The year following the suppression of the Catiline conspiracy was one of uncertainty. Pompeius was returning home after his six years’ stay in the East. The question was whether he would play the rôle of a new Sulla. It seems generally to have been expected that he would. There was no army in Italy strong enough to resist his will; certainly the force which had overcome Catiline near Fiesole was quite unequal to such a work. The question was, who were to be his friends and what policy would he pursue. One of the general’s emissaries appeared in Rome, and made it clear that Pompeius could not be used as a mere tool of the senatorial party. Cicero made tactless overtures to secure his favor, and met with a cold reception.
Cæsar showed more diplomacy, paying the general the compliment of requesting him to finish the Capitoline temple, one of the chief shrines of the civic religion of Rome. This duty came within Cæsar’s province as Pontifex Maximus, and besides as Prætor for this year he held a position which made his influence useful to the returning general. Both the scheme for the restoration of the temple and a measure for recalling Pompeius to the city, which was supported by Cæsar, were opposed by the Senate, and the discussion led to such violence that the Senate suspended Cæsar from his functions as magistrate, and only restored him when he had personally intervened to quiet the passions of the mob.
Though Cæsar’s year of office was over (61 B.C.), and the time had come for him to administer Spain as Proprætor, that being the province assigned him, he delayed his departure. There were many grounds for this course. Pompeius had been keeping his own counsel as to his future plans, and required watching. Cæsar had difficulties with his creditors; he had long been heavily in debt, and his year of office, with its sensational political activities, must have severely drained his resources.
But the chief cause which delayed his journey west was the violation, in the House of the Pontifex Maximus, of the sacred mysteries of the Bona Dea by a young Quæstor-elect, Clodius, who was suspected of being the lover of Cæsar’s wife, Pompeia. A scandal involving the head of the state religion was a serious matter, and Cæsar lived up to the rôle assigned him by sententiously remarking that Cæsar’s wife ought not even to be suspected and by seizing this opportunity of divorcing her. The step satisfied public opinion at the time, but the dignity of the act is somewhat lessened in the eyes of later critics from the fact that the Pontifex Maximus himself was, even according to the flexible standards of Rome, notorious for his moral laxity.
When Clodius’ trial was held, Cæsar diplomatically denied that he had any certain knowledge of the case. Politics were so much involved in this trial that proscriptions might have been initiated. Clodius was a figure in the popular party, and, in the end, by the common method of bribing the judges, an acquittal was secured. Pompeius, in the midst of this exciting time, had arrived in Rome, thus giving Cæsar an opportunity of taking the measure of the over-praised Eastern conqueror. Before Cæsar left for Spain, mutual advances had taken place, and he felt sure that Pompeius would not ally himself with the senatorial party. Cæsar also continued to be on good terms with the millionaire Crassus, and before leaving Italy he borrowed from him eighteen hundred talents to satisfy the demands of creditors.
Of the period of Cæsar’s rule in Spain little is known; but his service there was valuable to him because, while contending with the hardy hill tribes, who were constantly in arms against the Romans, he received a training in war that afterwards stood him in good stead. He showed himself, too, an able and conscientious administrator, regardful of the condition of the provincials, who had suffered from the loss of property and from heavy taxation during the unintermitted war that took place while the government at Rome was destroying the home-rule system set up by Sertorius. The beneficent character of Cæsar’s administration showed itself in his friendly relation with the free city of Gades, where he was called in to reform the local laws and to settle factional disputes. The prosperity of the town in after years may reasonably be supposed to have dated from this period. Even Cicero speaks in glowing language of Cæsar’s supervision. The generous character of his treatment of the town is seen in its admission twelve years afterwards to the full Roman franchise. One of the most distinguished of the citizens of Gades, Balbus, became Cæsar’s confidential agent and secretary, serving in this capacity for many years without a break. After his master’s death, Balbus rose to be Prætor and Consul; he was the first enfranchised foreigner who held these highest offices in Rome.
All the affairs relating to his provincial government were set in order in the spring of 59 B.C., when Cæsar set out for Rome to be there in time for the consular elections, which were usually held in summer. He had two objects in view: one to secure the dignity of a triumph, the official stamp of a successful military commander; the other to present himself as a candidate for the consulship. It was impossible for him while holding a military command to appear within the walls and formally solicit the votes of his fellow-citizens. He therefore asked for permission to become a candidate without fulfilling the formal conditions, and this request the Senate refused to grant. Cæsar solved the difficulty by sacrificing the triumph; he resigned his command and entered the city as a private individual.
But now the opposition to him took another form. A determined aristocrat, M. Calpurnius Bibulus, who, apart from his political tenets, had a long-standing personal grudge against Cæsar, was put up by the senatorial party as his colleague for the consulship, and was elected by the lavish use of money. Cæsar’s next move in this game of political strategy was a master stroke of astuteness; he formed a close combination with Pompeius, whom the senatorial party had just irritated by vetoing all his pet schemes, among them an opportunity of a second consulship and a plan to reward his soldiers by a distribution of public lands. As a third member of the alliance Crassus was introduced, a valuable asset because of the great financial backing he could give. He saw a chance for promoting his political advancement with two such colleagues to help him. It was a frank system of give and take; there were no strong personal ties between any of the three members of the junta, but they had at least a common opponent, the senatorial party.
