Caesar - The Civil War

together with
The Alexandrian War,
The African War,
and The Spanish War
by other Hands

*

TRANSLATED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
JANE F. GARDNER

PENGUIN BOOKS

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This translation first published 1967

Translation, Introduction and Notes copyright Jane F. Mitchell, 1967
All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

9780141910635

GEORGE MORRISON
OPTIMO MAGISTRUM
D.D.
DISCIPULA QUONDAM

CAESARS Civil War starts when the point of no return has been reached. The narrative of the Civil War itself, however, is only the penultimate chapter of a story which ends with the defeat of Mark Antony by Octavian in 31 B.C., but which started at least a century before. One must therefore go back and trace the developments which led to the great upheavals which finally put an end to the Republic in all but name.

The careers of the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus and the military innovations of Marius fundamentally changed the character of Roman politics. The Gracchi set the pattern for their successors by showing that the sovereign power of the people could be used to break the Senates de facto control of government. Their fates showed that civil power was not enough; the senators were prepared to resort to physical force, if necessary, in defence of their monopoly. This made it certain that, if a successful assault on their entrenched power was ever made, it would not come from a mere tribune. It came in fact from men who, while using Gracchan methods, took care also to secure military command, and with it, wealth, patronage and not least important armed power.

The effects were already visible by the time of Gaius Julius Caesars entry into politics. He was born in 100 B.C. (according to tradition), the year of the second tribunate of Saturninus. His father was the brother-in-law of Marius. He was a child at the time of the murder of Livius Drusus and the ensuing war with the Italian allies. He was growing through adolescence in the period of the proscriptions of Marius and the dictatorship and proscriptions of Sulla. He had before him an object lesson in extra-constitutional advancement in the early career of Gnaeus Pom-peius Magnus (to whom I shall hereafter refer by the more familiar name, in English, of Pompey').

By the time of Cagsars first magistracy as quaestor in 68 B.C, Pompey had held a series of important military commands. In his early twenties, he commanded troops under Sulla and extorted a triumph from him. Then, without ever having held a magistracy, he was from 77 to 71 B.C. in almost continuous tenure of military command against Lepidus, against Sertorius, against Spartacus and on his return to Rome proceeded immediately to the consulship. At this period, he was using the support of the popular element in the Senate and, as consul, honoured his election promises by legislation restoring the powers of which the tribunes had been deprived by Sulla. The sixties saw two more commands, carrying with them enormous civil and military powers in the provinces of the Roman empire the special command against the pirates, conferred on Pompey in 67 B.C., and that against Mithridates, conferred on him in the following year and retained for some four years for the reorganization of the East. In both cases, the activity of tribunes secured him these appointments. At Rome, there was widespread apprehension as to how the victor would behave when he brought his armies back apprehension that found expression as early as 65 B.C. in the abortive plot which Cicero successfully deluded subsequent generations into calling the first Catilinarian conspiracy'; in fact, it appears to have been an attempt by a group of the conservative aristocracy to ensure by violence, since electoral corruption had failed, that the key magistracies at Rome should be in the hands of Pompeys opponents on the tatters return.

To everyones surprise, Pompey returned in 62 B.C. and promptly disbanded his armies and relapsed into private life. The action was, however, not untypical of him. Pompey was ambitious; he had a constant appetite for prestige and acclaim. He had considerable military and administrative talents; but although the immense authority he had won, thanks to these gifts, more than once put supreme power within his grasp, had he ventured to take it, he would let the opportunity go. The explanation has sometimes been offered that he was by temperament a constitutionalist; but it may be rather that Pompey was aware that it needed more than talent to make a success of the supreme direction of the Roman empire and perhaps also he was conscious that he lacked that touch of genius. Caesar had it, and Octavian had it, and in both it was accompanied by sufficient self-confidence to make them independent of the senatorial