The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose Volume II - Rome Part 4

At break of day, Caesar ordered all those who had taken post on the mountain to come down from the higher grounds into the plain and pile their arms. When they did this without refusal, and, with, outstretched arms, prostrating themselves on the ground, with tears, implored his mercy, he comforted them and bade them rise, and having spoken a few words of his own clemency to alleviate their fears, he pardoned them all, and gave orders to his soldiers that no injury should be done to them, and nothing taken from them. Having used this diligence, he ordered the legions in his camp to come and meet him, and those which were with him to take their turn of rest, and go back to the camp, and the same day went to Larissa.

In that battle, no more than two hundred privates were missing, but Caesar lost about thirty centurions, valiant officers. Crastinus, also, of whom mention was made before, fighting most courageously, lost his life by the wound of a sword in the mouth, nor was that false which he declared when marching to battle; for Caesar entertained the highest opinion of his behavior in that battle, and thought him highly deserving of his approbation. Of Pompey's army, there fell about fifteen thousand; but upward of twenty-four thousand were made prisoners; for even the cohorts which were stationed in the forts surrendered to Sulla. Several others took shelter in the neighboring states. One hundred and eighty stands of colors and nine eagles were brought to Caesar. Lucius Domitius, fleeing from the camp to the mountains, his strength being exhausted by fatigue, was killed....

Caesar thought he ought to postpone all business and pursue Pompey, whithersoever he should retreat, that he might not be able to provide fresh forces, and renew the war; he therefore marched on every day, as far as his cavalry were able to advance, and ordered one legion to follow him by shorter journeys. A proclamation was issued by Pompey at Amphipolis[50] that all the young men of that province, Grecians and Roman citizens, should take the military oath; but whether he issued it with an intention of preventing suspicion, and to conceal as long as possible his design of fleeing farther, or to endeavor to keep possession of Macedonia by new levies, if n.o.body pursued him, it is impossible to judge. He lay at anchor one night, and calling together his friends in Amphipolis, and collecting a sum of money for his necessary expenses, upon advice of Caesar's approach, set sail from that place, and arrived in a few days at Mitylene.[51] Here he was detained two days, and having added a few galleys to his fleet he went to Cilicia, and thence to Cyprus. There he is informed that, by the consent of all the inhabitants of Antioch[52] and Roman citizens who traded there, the castle had been seized to shut him out of the town; and that messengers had been dispatched to all those who were reported to have taken refuge in the neighboring states, that they should not come to Antioch; that if they did so, it would be attended with imminent danger to their lives. The same thing had happened to Lucius Lentulus, who had been Consul the year before, and to Publius Lentulus, a consular senator, and to several others at Rhodes,[53] who having followed Pompey in his flight, and arrived at the island, were not admitted into the town or port; and having received a message to leave that neighborhood, set sail much against their will; for the rumor of Caesar's approach had now reached those states.

Pompey, being informed of these proceedings, laid aside his design of going to Syria, and having taken the public money from the farmers of the revenue, and borrowed more from some private friends, and having put on board his s.h.i.+ps a large quant.i.ty of bra.s.s for military purposes, and two thousand armed men, whom he partly selected from the slaves of the tax farmers, and partly collected from the merchants, and such persons as each of his friends thought fit on this occasion, he sailed for Pelusium.[54] It happened that King Ptolemy,[55] a minor, was there with a considerable army, engaged in war with his sister Cleopatra, whom a few months before, by the a.s.sistance of his relatives and friends, he had expelled from the kingdom; and her camp lay at a small distance from his. To him Pompey applied to be permitted to take refuge in Alexandria, and to be protected in his calamity by his powerful a.s.sistance, in consideration of the friends.h.i.+p and amity which had subsisted between his father and him.

But Pompey's deputies, having executed their commission, began to converse with less restraint with the king's troops, and to advise them to act with friends.h.i.+p to Pompey, and not to think meanly of his bad fortune. In Ptolemy's army were several of Pompey's soldiers, of whom Gabinius[56] had received the command in Syria, and had brought them over to Alexandria, and at the conclusion of the war had left with Ptolemy the father of the young king.