An effort was made, though it was unsuccessful, to detach Cicero from his friendly relations with the aristocratic majority in the Senate; as he declined the invitation, the new political machine became a triumvirate, the union of three influential persons to overcome opposition and to prevent the wheels of public business from being blocked by the endless methods of obstruction ever ready to be employed in the complicated system of Roman government, where the checks were more numerous than the balances. It simply meant that these three men, and not the reactionary senators, should decide on the distribution of provinces, on the candidates for offices, and on the command of armies. From the record of all three, it was clear that the technique of the constitutional system would not be treated with great reverence, for all were practical politicians and had definite personal ambitions to gratify.
As Consul, Cæsar began his year of magistracy with a policy of studied moderation. He tried to get on with Bibulus by showing him marked consideration in the way of official precedence, and his first reform of senatorial practice concerned a subject which might well have been taken as a non-controversial matter, the publication of the Senate’s proceedings. Cæsar proposed that a summary of each debate should be exposed to view in the Forum. It was an intimation to the senators that they must hold themselves responsible to public opinion.
The next proposal was to make some arrangement by which the veterans of Pompeius’ army should be supplied with public lands. These lands had to be acquired by the state from private owners, so the proceeds of the extensive conquests of Pompeius’ conquests in the East were to be applied to this purpose. The Senate refused to listen to any agrarian measure; the very name frightened them. Cato obstructed, trying to talk the scheme out in the Senate. Cæsar, who had as little respect for parliamentary procedure as Cromwell, put a stop to this copious oratory by placing the speaker under arrest. He was soon released, however, in deference to the pressure of his colleagues.
In the face of the hopeless opposition of the Senate to the Consul’s legislation, the only course left to pursue was for Cæsar to present his legislation directly to the popular assembly, without the authorization of the Senate. This method was extraordinary, but not absolutely illegal, and it had been employed by reformers since the time of Tiberius Gracchus. There were, of course, grave objections to it, for measures could be rushed through without proper discussion, and it is well known that hasty legislation is often dangerous, even for those who promote it. A specially drastic feature of the agrarian bill was the clause which compelled senators and all officers, to be elected in future, to swear to be faithful to its provisions.
In this way Cæsar hoped to secure his measure from being abrogated when the year of his magistracy was over. This clause was not, however, a new expedient, but it was now being used in a new way to prevent the claim that prerogatives of the Senate had been violated by passing legislation without consulting its wishes. Pompeius promised to support the bill by arms if violence were resorted to on the other side. A Tribune exercised his right to veto on the measure, when it was introduced in the popular assembly, but this old constitutional check was contemptuously disregarded. Also, when Bibulus, the conservative colleague of Cæsar, interfered by formally delaying action in the measure, he was forcibly removed from the Forum by some of Pompeius’ veterans. Bibulus was equally powerless when he invoked religious scruples of a technical kind, for Cæsar was Pontifex Maximus as well as Consul. Bibulus’ interpretations of signs and omens were ruled out as irregular. Even when the bill was passed by the people, he kept up opposition in the Senate and tried to induce the senators to declare the agrarian law null and void. They, however, were not prepared to join him in such a hazardous undertaking, so in disgust he withdrew for the rest of his term into private life. His retirement led the people to remark jokingly that the two Consuls for the year were Julius and Cæsar, not Cæsar and Bibulus.
The passage of the agrarian democratic measure, as it stood, was undertaken to fulfil engagements made with Pompeius, whose troops were especially concerned in this distribution of lands. Equally personal were the measures passed by the people to regularize the situation of the territories in the East, where Pompeius, after his conquests, had acted on his own initiative in making treaties, imposing taxation, and settling the terms of local administration. The personal relations between the two triumvirs were now drawn closer by the marriage of Cæsar’s daughter Julia to Pompeius; she was at this time twenty-two years old, and as long as she lived she prevented any open rupture between her husband and her father.
In another legislative enactment Cæsar attested his loyal interpretation of the triumvirate compact rather than his desire to forward the public interests of the state. Crassus desired that the farmers of the taxes in the province of Asia should be relieved from the contract which they had made with the government. It was a shady piece of business; even Cicero, who was not apt to be critical where capitalistic interests were involved, called the scheme of Crassus shameful. It was defeated in the Senate by the determined efforts of Cato. The measure was afterwards jammed through the popular assembly in a form which relieved the taxgatherers of one-third of their financial burden.
This was really a shrewd move to separate from the senatorial party the whole mercantile class, who normally acted solidly with them. They now looked upon the triumvirate combination as favorable to their interests, and so deprived the Senate of a solid support at a time when that body needed every element of the population in its unequal struggle with the triumvirs.
