The Historians' History of the World 05

Though professing himself an ally of Pompey, the king of the Bosporus had failed to bring his contingent to the republican camp. After the battle of Pharsalia he hoped to profit by the ruin of his father’s foe, and the confusion of the republic. He mustered his forces and drove Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes from Armenia the lesser and Cappadocia. These princes sought the succour of Cæsar’s lieutenant Calvinus, and though they had just fought on the Pompeian side, he received instructions to restore them. Calvinus however was routed by Pharnaces, who recovered his father’s dominions in Asia Minor, and proceeded to expel from them the Roman settlers. Cæsar quitted Alexandria in April (47), landed at Tarsus, traversed Cilicia and Cappadocia, and reached the barbarian host at Zela in Pontus. A bloody battle ensued in which the Roman was completely victorious. The undisciplined hordes of the eastern sovereign once routed never rallied again. Pharnaces escaped from the field, but he was stripped of his possessions, and perished soon afterwards in an obscure adventure. The war was finished in five days, and the terms in which Cæsar is said to have announced it to the senate can hardly be called extravagant: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” When he compared this eastern “promenade” with the eight years’ struggle in which he had conquered Gaul by inches, he might exclaim on the good fortune of Pompey who had acquired at so little cost the reputation of a hero. After regulating with all despatch the affairs of the province, he hastened back to Italy, where his protracted absence had given occasion to serious disorders.

The measures which the dictator had enacted for the adjustment of debts were not received with equal satisfaction in every quarter. As soon as he was removed from the centre of affairs, the passions of the discontented found vent, and a prætor named Cælius fanned the flame for objects of personal ambition. Cælius was a clever, restless intriguer, and shrewd observer of other men, as appears in his amusing letters to Cicero, but altogether deficient in knowledge of himself, and much deceived in the estimate he formed of his own powers. He raised the criminal hopes of the worst and neediest citizens by proposing an abolition of debts; but he was unable to direct the passions he had excited, or to cope with the firmness of Servilius and the Cæsarian senate. He was declared incapable of holding any magistracy, expelled from the curia, and finally repulsed from the tribunate. He quitted Rome in disgust and fury, and had the temerity to plunge into an insurrection. Joining himself with Milo, who had left his place of exile and armed his gladiators in the south of Italy, he traversed Campania and Magna Græcia, soliciting the aid of outlaws and banditti. But the authorities of the capital had hardly time to take measures against the rebels, before they were reassured by the destruction of the one before Cosa, the other at Thurii.

CÆSAR RETURNS TO ROME