The Historians' History of the World 05

These preparations being made, the prosecution of Milo commenced. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the consul of the year 54, was chosen president by the people, and a jury, one of the most respectable we are assured that Rome ever beheld, was appointed. Milo and Cælius had recourse to every means to prevent a conviction. The former was charged with having seized five persons who had witnessed the murder of Clodius, and kept them in close custody for two months at his country-seat; the latter with taking by force one of Milo’s slaves out of the house of one of the triumviri capitales. Cicero was to plead Milo’s cause. On the first day the tumult was so great that the lives of Pompey and his lictors were endangered; soldiers were therefore placed in various parts of the city and Forum, with orders to strike with the flat of their swords any that were making a noise; but this not sufficing, they were obliged to wound and even kill several persons. When Cicero rose to speak on the fourth day, he was received with a loud shout of defiance by the Clodian faction; and the sight of Pompey sitting surrounded by his officers, and the view of the temples and places around the Forum filled with armed men, so daunted him, that he pleaded with far less than his usual ability. Milo was found guilty, and he went into exile at Massilia.

Other offenders were then prosecuted. P. Plautius Hypsæus was found guilty of bribery, as also were P. Sextius, M. Scaurus, and C. Memmius. This last then accused, under the late law, Pompey’s own father-in-law, Q. Metellus Scipio.[111] Pompey was weak enough to become a suppliant for him, and he sent for the three hundred and sixty persons who were on the jury panel, and besought them to aid him. When Memmius saw Scipio come into the Forum surrounded by those who would have to try him, he gave over the prosecution, lamenting the ruin of the constitution. Rufus and Plancus when out of office were prosecuted for the burning of the senate house, and Pompey again was weak enough to break his own law by sending a written eulogy of Plancus into the court. Cato, who was one of the jury, said that Pompey must not be allowed to violate his own law. Plancus then challenged Cato; but it did not avail him, as the others found him guilty.

Pompey, having acted for some time as sole consul, made his father-in-law his colleague for the remaining five months of his consulate. He caused his own command in Spain to be extended for another term of five years, but he governed his province, as before, by legates; and to soothe Cæsar, he had a law passed to enable him to sue for the consulate without coming to Rome in person. To strengthen the laws against bribery, it was enacted that no consul or prætor should obtain a province till he had been five years out of office; and to provide for the next five years, it was decreed that the consulars and prætorians who had not had provinces should now take them. Cicero, therefore, much against his will, was obliged to go as proconsul to Cilicia; his government of it was a model of justice and disinterestedness, and proves how he would have acted had he been free at all times to follow his own inclinations, and we may add, if less under the influence of vain glory and ambition. We must now turn our regards to Cæsar and his exploits in Gaul.

While such was the condition of affairs at Rome, this great man was acquiring the wealth and forming the army by means of which he hoped to become master of his country. He has himself left a narrative of his Gallic campaigns, which, though of course partial, is almost our only authority for this part of the Roman history.

THE GALLIC WARS (58-50 B.C.)

[58-52 B.C.]

Fortune favoured Cæsar by furnishing him with an early occasion of war, though his province was tranquil when he received it (58).[112] The Helvetii, a people of Gallic race, who dwelt from Mount Jura far into the Alps, resolved to leave their mountains and seek new seats in Gaul; and having burned all their towns and villages, they set forth with wives and children to the number of 368,000 souls. As their easier way lay through the Roman province, they sent, on hearing that Cæsar [who marched from Rome in eight days] had broken down the bridge over the Rhone at Geneva, and was making preparations to oppose them, to ask a free passage, promising to do no injury. Cæsar, who had not all his troops with him, gave an evasive answer, and meantime ran a ditch and rampart from the Lake of Geneva to Mount Jura. The Helvetii then turned, and going by Mount Jura entered the country of the Sequani and Ædui; but Cæsar fell on them as they were passing the Arar (Saone), and defeated them; he afterwards routed them again, and finally compelled them to return to their own country, lest the Germans should occupy it.