Part 1 (2/2)

(14) The land of Stellas, consecrated by our ancestors to the Gods, with some other lands in Campania left subject to tribute, for the support of the expenses of the govern upwards of twenty thousand freemen, who had each of them three or more children He eased the publicans, upon their petition, of a third part of the sued to pay into the public treasury; and openly adantly upon the next occasion He rants tohim; or if any such attempt was made, it was soon suppressed Marcus Cato, who interrupted hied out of the senate-house by a lictor, and carried to prison Lucius Lucullus, likewise, for opposing him with so criminated, that, to deprecate the consul's resent in some trial the miserable condition of the times, he the very same day, by nine o'clock, transferred his enemy, Publius Clodius, fro solicited in vain 46 At last, effectually to intireat rewards prevailed upon Vettius to declare, that he had been solicited by certain persons to assassinate Poht before the rostra to na one or two to no purpose, not without great suspicion of subornation, Caesar, despairing of success in this rash stratagem, is supposed to have taken off his informer by poison

XXI About the sahter of Lucius Piso, as to succeed hihter Julia to Cneius Po Servilius Caepio, to whom she had been contracted, and by whose means chiefly he had but a little before baffled Bibulus After this new alliance, he began, upon any debates in the senate, to ask Poive that distinction to Marcus Crassus; and it was (15) the usual practice for the consul to observe throughout the year thethe senate which he had adopted on the calends (the first) of January

XXII Being, therefore, now supported by the interest of his father-in-law and son-in-law, of all the provinces he made choice of Gaul, as most likely to furnish him with matter and occasion for triumphs At first indeed he received only Cisalpine-Gaul, with the addition of Illyricum, by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people; but soon afterwards obtained fro apprehensive, that if they should refuse it hiranted him by the people Elated noith his success, he could not refrain fro, a few days afterwards, in a full senate-house, that he had, in spite of his enereat mortification, obtained all he desired, and that for the future he would make them, to their sha, sarcastically: ”That will not be very easy for a woned in assyria, and the Areat part of Asia”

XXIII When the ter made in the senate by Caius Me the transactions of the year past, he offered to refer hi the business, after three days spent in vain altercation, he set out for his province Ied with severalCaesar hiainst hi an appeal to the tribune's colleagues, he succeeded in having the prosecution suspended during his absence in the service of the state To secure himself, therefore, for the tiood-will of thenone of the candidates with his interest, nor suffering any persons to be advanced to any office, ould not positively undertake to defend him in his absence for which purpose he made no scruple to require of soation

XXIV But when Lucius Domitius became a candidate for the consulshi+p, and openly threatened that, upon his being elected consul, he would effect that which he could not accomplish when he was praetor, and divest him of the command of the armies, he sent for Crassus and Pompey to Lucca, a city in his province, and pressed theain for the consulshi+p, and to continue hier; with both which requisitions they complied Presumptuous now froions to those which he had received fro the former of which was one levied in Transalpine Gaul, and called by a Gallic name, Alauda 49, which he trained and armed in the Roman fashi+on, and afterwards conferred on it the freedom of the city From this period he declined no occasion of war, however unjust and dangerous; attacking, without any provocation, as well the allies of Rome as the barbarous nations which were its ene commissioners to examine into the condition of Gaul; and some members even proposed that he should be delivered up to the enereat had been the success of his enterprises, that he had the honour of obtaining more days 50 (17) of supplication, and those more frequently, than had ever before been decreed to any co nine years in which he held the government of the province, his achievements were as follows: he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine and the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundredonly the nations in alliance with the republic, and such as hadupon this new acquisition an annual tribute of forty millions of sesterces He was the first of the Roe, attacked the Ger the country beyond that river, whoements He also invaded the Britons, a people for vanquished thees Amidst such a series of successes, he experienced thrice only any signal disaster; once in Britain, when his fleet was nearly wrecked in a storions was put to the rout; and in the territory of the Germans, his lieutenants titurius and Aurunculeius were cut off by an a this period 51 he lost his hter 53, and, not long afterwards, of his granddaughter Meanwhile, the republic being in consternation at thea vote that only one consul, na year, he prevailed with the tribunes of the people, who intended joining him in nomination with Poh absent, to become a candidate for his second consulshi+p, when the terht not be obliged on that account to quit his province too soon, and before the conclusion of the war Having attained this object, carrying his views still higher, and animated with the hopes of success, he o universal favour, by acts of liberality and kindness to individuals, both in public and private With an to construct a new foruround-plot of which cost him above a hundred millions of sesterces 54 He proladiators, and a feast in iven The h he had agreed with victuallers of all denominations for his feast, he made yet farther preparations in private houses He issued an order, that thethe combat they incurred the displeasure of the public, should be immediately carried off by force, and reserved for soladiators he trained up, not in the school, and by the hts, and even senators, skilled in the use of ar them, as appears from his letters, to undertake the discipline of those novitiates, and to give the their exercises He doubled the pay of the legions in perpetuity; allowing them likewise corn, when it was in plenty, without any restriction; and so to every soldier in his army a slave, and a portion of land