The king's friends, who were regents of the kingdom during the minority, being informed of these things, either induced by fear, as they afterward declared, lest Pompey should corrupt the king's army, and seize on Alexandria[57] and Egypt, or despising his bad fortune, as in adversity friends commonly change to enemies, in public gave a favorable answer to his deputies, and desired him to come to the king; but secretly laid a plot against him, and dispatched Achillas, captain of the king's guards, a man of singular boldness, and Lucius Septimius, a military tribune, to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. Being kindly addrest by them, and deluded by an acquaintance with Septimius, because in the war with the pirates the latter had commanded a company under him, he embarked in a small boat, with a few attendants, and was there murdered by Achillas and Septimius. In like manner, Lucius Lentulus was seized by the king's order, and put to death in prison....

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: Cicero, whose praise of Caesar as a writer has been shared by many readers since his time, described Caesar's works as "unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, their ornament being stript off as it were a garment." Caesar did his work so well that "he has deterred all men of sound taste from touching him."]

[Footnote 34: From Book IV of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."

Translated by McDivett and W. S. Bohn. The site of this bridge is believed to be in the neighborhood of Cologne.]

[Footnote 35: The Suevi were migratory Germans who, in Caesar's time, occupied the eastern banks of the Rhine in and about the present country of Baden.]

[Footnote 36: From Book V of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."]

[Footnote 37: The Belgae comprised various tribes that lived between the Seine and the Rhine and were the most warlike of the Gauls.]

[Footnote 38: Caesar's error here has often been commented on, Spain lying to the south, rather than to the west, of Britain.]

[Footnote 39: Now known as the Isle of Man.]

[Footnote 40: Ca.s.sivelaunus was a chieftain of the Britons who had been entrusted with the supreme command against Caesar. His own territory lay north of the Thames.]

[Footnote 41: Bede, the learned Benedictine, who lived in the eighth century, says that, in his time, remains of these stakes were still to be seen.]

[Footnote 42: These people occupied what are now the counties of Ess.e.x and Middles.e.x.]

[Footnote 43: The translator notes that Tacitus has remarked that Britain was surveyed, rather than conquered, by Caesar. He gives the honor of its real conquest to his own father-in-law, Agricola. While the Roman armies "owe much to the military virtues of Agricola as displayed in England, Caesar," adds the translator, "did what no one had done before him; he levied tribute upon the Britons and effectually paved the way for all that Rome subsequently accomplished in this island."]

[Footnote 44: From Book II of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."]

[Footnote 45: The Nervii were one of the Belgic tribes and are understood to have been the most warlike of them all.]

[Footnote 46: From Book III of the "Commentaries on the Civil War."

Pharsalia is a district of Thessaly in Greece. Caesar's army numbered 22,000 legionaries and 1,000 cavalry; Pompey's, 45,000 legionaries and 7,000 cavalry.]

[Footnote 47: Pompey's army having been recruited from aristocratic families and their dependents, was not so much accustomed to the severities of war as were the soldiers of Caesar, recruited largely from the populace.]

[Footnote 48: The modern Durazzo, a seaport on the Adriatic in Albania. It was founded by colonies from Corfu about 625 B.C. and became important afterward as a terminus of one of the great Roman roads. Pompey here defeated Caesar a short time before he was himself defeated at Pharsalia.]

[Footnote 49: Caesar on this occasion is said to have advised his soldiers to aim at the faces of Pompey's cavalry, who, being composed princ.i.p.ally of the young n.o.blemen of Rome, dreaded a scar in the face more than death itself.]

[Footnote 50: Amphipolis, a city of Macedonia, originally Thracian, but colonized from Athens. It was situated three miles inland from the aegean Sea.]

[Footnote 51: Mitylene was the capital of the island of Lesbos, and an important maritime power in ancient times.]

[Footnote 52: Arrowsmith describes Antioch as, not only the capital of Syria, but at one time of Western Asia. It was for years the third city of the world in beauty, size, and population. It was here that the followers of Christ first received the name of Christians (in A.D.

39), having before been called Nazarenes and Galileans. In a neighboring grove stood a famous temple to Apollo and Diana.]

[Footnote 53: Rhodes is the largest island in the aegean Sea after Crete and Euboea. Its capital, having the same name and situated near the northern end of the island, was famous for a bronze statue of the sun called the Colossus, which was one of the "seven wonders of the world."]

