The Historians' History of the World 05

Contrary to the apprehensions of many of the citizens Cæsar’s return was marked by no proscription. He confined himself to the confiscation of the estates of the men who still remained in arms against him; and that of Pompey himself, whose sons were in the hostile camp, he set up to public auction. A portion of them was bought by Antony, who ventured to evade the due payment of the price. He conceived that his services might command the trifling indulgence of release from a paltry debt. He found, however, that his patron was in earnest, and prudently submitted to the affront. The dictator remained only three months in Rome. Every moment was fully occupied in the vast work of reconstructing the government; but we know not what were the special measures enacted at this period, and Cæsar’s legislation may fitly be reserved to be contemplated hereafter at a single view. Two consuls were appointed for the remaining three months of the year, and for the next ensuing Cæsar nominated himself for the third time, together with Lepidus. He caused himself also to be again created dictator. His partisans he loaded with places and honours, and sated the populace with largesses. The soldiers demanded the fulfilment of his repeated promises. Those of the tenth legion broke out into open revolt, and ran from Campania to Rome to extort their claims. Cæsar convoked them in the Field of Mars, approached them unattended, mounted his tribunal, and demanded the statement of their grievance. At the sight of their redoubted general their voices faltered, their murmurs died away; they could only ask for their discharge. “I discharge you, citizens,” replied the imperator; and they cowered under this disparaging appellation, abashed and humiliated. To the fierce and haughty soldier the peaceful name of citizen

seemed a degradation. They entreated to be restored to their ensigns, and submitted to severe punishment in expiation of their fault. This simple incident is a key to the history of the times. This application of the title of citizen, and the effect it produced, show plainly that the basis of Cæsar’s force was purely military, and that Cæsar himself knew it. This was the point at which every party leader in turn had tried for years to arrive, and Cæsar had succeeded.

THE AFRICAN WAR

As soon as this sedition was repressed Cæsar departed to crush the remnant of his enemies assembled in Africa. The defeated host had been scattered in various directions, but the largest division of the fugitives had made its way to Dyrrhachium, and there deliberated on its further movements. Cato, to whom the command was offered, waived it in favour of Cicero, as his superior in rank; but the orator declined to associate himself further in the honours and perils of a fruitless struggle, and departed mournfully for Italy. His life was with difficulty preserved from the fury of Cneius, the elder son of the great Pompey, a man of ungovernable passions and slender capacity. Shortly afterwards Scipio assumed the command of the main body, and carried it to Utica in the province of Africa. Cato at the head of another division skirted the coasts of Greece and Asia, and picked up some scattered adherents of the cause. He followed in the track of Pompey, but when the news of his chief’s assassination reached him, he landed on the shore of Libya, and demanded admission within the walls of Cyrene. The natives shut their gates; but Cato, always loath to exercise any unprofitable severity, generously abstained from chastising them. Anxious now to effect a junction with the remainder of his friends, he coasted westward as far as the lesser Syrtis, and then plunged with his little army into the sandy desert. The seven days’ march through this inhospitable region, torrid with heat and infested with serpents, was justly considered one of the noblest exploits of the Roman legionaries. The poet of the Pharsalia exalts it above the three triumphs of Pompey and the victories of Marius over the tyrant of Numidia. He turns with pardonable enthusiasm from the deified monsters, the Caligulas and Neros of his own day, to hail its achiever as the true Father of his Country, the only worthy object of a free man’s idolatry.