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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]». Краткое содержание книги:
POMPEY SOLE CONSUL
[52 B.C.]
Pompey (who was resolved to crush Milo) as soon as he entered on his office (February 25), had two laws passed, one against violence, the other against bribery. He ordained that trials should last only four days, the first three to be devoted to the hearing of evidence, the last to the pleadings of the parties; he assigned the number of pleaders in a cause, giving two hours to the prosecutor to speak, three to the accused to reply, and forbidding any one to come forward to praise the accused. To insure prosecutions for bribery, he promised a pardon to any one found guilty of it if he convicted two others of an equal or lesser degree or one of a greater. He directed that a consular chosen by the people, and not the prætor as in ordinary cases, should preside in the trials for violence.
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.
The Ædui, who were ancient allies of Rome, then complained to Cæsar that their neighbours, the Arverni and Sequani, having in their disputes with them invited a German chief named Ariovistus (Heer-fürst, ‘Army-prince’?) to their aid, he had been joined by large bodies of his countrymen, and had occupied a great part of the land of the Sequani, and now menaced the freedom of all the surrounding peoples; their only hopes, they added, lay in the Romans. This invitation was, as they knew, precisely what Cæsar desired; he promised aid, and as in his consulate he had been the means of having Ariovistus acknowledged as a king and friend of the Roman people, and he now wished to put him in the wrong, he sent to require him to meet him at a certain place. The German haughtily replied, that if Cæsar wanted to speak with him he should come to him.[113] Cæsar, further to irritate him, desired him to give back the hostages of the allies of Rome, and not to enter their lands or to bring over any more auxiliaries from Germany. Ariovistus replied by seizing on the Sequanian town of Vesontio (Besançon). On learning that the powerful nation of the Suevi was sending troops to Ariovistus, Cæsar resolved to march against him at once. But his soldiers were daunted at what they heard of the strength and ferocity of the Germans, till he made a speech to reassure them, in which he declared that with the tenth legion alone he would prosecute the war. At the desire of Ariovistus a conference was held, at which however nothing could be arranged; and while it was going on, news (true or false) was brought to Cæsar that the Germans had attacked the Romans: this broke off the conference; Cæsar refused to renew it; and a battle taking place, Ariovistus was defeated and forced to recross the Rhine.