angling to have himself named dictator (Cic. QFr. 3.6.4, 7.3), and it was not until the summer of 53 that consuls and praetors were finally elected.
Throughout 53, Caesar was occupied with stiff fighting in Gaul, and at the beginning of the year he even had to borrow from Pompey a legion that Pompey had raised in Cisalpine Gaul during his consulship in 55 (BG 6.1.2, 8.54.2; Plut. Cato Min. 45.3). Caesar acquired these reinforcements from his political ally and enrolled two new legions of his own (BG 6.1) to compensate for the loss of 15 cohorts (the equivalent of a legion and a half) that were destroyed in the uprising of the Eburones in late 54 (BG 5.26-37). In the late summer of 53, Caesar sent his young officer Mark Antony to Rome to stand for the quaestorship, and Caesar wrote to Cicero, asking him to patch up his previous differences with Antony and support his candidacy (Cic. Phil. 2.49). Caesar’s letter to Cicero must have been typical of many that he wrote from Gaul to influence the course of Roman politics from afar. In the early months of 53, Caesar also sent a squadron of 1,000 Gallic horse, under the command of his young legate P. Crassus, to join the ill-fated Parthian expedition of the dynast Marcus Crassus (Plut. Crass. 17.4). The defeat of Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae on June 9 and his subsequent death (MRR 2.230) left Pompey and Caesar as the sole surviving members of the three-way alliance. Meanwhile, in Rome, violence reigned, caused by rivalry between the gang leaders Milo, whom Cicero backed for the consulship of 52, and Cicero’s old archenemy P. Clodius, who was a candidate for the praetorship. Finally, the year ended, as had the previous one, without it being possible to elect magistrates for the new year.
In the winter of 53-2, after an absence of two whole campaign seasons (in 54 and 53), Caesar found himself once more in his customary winter quarters south of the Alps (BG 6.44.3). Cicero (as Pompey’s emissary?) paid Caesar a visit at Ravenna, where he was asked to use his influence with the tribune M. Caelius to secure one of Caesar’s political goals in 52 (Cic. Att. 7.1.4). At the beginning of that year, there occurred a serious breakdown in law and order in Rome. The crisis in the city was precipitated by riots sparked by the murder of the demagogue P. Clodius, who was killed on January 18 in a brawl with followers of Milo. As yet no consuls or praetors or quaestors had been elected for 52; there were those who proposed that Pompey and his partner Caesar be named consuls to restore order (Suet. lul. 26.1). However, whereas Pompey was on the scene and available for this assignment, Caesar was faced with the necessity of hastening to Transalpine Gaul to combat a serious and widespread rebellion that broke out in the recently conquered territories under the leadership of the charismatic chieftain Vercinge-torix (BG 7.1-5).
Ultimately, absolute power was placed in Pompey’s hands when the senate adopted the highly unusual expedient of recommending the election of Pompey as consul without a colleague (MRR 2.234). This was done on the motion of M. Cato’s son-inlaw M. Bibulus, Caesar’s ex-consular colleague and long-time political opponent (Asc. 36C). The aim was to avoid resurrecting the office of dictator, the normal means of arming a single magistrate to cope with a serious crisis, but an office in bad odor because of the murderous tyranny of the dictator Sulla (82-79 BC). To compensate Caesar for the loss in sharing power with Pompey as his consular colleague, Pompey supported passage of a bill granting Caesar the right to stand for a future consulship in absentia (Cic. Att. 7.3.4, 8.3.3; Flor. 2.13.16; App. B Civ. 2.25). The law conferring this privilege on Caesar was passed with the backing of all ten tribunes (Caes. BC 1.9.2; Liv. Per. 107; Suet. lul. 26.1; Dio 40.50.3-4), despite stout opposition from Cato (Caes. BC 1.32.3; Liv. Per. 107; Plut. Pomp. 56.3). And later in the year, when Pompey passed his law de iure magistratuum reaffirming the requirement that candidates canvass in person for public office in Rome, he specifically upheld Caesar’s exemption (Cic. Att. 8.3.3).7
It must have become increasingly evident to Caesar that his political enemies, led by Cato, intended to take revenge on him by haling him into court as soon as he ceased to enjoy immunity from prosecution by virtue of holding imperium. This threat is what Caesar claimed, after his victory at the Battle of Pharsalia in 48, had forced him to go to war for the sake of self-preservation (Suet. lul. 30.4, on the authority of Asinius Pollio, who was present at the battle). Doubts raised by Shackle-ton Bailey (1965: 39), who challenged the plausibility of that ascribed motive, have recently been restated at length by Morstein-Marx (2007), but given the attempt by the tribune Antistius to prosecute Caesar in 56 and the demand by Cato in 55 that Caesar be handed over to the Germans, the threat of prosecution was certainly to be reckoned with (Brunt 1986: 18). Hence the Law of the Ten Tribunes in 52, granting Caesar an exemption from the requirement of canvassing in person for his second consulship, represented for Caesar an asset of considerable value. Because of it, he could stand for office without having to return from his province and without having to surrender his imperium (and immunity from prosecution) as a consequence of being forced to cross the pomerium, as he had been compelled to do at the time of his first candidacy for the consulship in 60 (Suet. lul. 18.2).