[Footnote 54: Pelusium was an ancient city of Egypt, situated in the delta of the Nile, strongly fortified and regarded as the gate to Egypt, on its eastern frontier. It lay in the midst of marshes formed by the overflow of the river, and continued its importance, in a military sense, until the waters of the river found their way into the Damietta branch.]

[Footnote 55: Ptolemy XII, who came to the throne of Egypt co-jointly with his sister Cleopatra in 51 B.C. He expelled Cleopatra in 49, and in 48 Caesar reinstated her. In the war which ensued, he was defeated and drowned in the Nile.]

[Footnote 56: Gabinius was a Roman tribune who had proposed the statute bearing his name which gave to Pompey command of the Mediterranean coast for the suppression of pirates.]

[Footnote 57: Alexandria was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great. Its princ.i.p.al street, 2,000 feet wide, was adorned with "some of the most costly edifices and structures of marble which perhaps the world ever saw." Many of these marbles were subsequently taken to Rome and Constantinople. Alexandria for a long period was the center of commerce for all merchandise pa.s.sing between Europe and the East. As a city of learning, it possest a famous library, which at one period comprized 700,000 volumes.]

SALl.u.s.t

Born in Italy about 86 B.C.; died about 34; elected tribune in 52; expelled from the Senate by the censors in 50, probably for being an active partizan of Caesar; accompanied Caesar on his African campaign in 46; became governor of Numidia, where he is said to have ama.s.sed a fortune unjustly; author of histories of the Catiline conspiracy and the war with Jugurtha.[58]

I

THE GENESIS OF CATILINE[59]

Of the city of Rome, as I understand, the founders and earliest inhabitants were the Trojans, who, under the conduct of aeneas, were wandering about as exiles from their country, without any settled abode; and with these were joined the Aborigines, a savage race of men, without laws or government, free, and owning no control. How easily these two tribes, tho of different origin, dissimilar language, and opposite habits of life, formed a union when they met within the same walls is almost incredible. But when their state, from an accession of population and territory and an improved condition of morals, showed itself tolerably flouris.h.i.+ng and powerful, envy, as is generally the case in human affairs, was the consequence of its prosperity. The neighboring kings and people, accordingly, began to a.s.sail them in war, while a few only of their friends came to their support; for the rest, struck with alarm, shrunk from sharing their dangers. But the Romans, active at home and in the field, prepared with alacrity for their defense. They encouraged one another, and hurried to meet the enemy. They protected, with their arms, their liberty, their country, and their homes. And when they had at length repelled danger by valor, they lent a.s.sistance to their allies and supporters, and procured friends.h.i.+ps rather by bestowing favors than by receiving them.

They had a government regulated by laws. The denomination of their government was monarchy. Chosen men, whose bodies might be enfeebled by years, but whose minds were vigorous in understanding, formed the council of the state; and these, whether from their age, or from the similarity of their duty, were called Fathers. But afterward, when the monarchical power, which had been originally established for the protection of liberty and for the promotion of the public interest, had degenerated into tyranny and oppression, they changed their plan, and appointed two magistrates, with power only annual; for they conceived that, by this method, the human mind would be least likely to grow overbearing through want of control.

At this period every citizen began to seek distinction, and to display his talents with greater freedom; for, with princes, the meritorious are greater objects of suspicion than the undeserving, and to them the worth of others is a source of alarm. But when liberty was secured, it is almost incredible how much the state strengthened itself in a short s.p.a.ce of time, so strong a pa.s.sion for distinction had pervaded it.

Now, for the first time, the youth, as soon as they were able to bear the toils of war, acquired military skill by actual service in the camp, and took pleasure rather in splendid arms and military steeds than in the society of mistresses and convivial indulgence. To such men no toil was unusual, no place was difficult or inaccessible, no armed enemy was formidable; their valor had overcome everything. But among themselves the grand rivalry was for glory; each sought to be first to wound an enemy, to scale a wall, and to be noticed while performing such an exploit. Distinction such as this they regarded as wealth, honor, and true n.o.bility. They were covetous of praise, but liberal of money; they desired competent riches, but boundless glory.

