From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (24 page)

Caesar was badly needed in Italy. In 48 B.C. attempts by the praetor Caelius Rufus to obstruct the working of Caesar’s debt-law had caused such rioting that the consul Servilius, fortified by the
senatus consultum ultimum
, deposed him from office. Caelius was joined by Milo, who returned from exile, and both caused further disturbances in Italy until they were killed. Soon came the news of Pharsalus, and the return of Antony with some of the victorious troops. Servilius then named Caesar in his absence dictator for a second time, probably ‘rei gerundae causa’ and for a year from October 48; Antony was appointed his Magister Equitum.
¹⁶
No consuls were elected for 47. Antony’s task was to keep order in Italy. This was made difficult by Cicero’s unprincipled son-in-law, Cornelius Dolabella, who as tribune in 47 agitated against the debt-law with such virulence that the Senate empowered Antony to keep troops within the city. More serious was the dissatisfaction of some of Caesar’s veterans in Italy who were awaiting his arrival for their rewards and discharge. They even marched on Rome, but Caesar was back just in time: he suddenly appeared on the tribunal in the Campus Martius and addressed them as ‘Civilians’ (Quirites, or ‘citizens’) unworthy any longer to serve under him. Rebuked, they returned to their allegiance.

Caesar then had much to do in a short time, short because the survivors of all the Pompeian forces were mustering in Africa in such menacing numbers that he must go there himself. Consuls were elected for the last three months of the year (47), Caesar’s dictatorship probably ended in October, but he retained proconsular
imperium
(possibly
maius
), and he was elected to his third consulship for 46. To ease the tense economic situation he released tenants from the payment of small rents for a year and remitted interest that had accrued since the start of the war. He rewarded his followers, many of whom were made senators, and he pardoned many Pompeians who submitted. His generosity is illustrated by his first meeting with Cicero after his return: ‘when Caesar saw him coming to meet him, he dismounted and embraced him and walked several furlongs talking with him alone. Thereafter he treated him consistently with respect and good will’. Cicero could now return in peace to his literary life. Caesar sailed for Africa.

The Pompeians who had held Africa since the defeat of Curio, had gathered ten legions, while king Juba brought four more; their cavalry numbered
15,000. The Roman forces were commanded by Pompey’s father-in-law, Q. Metellus Scipio, whose most competent legate was T. Labienus, the only officer of the Gallic wars to have deserted Caesar for Pompey’s camp.
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So urgent was the need to grapple with these forces that Caesar took the risk of shipping his troops over by detachments during the winter (47/6). After landing with the first group on the east coast of Tunisia, he was taken partly off guard by Labienus and Petreius at Ruspina but saved the day by a bold manoeuvre. When the rest of his troops arrived he had eight legions and was ready to face the enemy. While he was besieging Thapsus, which lay on the coast and was approached by two corridors of land on either side of a large lagoon, he managed to tempt Scipio into the western corridor and force him to stand and fight. Caesar quickly broke and rolled up his line, but in the moment of victory his men got out of hand and spared none of the enemy. Few escaped: Labienus and Pompey’s son Sextus managed to reach Spain, where his brother Gnaeus Pompeius was trying to establish himself. Cato, who was holding Utica, on finding the position hopeless committed suicide: ‘victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni’. His death symbolized the death of the Republic, which he had loyally if short-sightedly sought to uphold with unbridled vigour all his life: under the Principate he was idealized as the martyr of Republican liberty and a paragon of Stoic virtues.
¹⁸