While it is true that no specific year for Caesar’s future candidacy was most likely specified in the tribunician legislation of 52 (so Gruen 1974: 476), the extension of five campaign seasons granted by the lex Pompeia Licinia of 55 (those of 54, 53, 52, 51, and 50) made it logical for Caesar to stand in 49 for the consulship of 48 - the first for which he would be eligible under Sulla’s requirement that ten years had to elapse before the consulship was repeated.8 It was for a candidacy in 49 that Caesar began laying the groundwork in the summer of 50, when he canvassed the voters in support of Mark Antony’s election to an augurate (Hirt. BG 8.50.4). Caesar himself later claimed that the Law of the Ten Tribunes specifically had in view a candidacy in the year 49 (BC 1.9.2). And he also complained in the same passage that by demanding his return from Gaul in January 49, his enemies were depriving him of half a year of his governorship because the dispensation granted to him by Law of the Ten Tribunes should have permitted him to remain in Gaul for another six months and sue for the consulship of 48 in absentia.
When Caesar set out in early March of 52 for Transalpine Gaul to crush the revolt of Vercingetorix, Caesar expressed himself as well satisfied with the steps that Pompey was taking in Rome to restore order (BG 7.6.1). It is against this background of trust between the two dynasts that we are to judge the legislation sponsored by Pompey in his third consulship. Among a whole host of reforms enacted by Pompey in 52, the one that had the most far-reaching consequences for Caesar’s command was Pom-pey’s lex de provinciis, which introduced a five-year gap between holding office in Rome and governing a province abroad (Dio 40.56.1, cf. 30.1, 46.2; Caes. BC 1.85.9). The new regulations had dire consequences for Caesar’s security, which hinged upon his ability to retain his command in Gaul up to the beginning of his prospective second consulship (in 48). Previously, under the procedure prescribed by the Sempronian law, the senate had to designate consular provinces in advance of the consular elections, and so, because the lex Pompeia Licinia of 55 appears to have barred the senate from considering the assignment of the Gauls prior to March 1, 50 (unless Caesar completed the pacification of Gaul before that date), the earliest that Caesar could have been succeeded was 49 BC, by one of the consuls elected in 50 for 49. The clearest indication that the law of 55 contained such a restriction on the reassignment of the Gauls is provided by the statement attributed to Pompey in October 51 that before March 1, 50 no decision could be taken concerning Caesar’s provinces sine iniuria - i. e. it would be illegitimate to do so (Cael. Fam. 8.8.9, cf. 9.5). However, since under Pompey’s lex deprovinciis of 52 succession could take place without any appreciable gap between the senate’s decision and the assumption of power by the new governor, Caesar became potentially exposed to replacement any time after Marchl,50. Still, the senate was not entirely free to do as it pleased because Pompey’s law, unlike the Sempronian, did not ban the use of a tribune’s veto to block action by the senate. Therefore, Caesar’s strategy during the last few years of his command was always to have on his side the services of one or more loyal tribunes. The names and activities of four of these pro-Caesarian tribunes are well documented in 51 (MRR 2.241). In 50, the chief role of defending Caesar’s interests was played by the tribune C. Scribonius Curio (MRR 2.249). And after Curio laid down his office on December 9, 50, the torch was passed to the tribunes Mark Antony, who had served with Caesar in Gaul since late 54, and to Q. Cassius Longinus (not to be confused with C. Cassius, the future assassin of Caesar, also tr. pl. in 49).
Of course, extended commands like Caesar’s and Pompey’s lay outside the normal practice, which envisaged the replacement of governors every year or two. Since Pompey’s five-year term as governor of the two Spains, granted by the lex Trebonia of 55, was due to run out at the end of the following year, Pompey took the step of having his command extended for five years (Dio 40.44.2, 56.2; App. B Civ. 2.24; incorrectly stated as a four-year extension by Plut. Pomp. 55.7, Caes. 28.5). Although this maneuver was later viewed as a grab for power at the expense of his partner Caesar, who was locked in a desperate struggle against the insurgent leader Vercin-getorix, the strengthening of Pompey’s position was, on the contrary, potentially useful to Caesar in his bid for a future consulship (of 48). It posed no threat to him, so long as the two dynasts remained on friendly terms, as they most certainly did in 52 and the year following.
In these and other respects, then, the power of Caesar and Pompey was well secured by the legislation of 52. Furthermore, their archenemy M. Cato was defeated for the consulship of 51 (Plut. Cato Min. 49.2; Dio 40.58.1-3; Liv. Per. 108; cf. Caes. BC 1.4.1), and Caesar’s success in crushing the revolt of Vercingetorix was celebrated with the decree of a giving lasting 20 days (BG 7.90.8; Suet. lul. 24). On the other hand, one of the two consuls elected for 51, M. Claudius Marcellus, was an avowed enemy of Caesar (Plut. Caes. 29.1), and in December 52, or early 51, the dynasts were powerless, despite Pompey’s best efforts, to avert the conviction of the ex-tribune T. Munatius Plancus when he ceased to hold office after December 9, 52 (TLRR no. 327). Plancus succumbed to a prosecution launched by Cicero for Plancus’ role in the violence sparked by Clodius’ murder (Fam. 7.2.2), and the convicted defendant sought refuge at Ravenna, in Caesar’s province, where his needs were well provided for (Cael. Fam. 8.1.4). Caesar, however, chose to remain north of the Alps, both in the winter of 52-1 (at Bibracte, BG 7.90.8) and in the one following. For this reason, his accessibility to politicians in Rome was restricted to correspondence and intermediaries, as opposed to face-to-face consultations in Cisalpina.
World History