I could mention, but that the account would draw me too far from my subject, places in which the Roman people, with a small body of men, routed vast armies of the enemy; and cities which, tho fortified by nature, they carried by a.s.sault....

By these two virtues, intrepidity in war and equity in peace, they maintained themselves and their state; of their exercise of which virtues, I consider these as the greatest proofs: that, in war, punishment was oftener inflicted on those who attacked an enemy contrary to orders, and who, when commanded to retreat, retired too slowly from the contest, than on those who had dared to desert their standards, or, when prest by the enemy, to abandon their posts; and that, in peace, they governed more by conferring benefits than by exciting terror, and, when they received an injury, chose rather to pardon than to revenge it.

But when, by perseverance and integrity, the republic had increased its power; when mighty princes had been vanquished in war; when barbarous tribes and populous states had been reduced to subjection; when Carthage, the rival of Rome's dominion, had been utterly destroyed, and sea and land lay everywhere open to her sway, Fortune then began to exercise her tyranny, and to introduce universal innovation. To those who had easily endured toils, dangers, and doubtful and difficult circ.u.mstances, ease and wealth, the objects of desire to others, became a burden and a trouble. At first the love of money, and then that of power, began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity, and other honorable principles, and in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion, and general venality. Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friends.h.i.+ps and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became rapacious and insupportable.

At first, however, it was ambition, rather than avarice, that influenced the minds of men--a vice which approaches nearer to virtue than the other. For of glory, honor, and power, the worthy is as desirous as the worthless; but the one pursues them by just methods; the other, being dest.i.tute of honorable qualities, works with fraud and deceit. But avarice has merely money for its object, which no wise man has ever immoderately desired. It is a vice which, as if imbued with deadly poison, enervates whatever is manly in body or mind. It is always unbounded and insatiable, and is abated neither by abundance nor by want.

But after Lucius Sulla, having recovered the government by force of arms, proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious termination, all became robbers and plunderers; some set their affections on houses, others on lands; his victorious troops knew neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on the citizens disgraceful and inhuman outrages. Their rapacity was increased by the circ.u.mstance that Sulla, in order to secure the attachment of the forces which he had commanded in Asia, had treated them, contrary to the practise of our ancestors, with extraordinary indulgence and exemption from discipline; and pleasant and luxurious quarters had easily, during seasons of idleness, enervated the minds of the soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first became habituated to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues, pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off respect for everything, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly, when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to the vanquished.

Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would those of debauched habits use victory with moderation....

In so populous and so corrupt a city, Catiline, as it was very easy to do, kept about him, like a body-guard, crowds of the unprincipled and desperate. For all those shameless, libertine, and profligate characters who had dissipated their patrimonies by gaming, luxury, and sensuality; all who had contracted heavy debts, to purchase immunity for their crimes or offenses; all a.s.sa.s.sins or sacrilegious persons from every quarter, convicted or dreading conviction for their evil deeds; all, besides, whom their tongue or their hand maintained by perjury or civil bloodshed; all, in fine, whom wickedness, poverty, or a guilty conscience disquieted, were the a.s.sociates and intimate friends of Catiline. And if any one, as yet of unblemished character, fell into his society, he was presently rendered, by daily intercourse and temptation, similar and equal to the rest. But it was the young whose acquaintance he chiefly courted, as their minds, ductile and unsettled from their age, were easily ensnared by his stratagems. For as the pa.s.sions of each, according to his years, appeared excited, he furnished mistresses to some, bought horses and dogs for others, and spared, in a word, neither his purse nor his character, if he could but make them his devoted and trustworthy supporters. There were some, I know, who thought that the youth who frequented the house of Catiline were guilty of crimes against nature; but this report arose rather from other causes than from any evidence of the fact....

Depending on such accomplices and adherents, and knowing that the load of debt was everywhere great, and that the veterans of Sulla,[60]

having spent their money too liberally, and remembering their spoils and former victory, were longing for a civil war, Catiline formed the design of overthrowing the government. There was no army in Italy; Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world;[61] he himself had great hopes of obtaining the consuls.h.i.+p; the Senate was wholly off its guard; everything was quiet and tranquil, and all these circ.u.mstances were exceedingly favorable for Catiline....