When news of Thapsus reached Rome in the spring (46), fresh honours were voted for Caesar. He was appointed
praefectus morum
for three years and dictator (for the third time) for ten years (with perhaps a formal annual designation), the dictatorship being more probably ‘rei publicae constituendae’ than ‘rei gerundae causa’. On his return Caesar at last celebrated a fourfold triumph of unparalleled magnificence over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa. He gave cash bounties to his troops and 100
denarii
to every citizen; they were also entertained by feasts and shows. He pardoned more of his enemies, including M. Marcellus (who had flogged the Transpadane: cf. p. 103) and Q. Ligarius (who, already pardoned after Pharsalus, had again fought against Caesar at Thapsus); Cicero spoke in public on behalf of both men, praised Caesar’s generosity and urged the need for social reform.
¹⁹
This task Caesar now began to undertake: his measures are discussed in the following section. Less popular was his treatment of Cleopatra: he enrolled her among the Friends of the Roman People, put her statue in the temple of Venus Genetrix, and installed her with her infant son Caesarion (of whom he was almost certainly the father) in his suburban house on the Janiculum. But he could not continue uninterrupted with his measures of reconstruction: one more campaign must be fought. Pompey’s sons had built up a formidable force of thirteen legions in Spain and Caesar himself must now follow the legates whom he had sent on ahead. He left Lepidus, who was both his fellow-consul and his Magister Equitum, together with eight praetorian
prefects, to look after Italy, while his agents Balbus and Oppius kept an eye on affairs less officially. When finally Lepidus held the consular elections for 45, Caesar was elected consul, for the fourth time, without a colleague. Before the end of 46 he had left for Spain.

Although the Pompeians had the help of Labienus and were in control of most of the Baetis (Guadalquivir) valley, the campaign was brief. The decisive battle was fought at Munda, between Seville and Malaga, where the Pompeians had the advantage of a slope: it was touch-and-go during a long grim struggle until at last Caesar’s Tenth legion pushed back the enemy’s left wing, which was then assailed by the cavalry of the Mauretanian king, Bogud. The slaughter of the Pompeians was heavy: of the leaders only Sextus Pompeius escaped. After occupying Corduba, Hispalis (Seville) and Gades, Caesar punished severely the districts that had supported the Pompeians, and made some preliminary arrangements for the colonies that he planned to settle in Spain.

At news of Munda the Senate voted fresh honours to Caesar, including the title Liberator. On his return he celebrated another triumph. His dictatorship had been automatically renewed, but in October he resigned his (sole) consulship, and two of his nominees were elected
consules suffecti
. One of them, however, died on the last day of the year and Caesar gave offence to the nobles by having another suffect appointed for the day, thus cheapening the office. He now remained in Rome until his death. He was elected to his fifth consulship for 44, with Antony as his colleague; he received further excessive honours (see below); and finally, probably about mid-February 44 (perhaps when his ten-year dictatorship was due for its formal annual renewal), he was made instead Dictator Perpetuus. The Ides of March soon followed.

Over thirty years earlier another dictator had tried his hand at reform after a civil war, but Caesar’s task was easier in at least one respect: he had not to face recriminations arising from proscriptions or confiscations in Italy, but rather he had readily pardoned his enemies, both individual leaders and bodies of troops. All men were impressed by his clemency, and Cicero had openly urged him in 46 to restore the Republic to health by social reform, a plea that was re-echoed in a pamphlet attributed to Sallust.
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Caesar responded to the need with restless energy in the intervals between his campaigns abroad: in view of the short time that he spent in Rome the amount and variety of legislation that he sponsored is amazing and its incompleteness understandable.