XXVII Towith Pohter Octavia, who had been hter, lately contracted to Faustus Sylla Every person about hireat part likewise of the senate, he secured by loans of money at low interest, or none at all; and to all others who came to wait upon him, either by invitation or of their own accord, heeven the freed-men and slaves, ere favourites with their ular and ready aid to all ere under prosecution, or in debt, and to prodigal youths; excluding frouilt, poverty, or luxury, that it was impossible effectually to relieve them These, he openly declared, could derive no benefit from any other means than a civil war

XXVIII He endeavoured with equal assiduity to engage in his interest princes and provinces in every part of the world; presenting so to others the assistance of troops, at whatever time and place they desired, without any authority from either the senate or people of Ros the most powerful cities not only of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, but of Greece and Asia; until all people being now astonished, and speculating on the obvious tendency of these proceedings, Claudius Marcellus, the consul, declaring first by proclamation, that he intended to propose a measure of the utmost importance to the state, made a motion in the senate that some person should be appointed to succeed Caesar in his province, before the terht to a conclusion, peace was restored, and the victorious ar absent, his claims to be a candidate at the next election of consuls should not be adated that privilege by a decree of the people The fact was, that Poistrates, had forgot to except Caesar, in the article in which he declared all such as were not present incapable of being candidates for any office; but soon afterwards, when the laas inscribed on brass, and deposited in the treasury, he corrected hisCaesar of his provinces, and the privilege intended him by Pompey, likewise moved the senate, that the freedom of the city should be taken from those colonists whom, by the Vatinian law, he had settled at New Como 55; because it had been conferred upon them with ambitious views, and by a stretch of the laws

(20) XXIX Roused by these proceedings, and thinking, as he was often heard to say, that it would be a more difficult enterprise to reduce him, now that he was the chief man in the state, from the first rank of citizens to the second, than froorous opposition to the measure, partly by means of the tribunes, who interposed in his behalf, and partly through Servius Sulpicius, the other consul The following year likewise, when Caius Marcellus, who succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulshi+p, pursued the saed in his defence Aemilius Paulus, the other consul, and Caius Curio, thethe opposition obstinately bent against him, and that the consuls-elect were also of that party, he wrote a letter to the senate, requesting that they would not deprive hiranted hin the command of their arht, that he could more easily collect his veteran soldiers, whenever he pleased, than Pompey could his new-raised troops At the saht of his legions and give up Transalpine-Gaul, upon condition that he ions, with the Cisalpine province, or but one legion with Illyricum, until he should be elected consul

xxx But as the senate declined to interpose in the business, and his enemies declared that they would enter into no compromise where the safety of the republic was at stake, he advanced into Hither-Gaul 56, and, having gone the circuit for the administration of justice, made a halt at Ravenna, resolved to have recourse to arainst the tribunes of the people who had espoused his cause This was indeed his pretext for the civil war; but it is supposed that there were other motives for his conduct Cneius Poht to throw every thing into confusion, because he was unable, with all his private wealth, to coun, and answer, at his return, the vast expectations which he had excited in the people Others pretend that he was apprehensive of being (21) called to account for what he had done in his first consulshi+p, contrary to the auspices, laws, and the protests of the tribunes; Marcus Cato having sometimes declared, and that, too, with an oath, that he would prefer an iainst him, as soon as he disbanded his army A report likewise prevailed, that if he returned as a private person, he would, like Milo, have to plead his cause before the judges, surrounded by arhly probable by Asinius Pollio, who inforhtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed himself in these very words: ”This was their intention: I, Caius Caesar, after all the great achievements I had performed, must have been condemned, had I not su contracted frohed his own and his ene the supreme pohich indeed he had coveted from the time of his youth This seems to have been the opinion entertained by Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that Caesar used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides, which he thus translates: Naratia Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatedon power alone can justify the cause 57 xxxI When intelligence, therefore, was received, that the interposition of the tribunes in his favour had been utterly rejected, and that they themselves had fled from the city, he immediately sent forward some cohorts, but privately, to prevent any suspicion of his design; and, to keep up appearances, attended at a public spectacle, exa-school which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat down to table with a nu put to his carriage fro mill, he set forward on his journey with all possible privacy, and a s out, he lost his way, and (22) wandered about a long tiuide, whoh so up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province 58, he halted for a while, and, revolving in his , he turned to those about him, and said: ”We e, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in ar, the following incident occurred A person reraceful aspect, appeared close at hand, sitting and playing upon a pipe When, not only the shepherds, but a number of soldiers also flocked fro them, he snatched a tru the advance with a piercing blast, crossed to the other side Upon this, Caesar exclaio whither the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us The die is now cast”