Much more worthy than this act of special legislation was a measure for dealing with extortion on the part of provincial administrators. The Roman governors and their subordinates treated the provinces as legitimate spoil, by which they could balance the large amounts spent at home in political corruption. This system offered the most unwholesome example of ring rule. Every man in public life had a good chance of ruling a province at some time in his career, and there was no inducement to touch a well-tried system which had proved profitable to all concerned.
Cæsar’s law was a blanket measure, evidently drawn with great intelligence and showing the familiarity of an ex-provincial official with the concrete needs of the situation. It extended the jurisdiction of existing courts for cases of provincial extortion, in regard to the definition of the crime, the persons liable, and the penalties to be imposed. All the methods of extortion were brought within the scope of this act. The governor and his official staff were held liable, and the punishment, hitherto chiefly imposed by damages, was increased to deprivation of the right to bequeath property, and in some cases expulsion from the Senate and exile were inflicted on offending officials.
Good as this legislation was, it contained a political element which prevented it from meeting the whole situation of provincial misrule. The triumvirate, we have seen, made a distinct bid for the favor of the mercantile classes when the previous bill was passed relieving the taxgatherers of Asia from the full extent of their contract. This new law only concerned the administration of senatorial officials; it did not put an end to extortion, nor did it stop the avenues of public corruption, because the financiers, the men who gathered about the official ruling class, were left to ply their nefarious trade unmolested.
But Cæsar’s consulship broke the power of the senatorial aristocracy, which had been on the decline ever since the death of Sulla. By his alliance with Pompeius and Crassus a continuity of policy was secured, under which the old republican principle that cessation of office meant also cessation of power came to an end. The main business at the close of his year of service as Consul was to arrange that the system he had started should continue to work smoothly. The two candidates for the consulship were pledged supporters of the triumvirate. An even more important tool was the active and unscrupulous Clodius, who had made himself notorious because of the Bona Dea scandal. He was made a Tribune, and as such became the local agent in Rome of the triumvirs’ interests. He signalized his entrance into office by abolishing the small payment still exacted on the state distribution of grain to the people, and he organized the masses into guilds, each under a district leader, so that the populace could be controlled and could be worked together either as a political machine or as a mob, whether to vote or to do deeds of violence according to the password of their leader.
The Senate, in arranging the assignment of provinces in B.C. 59, had tried to diminish Cæsar’s influence by giving him for his work as Proconsul the duty of attending to the internal condition of Italy. This meant that he would have no military force at his command, and that he would be expected to devote himself to the supervision of roads and public works. The senatorial arrangement for rendering their chief opponent innocuous was simply an invitation to him to treat it as non-existing. It was proposed to set the Senate’s action aside and to give Cisalpine Gaul and the adjoining province of Illyria to Cæsar for a period of five years.
When the new measure was before the popular assembly, the Senate, under pressure from Pompeius, voted that in addition to Cisalpine Gaul in the Celtic region on the Italian side of the Alps, the Gallic province, with an ample army and suitable staff, should be assigned to Cæsar. It was known that there was restlessness among the Gauls and the Germans, who were on the borders of the prosperous Roman province in southern Gaul along the lower Rhone. This was, of course, an opportunity for real proconsular duty, but probably no one who voted for the assignment realized the possibilities of the command which now fell into Cæsar’s hand.
But before setting out for his province (58 B.C.), Cæsar remained near at hand to supervise Clodius’ arrangements for muzzling the Senate; it was not safe for the new Proconsul to absent himself from Rome until affairs there had been brought so under control that there would be no chance of a senatorial reactionary movement. Clodius first abolished the use of indefinitely prolonged obstruction, a practice involved in the religious privilege of “watching the heavens” for evil omens, and a method of delay normally used to prevent the assemblies of the people from being held. The next step was to hinder the Censors from making a combination to remove from the Senate partisans of Cæsar. This purpose was secured by another law of Clodius that made it impossible for the Censor to strike from the roll of the Senate anyone, except on a formal accusation, and no member could be removed even then unless both Censors acted together.
Cæsar attempted also to conciliate Cicero by offering him a staff appointment; on this being refused, as it was desirable to deprive the senatorial party of the oratorical talents which gave Cicero a hold on the people, Clodius was allowed to bring charges against him in connection with the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. The terms of the new law were perfectly general; it simply outlawed any person who had or should hereafter put to death a Roman citizen uncondemned, that is, without due trial and sentence. Cicero took the hint and fled from Rome. At the same time the uncompromising senatorial obstructionist Cato was “kicked upstairs” by being given an appointment as commissioner to supervise the annexation of the island of Cyprus. Ample time was allowed him, and it was arranged that when he had finished with Cyprus, he should go to Byzantium and settle some unimportant disputes in that free city. With Cato kept busy at a long distance from Rome, and with Cicero out of the way, there was little to fear with Clodius acting in the rôle of “boss” of Rome.