A whole series of measures was designed to improve administrative
efficiency and to benefit Rome and Italy. One of the best-known was his reform (in 46) of the calendar, which kept getting out of gear with the solar year: this was both inconvenient and, because priests could intercalate months at will, often led to political trickery. With the advice of an Alexandrian astronomer Caesar added three (instead of the normal one) intercalary months to 46 B.C. and introduced a reformed calendar: this Julian calendar, with some slight adjustments by Pope Gregory XIII which were introduced into Britain in 1752, is still in use. Caesar carried a less effective sumptuary law to check extravagance. He suppressed all
collegia
, except genuine old trade guilds and the gatherings (synagogues) of the Jews who had helped him in Alexandria. He excluded the
tribuni aerarii
(p. 82) from the
quaestiones
, which were now shared equally by senators and Equites. He even planned to codify Roman civil law, a huge task not accomplished for 500 years. His measures to relieve debt have already been mentioned. He cut down the list of recipients of free corn from 320,000 to 150,000 because he was planning colonies for some of the surplus city population.
^20a
He improved the city itself by new buildings, which included a new Forum (Forum Iulium) to relieve congestion and a basilica; he planned a public library in charge of Varro, together with schemes to prevent the Tiber flooding the city; in his new Forum he dedicated a temple to Venus Genetrix, the goddess from whom the Julian
gens
claimed descent. He also drafted measures to provide for the unkeep of roads, the regulation of traffic, and the use of open spaces. In Italy he planned to build a new road over the Apennines and to extend the area available for agriculture by draining the Pomptine Marshes and the Fucine Lake. To mitigate the danger of brigandage and to help unemployment he enacted that at least one-third of the
pastores
on the large ranches should be free men. He re-imposed harbour-dues (
portoria
) which had been abolished in 60 B.C., to help Italian industry. He planned to construct a harbour at Ostia to facilitate imports, especially corn. He introduced a new gold coinage, the first regular issue in this metal. Though he did not carry a general law to standardize the municipal administration of all Italy, he did draft some regulations that were carried a few months after his death by Antony. These established qualifications for local magistrates and membership of local senates: undesirables, such as gladiators or bankrupts, were excluded, but not apparently freedmen; municipal censuses were also regulated.
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During his first consulship in 59 Caesar had shown his regard for the provinces by his
lex de repetundis
(p. 98). He now saved some of them from the worst exactions of the tax-gatherers: he had fixed the tribute which Transalpine Gaul was to pay, and in 48 he abolished the tithe system in Asia for which he substituted a land-tax of fixed amount, thus eliminating the middlemen; the same system was also applied to Sicily. A measure, however,
which limited proconsular governorships to two years and propraetorian to one year, may have had less regard for the interests of the provincials than for the potential danger arising from longer terms of office: Augustus later provided for longer governorships in the interests of the provincials.
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More important, however, was the fact that by indirect methods Caesar began to break down the barriers between Italy and the provinces, through the number of Romans that he settled in the provinces and by his liberal grants of Roman citizenship to provincials.

To meet the needs of his veterans, who wanted to return to civilian life, and those of the superfluous proletariat in Rome, Caesar planned no less than twenty colonies which are reckoned to have provided new homes overseas for some 100,000 citizens: though Gaius Gracchus had first breached the older prejudice against overseas settlement, nothing on this scale had yet been thought of. In view of his military plans (see below) Caesar was not ready to disband all his troops: in fact in 44 B.C. he still had thirty-five legions under arms. But many veterans of the Gallic wars (perhaps 20,000) were settled, some in Africa and Corinth, men from the Sixth legion at Arelate in Gaul and from the Tenth at Narbo; for the rest land was found in Italy. The overseas settlements received the status of Roman or Latin colonies, some of them being planned at sites that offered commercial or industrial opportunities. Colonies founded or planned by Caesar include Carthage, Clupea and Cirta in Africa, Carthago Nova, Hispalis and Tarraco in Spain; not so many were sent to the Greek east, but these included Corinth and Sinope. Part of the charter of one of these colonies survives, that of Colonia Genetiva Iulia at Urso (modern Osuna) in Spain, and it illustrates their nature: perhaps the most important clause is that specifying the right of freedmen to hold the office of local senator (
decurio
) which reveals Caesar’s generous policy to this class.
²³

One reason for sending these settlements overseas was that land was more readily available and was cheaper outside Italy, but Caesar must have been conscious that these settlers would help to spread Roman ways of life in the provinces. The other side to this policy was his extensive grant of Roman citizenship to provincials, both individuals and groups. He enfranchised the whole Legio Alaudae, which he had raised in Narbonese Gaul, and provided for the future enfranchisement of doctors and teachers in Rome. In the provinces he tended to grant citizenship to those areas where there had been a certain amount of Italian immigration, while he gave Latin rights to communities where the native element predominated. Thus Gades (Cadiz) and Olisipo (Lisbon) received citizenship, and towns such as Tolosa, Vienna (modern Vienne), Avenio (Avignon) and all the towns of Sicily were given Latin rights.
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