xxxIII Accordingly, having marched his army over the river, he shewed the driven from the city, had come to meet him; and, in the presence of that assee hiarment rent from his bosom It has been supposed, that upon this occasion he proht's estate; but that opinion is founded on a ue to theer of his left hand, and declared, that to recompense those who should support hily part even with his ring; the soldiers at a distance, who could more easily see than hear him while he spoke, formed their conception of what he said, by the eye, not by the ear; and accordingly gave out, that he had proold ring, and an estate of four hundred thousand sesterces 60 xxxIV Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a cursory detail, in the order in which they occurred 61 He took possession of Picenued Lucius Domitius, who had been tumultuously noarrison, to surrender, and dis the coast of the Upper Sea, to Brundusium, to which place the consuls and Po the sea as soon as possible After vain attempts, by all the obstacles he could oppose, to prevent their leaving the harbour, he turned his steps towards Rome, where he appealed to the senate on the present state of public affairs; and then set out for Spain, in which province Pompey had a numerous army, under the command of three lieutenants, Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro; declaring a against an areneral without an are of Marseilles, which shut her gates against hireat scarcity of corn, yet in a short time he bore down all before hi the sea to Macedonia, blocked up Po alious extent; and at last defeated hiht to Alexandria, where he was infored, under all the disadvantages of ti Ptolens upon his life It inter, and he, within the walls of a well-provided and subtle ene, and wholly unprepared (24) for such a conflict He succeeded, however, in his enterprise, and put the kingdoer brother; being afraid to ht become the centre of revolt From Alexandria he went into Syria, and thence to Pontus, induced by intelligence which he had received respecting Pharnaces This prince, as son of the great Mithridates, had seized the opportunity which the distraction of the tihbours, and his insolence and fierceness had groith his success Caesar, however, within five days after entering his country, and four hours after coht of him, overthrew him in one decisive battle Upon which, he frequently reood fortune of Pompey, who had obtained his military reputation, chiefly, by victory over so feeble an ene the remains of the party in Africa, and Po the whole course of the civil war, he never once suffered any defeat, except in the case of his lieutenants; of whom Caius Curio fell in Africa, Caius Antonius was made prisoner in Illyricum, Publius Dolabella lost a fleet in the same Illyricum, and Cneius Domitius Culvinus, an army in Pontus In every encounter with the enemy where he himself commanded, he came off with complete success; nor was the issue ever doubtful, except on two occasions: once at Dyrrachiu his advantage, he said that ”Pompey knew not how to conquer;” the other instance occurred in his last battle in Spain, when, despairing of the event, he even had thoughts of killing himself

xxxVII For the victories obtained in the several wars, he triumphed five different times; after the defeat of Scipio: four ti the forain after the conquest of Polorious triuained in Gaul; the next for that of Alexandria, the third for the reduction of Pontus, the fourth for his African victory, and the last for that in Spain; and (25) they all differed froeantry On the day of the Gallic triu the street called Velabru a fall fro of the axle-tree, he ascended the Capitol by torch-light, forty elephants 62 carrying torches on his right and left Aeantry of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was carried before hi, as other mottos on the like occasion, as done, so much as the dispatch hich it was done

xxxVIII To every foot-soldier in his veteran legions, besides the two thousand sesterces paid hiave twenty thousand more, in the shape of prize-uity, that the forht not be entirely dispossessed To the people of Roave three hundred sesterces a man, which he had formerly promised the his engagement He likewise remitted a year's rent due to the treasury, for such houses in Rome as did not pay above two thousand sesterces a year; and through the rest of Italy, for all such as did not exceed in yearly rent five hundred sesterces To all this he added a public entertainment, and a distribution of meat, and, after his Spanish victory 64, two public dinners For, considering the first he had given as too sparing, and unsuited to his profuse liberality, he, five days afterwards, added another, which was most plentiful

