Page 153 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

Cicero, Letter to Atticus
Pray, what’s all this? What is going on? I am in the dark. Is it a Roman general or Hannibal we are talking of? Deluded wretch, with never in his [Caesar’s] life a glimpse of even the shadow of Good! And he says he is doing all this for his honor’s sake! Where is honor without moral good? And is it good to have an army without public authority, to seize Roman towns by way of opening the road to the mother city, to plan debt cancellations, recall of exiles, and a hundred other vil- lainies “all for that first of deities, Sole Power”? He is welcome to his greatness. I would rather a single hour with you, warming myself in that “bonus” sunshine of
yours, than all such autocracies, or rather I had sooner die a thousand deaths than entertain one such thought.
Q How did Caesar view the steps he had taken? How did Cicero view those steps? What do the differences between Caesar and Cicero tell you about the end of the republic? How do the views of Caesar and Cicero give support to Sallust’s argument? What do these three selections have in common in regard to the fall of the republic? How do they differ?
Sources: Sallust, The War with Catiline. Reprinted from Sallust, Loeb Classical Library, trans. by J. C. Rolfe, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1921. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Caesar, The Civil Wars. Reprinted from Caesar, The Civil Wars, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Cicero’s Letter to Atticus. Reprinted from Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, Vol. IV, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
enormous, enabling them to dominate the political scene and achieve their basic aims: Pompey received lands for his veterans and a command in Spain, Crassus was given a command in Syria, and Caesar was granted a special military command in Gaul (modern France). When Cras- sus was killed in battle in 53 B.C.E., his death left two powerful men with armies in direct competition. Caesar had used his time in Gaul wisely. He had conquered all of Gaul and gained fame, wealth, and military experience as well as an army of seasoned veterans who were loyal to him. When leading senators fastened on Pompey as the less harmful to their cause and voted for Caesar to lay down his command and return as a private citizen to Rome, Caesar refused. Such a step was intolerable, as it would leave him totally vulnerable to his enemies (see the box on p. 114). Caesar chose to keep his army and moved into Italy by illegally crossing the Rubicon, the river that formed the southern boundary of his prov- ince. (The phrase crossing the Rubicon is still used today to mean taking a decisive action from which there is no turning back.) According to his ancient biographer Sue- tonius, Caesar said to his troops, “Even now we could turn back; but once we cross that tiny bridge, then everything will depend on armed force.”4 Caesar marched on Rome, starting a civil war between his forces and those of Pompey and his allies. The defeat of Pompey’s forces left Caesar in complete control of the Roman government.
Caesar had officially been made dictator in 47 B.C.E., and three years later he was made dictator for life. He continued to hold elections for offices but saw to it that
his supporters chose the people he recommended. Upon becoming Rome’s ruler, he quickly instituted a number of ambitious reforms. He increased the senate to nine hundred members by filling it with many of his support- ers and granted citizenship to a number of people in the provinces who had helped him. By establishing colonies of Roman citizens in North Africa, Gaul, and Spain, he initiated a process of Romanization in those areas. He also reorganized the administrative structures of cities in Italy in an attempt to create a sense of order in their government. Caesar was a generous victor and pardoned many of the republican leaders who had opposed him, allowing them to return to Rome. He also reformed the calendar by introducing the Egyptian solar year of 365 days (with changes implemented in 1582 C.E., it became the basis of our current calendar). He planned much more in the way of building projects and military adventures in the East, but in 44 B.C.E., a group of leading senators who resented his domina- tion assassinated him in the belief that they had struck a blow for republican liberty. In truth, they had set the stage for another civil war that delivered the death blow to the republic.
Within a few years after Caesar’s death, two men had divided the Roman world between them—Octavian (ahk-TAY-vee-un), Caesar’s heir and grandnephew, took the West, and Antony, Caesar’s ally and assistant, the East. But the empire of the Romans, large as it was, was still too small for two masters, and Octavian and Antony eventually came into conflict. Antony allied himself with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, with whom, like
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic (133–31 B.C.E.) 115
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