The Historians' History of the World 05

The public shows with which these gratifications were accompanied were carried out on a scale of greater magnificence than even those recently exhibited by Pompey. There was nothing in which the magistrates of the republic vied more ostentatiously with one another than in the number of wild beasts and gladiators which they brought into the arena. The natural taste of the Italian people for shows and mummery degenerated more and more into an appetite for blood; but in this, as in every other respect, it was Cæsar’s ambition to outdo his predecessors, and the extraordinary ferocity and carnage of the exhibitions which he complacently witnessed excited a shudder even in the brutal multitude. The combatants in the games of the Circus were either professional gladiators, who sold their services for a certain term of years, or captives taken in war, or lastly public criminals. But Cæsar was, perhaps, the first to encourage private citizens to make an exhibition of their skill and valour in these mortal combats. He allowed several men of equestrian rank, and one the son of a prætor, to demean themselves in the eyes of their countrymen by this exposure to the public gaze. It was only when a senator named Fulvius Setinus asked permission thus to prostitute his dignity, that the dictator was at last roused to restrain the growing degradation.

If the people of Rome were shocked at the bloodshed which they were invited to applaud, it seems that they were offended also at the vast sums which were lavished on these ostentatious spectacles. They would have preferred, perhaps, that the donative to themselves should have been greater, and the soldiers even exhibited symptoms of discontent and mutiny in consequence. No instance of Cæsar’s profuse expenditure excited greater admiration than his stretching a silken awning over the heads of the spectators in the Circus. This beautiful material was brought only from the farthest extremity of India, and was extremely rare and precious at Rome at that time. Three centuries later it was still so costly that a Roman emperor forbade his wife the luxury of a dress of the finest silk unmixed with a baser fabric. But a more permanent and worthy object of imperial expenditure was the gorgeous Forum of which Cæsar had long since laid the foundation with the spoils of his Gallic Wars. Between the old Roman Forum and the foot of the Quirinal, he caused a large space to be enclosed with rows of marble corridors, connecting in one suite halls of justice, chambers of commerce, and arcades for public recreation. In the centre was erected a temple to Venus the ancestress, the patroness for whom Cæsar had woven a breastplate of British pearls, and whose name he had used as his watchword on the days of his greatest victories. He now completed the series of his triumphal shows by the dedication of this favourite work. It remained for centuries a conspicuous monument of the fame and magnificence of the first of the Cæsars. His successors were proud to cluster new arches and columns by its side, and bestowed their names upon the edifices they erected in connection with it. Finally, Trajan cut through the elevated ridge which united the Capitoline with the Quirinal, and impeded the further extension of the imperial forums. He filled the hollow with a new range of buildings, occupying as much ground as the united works of his predecessors in this quarter. The depth of his excavation is indicated, it is said, by the height of the pillar which bears his name.

THE LAST CAMPAIGN

[46-45 B.C.]

Our review of the dictator’s proceedings in the discharge of his civil functions must be postponed, but only for a moment, to relate the short episode of his last military exploit. The despatches of his lieutenants in Spain represented that province as rapidly falling into the hands of the republican faction. Varus and Labienus had escaped from Africa, and joined the standard under which Scapula marshalled the disaffected legions in Spain. Cneius Pompeius had also issued from his retreat in the Balearic Isles, and as soon as he appeared in their camp every chief of the oligarchy waived his own pretensions to the command in deference to the man who represented the fame and fortunes of their late leader. Yet Scapula had the confidence of the soldiers, Labienus was an officer of tried ability and reputation, and Varus had at least held the highest military commands, while Cneius himself was personally unknown to the legions in Spain, and his only achievement in war had been a dashing naval exploit. So cowed by its repeated reverses was the spirit of the old Roman party, which had revived for a moment in Africa with vain exultation at finding itself relieved from the ascendency of its own military champion. Cneius, on his part, seems to have regarded the renewed contest in the light of a private quarrel. His war-cry was not “Rome,” “Liberty,” or “The Senate,” but “Pietas,” “Filial Duty.”