xxxIX The spectacles he exhibited to the people were of various kinds; nae-plays in the several wards of the city, and in different languages; likewise Circensian gaht In the conflict of gladiators presented in the Forum, Furius Leptinus, a man of praetorian family, entered the lists as a combatant, as did also Quintus Calpenus, formerly a senator, and a pleader of causes The Pyrrhic dance was performed by some youths, ere sons to persons of the first distinction in Asia and Bithynia In the plays, Deciht, acted in his own piece; and being presented on the spot with five hundred thousand sesterces, and a gold ring, he went froh the orchestra, and resumed his place in the seats (27) allotted for the equestrian order In the Circensisn gaed at each end, and a canal sunk round it, several of the young nobility drove chariots, drawn, some by four, and others by two horses, and likewise rode races on single horses The Trojan ga fro of wild beasts was presented for five days successively; and on the last day a battle was fought by five hundred foot, twenty elephants, and thirty horse on each side To afford roooals were removed, and in their space two camps were pitched, directly opposite to each other Wrestlers likewise performed for three days successively, in a stadium provided for the purpose in the Ca in the little Codeta 67, shi+ps of the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, containing two, three, and four banks of oars, with a number of ht To these various diversions there flocked such crowds of spectators froe in tents erected in the streets, or along the roads near the city Several in the throng were squeezed to death, a afterwards his attention to the regulation of the commonwealth, he corrected the calendar 68, which had for (28) soh the unwarrantable liberty which the pontiffs had taken in the article of intercalation To such a height had this abuse proceeded, that neither the festivals designed for the harvest fell in sue in autumn He acco that in future it should consist of three hundred and sixty-five days without any intercalary month; and that every fourth year an intercalary day should be inserted That the year ularly with the calends, or first of January, he inserted two months between Noveulation wastheto the division of time then in use, happened that year

XLI He filled up the vacancies in the senate, by advancing several plebeians to the rank of patricians, and also increased the nuistrates; restoring, at the saraded by the censors, or convicted of bribery at elections The choice ofonly the candidates for the consulshi+p, they nominated one half of them, and he the other The method which he practised in those cases was, to recommend such persons as he had pitched upon, by bills dispersed through the several tribes to this effect: ”Caesar the dictator to such a tribe (na likewise the persons), that by the favour of your votes they may attain to the honours for which they sue” He likewise admitted to offices the sons of those who had been proscribed The trial of causes he restricted to two orders of judges, the equestrian and senatorial; excluding the tribunes of the treasury who had before made a third class The revised census of the people he ordered to be taken neither in the usual manner or place, but street by street, by the principal inhabitants of the several quarters of the city; and he reduced the number of those who received corn at the public cost, from three hundred and twenty, to a hundred and fifty, thousand To prevent any tumults on account of the census, he ordered that the praetor should every year fill up by lot the vacancies occasioned by death, from those ere not enrolled for the receipt of corn

(29) XLII Eighty thousand citizens having been distributed into foreign colonies 69, he enacted, in order to stop the drain on the population, that no freee, as not in the military service, should absent himself from Italy for more than three years at a tio abroad, unless in the retinue of so flocks and herds, that no less than a third of the number of their shepherds free-born should be youths He likewise made all those who practised physic in Rome, and all teachers of the liberal arts, free of the city, in order to fix them in it, and induce others to settle there With respect to debts, he disappointed the expectation which was generally entertained, that they would be totally cancelled; and ordered that the debtors should satisfy their creditors, according to the valuation of their estates, at the rate at which they were purchased before the co from the debt what had been paid for interest either in money or by bonds; by virtue of which provision about a fourth part of the debt was lost He dissolved all the guilds, except such as were of ancient foundation Cri more easily induced to commit them because they were only liable to banishment, without the forfeiture of their property, he stripped murderers, as Cicero observes, of their whole estates, and other offenders of one half

XLIII He was extremely assiduous and strict in the administration of justice He expelled from the senate such members as were convicted of bribery; and he dissolved the e of a man of pretorian rank, who had married a lady two days after her divorce froh there was no suspicion that they had been guilty of any illicit connection He ioods The use of litters for travelling, purple robes, and jewels, he pere and station, and on particular days He enforced a rigid execution of the su officers about the markets, to seize upon allthe his lictors and soldiers to (30) carry away such victuals as had escaped the notice of the officers, even when they were upon the table

