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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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While his foes were thus flying and falling, Cæsar advanced triumphantly from the scene of his last exploit, receiving the submission of the towns on his way, carrying off the stores and treasure collected for his enemies’ use, and leaving garrisons to retain them in fidelity. As he drew near to Utica he was met by L. Cæsar, whose petition for mercy seems to have been confined to his own person, and to whom, as well as to a long list of distinguished nobles, the conqueror extended the promise of his protection. He lamented with every appearance of sincerity that Cato had robbed him of the pleasure of pardoning one who, of all his antagonists, had been the most obstinate in his opposition, and the most inveterate in his hatred. The fatal compliance of the Utican senators, who, not content with obeying his enemies’ commands, had contributed money to their cause, furnished him with a specious pretence for rifling their coffers of the treasures he now most urgently needed. His requisitions amounted to two hundred millions of sesterces. At the same time the city of Thapsus was mulcted in two millions, and the company of Roman traders in three. Hadrumetum paid down three millions, and its Roman capitalists five. Leptis and Thysdrus also suffered in due proportion. A grand auction was held at Zama for the sale of all the objects of Juba’s royal state, and of the goods of the Roman citizens who had borne arms under the tyrant’s orders. Upon the people who had so boldly defied their sovereign, and refused him admittance within their walls, honours and largesses were munificently showered, and the taxes heretofore demanded for the royal treasury were partially remitted by the collectors of the republic. But the country of Numidia was deprived of its independence, and definitely reduced to the form of a province, under the proconsulate of Sallust. The rewarded and the punished acquiesced equally in the conqueror’s dispositions; the submission of Africa to his authority was from thenceforth complete. The Uticans were allowed to commemorate with a funeral and a statue the humane and noble conduct of their late governor.
THE RETURN TO ROME
Cæsar settled the affairs of Africa with his usual despatch, and sailed from Utica on the fourteenth day of April, 46 B.C. On his way to Italy, he stopped at Caralis, in Sardinia. The aid which the island had afforded to his adversaries furnished him with a decent pretext for extorting from the inhabitants large sums of money. At the end of the same month he again weighed anchor; but the prevalence of easterly winds drove him repeatedly to shore, and he at last reached Rome on the twenty-eighth day after his departure from the Sardinian capital. The reports he received at this time of the revival of the republican cause in Spain did not give him much uneasiness. Cneius had been detained by sickness in the Baleares, and the fugitives from the field of Thapsus had been almost all cut off in their attempts to reach the point to which their last hopes were directed. The legionaries who had mutinied against Cassius Longinus were still either unsatisfied with their treatment under the commander who had superseded him, or fearful of their general’s vengeance when a fitting opportunity should arrive. It was from Cæsar’s own soldiers that the invitation had gone forth to the republican chiefs to renew the struggle on the soil of Spain. The spirit of the old commonwealth still survived in many of the towns of Bætica; promises of support were freely given; but the remnant of the African armament was contemptible both in numbers and ability. Of all the haughty nobles who had thronged the tent of Pompey at Luceria or Thessalonica, not one with a name known to history remained in arms, except Labienus alone. He indeed had succeeded in making his escape from Africa, in company with Varus; but the insurgents had already placed themselves under the command of Scapula and Aponius, officers of their own, nor would they suffer themselves to be transferred from them to any other except the son of the great Pompey. The extent to which the flame of insurrection had spread was probably unknown at this time to Cæsar. He was impatient to reap at last the fruit of so much bloodshed, to assume the post of honour he had won, and to work out the principles and objects of so many years of anticipation. A distant and contemptible outbreak might be subdued without meeting it in person. Accordingly, C. Didius, an officer of no eminent reputation, was sent with a naval and military force to the succour of Trebonius, whom, however, he found already expelled from his government by the growing force of the new movement.
Meanwhile Rome had sunk, during the conqueror’s absence, into a state of torpid tranquillity. The universal conviction that the dictator’s power was irresistible had quelled all further heavings of the spirit of discontent. Dolabella had been gratified with a command in the late campaign; while others, in whose fidelity and military skill he could rely, had been left behind to overawe disaffection. The most illustrious of the nobility having now no occasion to remain at Rome for the sake of paying court to a jealous ruler, had retired generally to their country seats; but Cicero seems to have feared giving occasion for distrust if he withdrew himself from the broad eye of public observation. He occupied himself, however, in his philosophical studies, and could rejoice that he had never, like so many of his contemporaries when plunging into the excitements of political life, abandoned the literary pursuits common to them in youth. While he still regarded the contest in Africa with the sentiments of a true republican, he confessed with a sigh that though the one cause was assuredly the more just, yet the victory of either would be equally disastrous. He probably held aloof from the proceedings of the servile senate, which occupied itself during the months of Cæsar’s absence in devising new honours for his acceptance. First of all it decreed the religious ceremony of a thanksgiving of forty days, being twice the term to which the compliance of popular gratitude had ever previously extended, and it was by the length of the observance that the honour was estimated. Next it appointed that the victor’s triumphal car should be drawn by horses of white, the sacred colour, and that the number of his attendant lictors should be doubled. He was to be requested to undertake the office of censor for three years, under a new title, which should not remind the citizens too closely of the times of republican liberty, that of præfectus morum, or regulator of manners. The changes which the revolutionary storm had effected in the condition of so many of the citizens justified a resort to the old constitutional resource for purging the senate of scandalous or impoverished members, and infusing new blood into its veins.