XLIV His thoughts were now fully ereat projects for the euarding and extending the bounds of the empire In the first place, he meditated the construction of a te of that kind in the world For this purpose, he intended to fill up the lake on which he had entertained the people with the spectacle of a sea-fight He also projected a most spacious theatre adjacent to the Tarpeian mount; and also proposed to reduce the civil law to a reasonable coested mass of statutes to extract the best and e a collection as possible of works in the Greek and Latin languages, for the public use; the province of providing and putting thened to Marcus Varro He intended likewise to drain the Poe of the waters of the lake Fucinus, to fore of the Appenine to the Tiber; to h the isthmus of Corinth, to reduce the Dacians, who had over-run Pontus and Thrace, within their proper lih the Lesser Arement with them, until he had made some trial of their prowess in war But in the s and projects, he was carried off by death; before I speak of which, it ive an account of his person, dress, and ether hat relates to his pursuits, both civil and military

XLV It is said that he was tall, of a fair complexion, round li; and that he enjoyed excellent health, except towards the close of his life, when he was subject to sudden fainting-fits, and disturbance in his sleep He was likewise twice seized with the falling sickness while engaged in active service He was so nice in the care of his person, that he not only kept the hair of his head closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved, but (31) even caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked out by the roots, a practice for which soave hi often found himself upon that account exposed to the jibes of his ene forward the hair from the crown of his head; and of all the honours conferred upon him by the senate and people, there was none which he either accepted or used with greater pleasure, than the right of wearing constantly a laurel crown It is said that he was particular in his dress For he used the Latus Clavus 70 with fringes about the wrists, and always had it girded about hiin to the expression of Sylla, who often advised the nobles to beware of ”the ill-girt boy”

XLVI He first inhabited a small house in the Suburra 71, but after his advance to the state in the Via Sacra Many writers say that he liked his residence to be elegant, and his entertainments surove of Aricia, which he had built from the foundation and finished at a vast expense, because it did not exactly suit his taste, although he had at that time but slender means, and was in debt; and that he carried about in his expeditions tesselated and marble slabs for the floor of his tent

XLVII They likewise report that he invaded Britain in hopes of finding pearls 72, the size of which he would co theems, carved works, statues, and pictures, executed by the e and handy slaves a price so extravagant, that he forbad its being entered in the diary of his expenses

XLVIII We are also told, that in the provinces he constantly maintained two tables, one for the officers of the arentry of the country, and the other for Rohest rank, and provincials of the first distinction He was so very exact in the reat, that he once threw a baker into prison, for serving hiuests; and put to death a freed- the lady of a Roh no complaint had been made to him of the affair

XLIX The only stain upon his chastity was his having cohabited with Nicomedes; and that indeed stuck to him all the days of his life, and exposed him to much bitter raillery I will not dwell upon those well-known verses of Calvus Licinius: Whate'er Bithynia and her lord possess'd, Her lord who Caesar in his lust caress'd 73 I pass over the speeches of Dolabella, and Curio, the father, in which the former calls him ”the queen's rival, and the inner-side of the royal couch,” and the latter, ”the brothel of Nico of the edicts of Bibulus, in which he proclaiue under the na, that ”he had fordom” At which time, as Marcus Brutus relates, one Octavius, a man of a crazy brain, and therefore the more free in his raillery, after he had in a crowded asse, addressed Caesar by that of queen Caius Me at table, ae company, in which were some merchants from Rome, the names of who in some of his letters, that he was conducted by the royal attendants into the king's bed-cha of purple, and that the youthful bloom of this scion of Venus had been tainted in Bithynia-but upon Caesar's pleading the cause of Nysa, the daughter of (32) Nico's kindnesses to him, replied, ”Pray tell us no ave hist other verses, such as they jocularly sung on those occasions, following the general's chariot, recited these, which since that time have become extremely common: The Gauls to Caesar yield, Caesar to Nicolorious deed, But Caesar's conqueror gains no victor's meed 74 L It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to woues with thehest quality; a ere Posthumia, the wife of Servius Sulpicius; Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius; Tertulla, the wife of Marcus Crassus; and Mucia, the wife of Cneius Pompey For it is certain that the Curios, both father and son, and ratify his ahter of ahad three children by her; and whoisthus” 75 But the mistress he most loved, was Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom he purchased, in his first consulshi+p after the coue, a pearl which cost him six millions of sesterces; and in the civil war, besides other presents, assigned to her, for a trifling consideration, some valuable farms when they were exposed to public auction Many persons expressing their surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero wittily remarked, ”To let you know the real value of the purchase, between ourselves, Tertia was deducted:” for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter Tertia to Caesar 76 (34) LI That he had intrigues likeith married women in the provinces, appears from this distich, which was as much repeated in t