STORY OF LEPIDUS OF ROME JULIUS CEASAR AND POMPEIUS

                          LEPIDUS
                            
                           ANCIENT ROME
Sulla was alive when  Lepidus  was the leader of the democratic party against C. Lutatius Catulus—a man without character or ability, who had deserted from the optimates to the popular party, to escape prosecution for the plunder of Sicily. The fortune he acquired in his government of that province enabled Lepidus to secure his election as consul, B.C. 78, and he even attempted to deprive Sulla of his funeral honors. A conspiracy was organized in Etruria, where the Sulla was a consul. Lepidus came . The Senate, fearing convulsions, made , the consuls, swear not to take up arms against each other; but at the expiration of the consulship of Lepidus, went, as was usual, to the province assigned to him. 





But in Gaul province here the war first broke out. An attempt on Rome was frustrated by Catulus, who defeated Lepidus, and the latter soon died in Sardinia, whither he had retired

Sertorius was then in command of the army in Spain,—

sERTORIUS a 







man who had risen from an obscure position, but who possessed the hardy virtues of the old Sabine farmers. He served under Marius in Gaul, and was prætor  

Sulla returned to Rome. . His army was re-enforced by  the Iberian tribes, among whom he was a favorite. For eight years this celebrated hero baffled the armies which Rome, under the lead of the aristocracy, sent against him, for he undertook to restore the cause of the democracy.



Pompeius
Against Sertorius was sent the man who, next to Cæsar, was destined to play the most important part in the history of those times—Pompeius, born the same year as Cicero,B.C. 106, who had enlisted in the cause of Sulla, and early distinguished himself against the generals of Marius. 


He gained great successes in Sicily and Africa, and was, on his return to Rome, saluted by the dictator Sulla himself with the name of Magnus, which title he ever afterward bore. He was then a simple equestrian, and had not risen to the rank of quæstor, or prætor, or consul. Yet he had, at the early age of twenty-four, without enjoying any curule office, the honor of a triumph, even against the opposition of Sulla




POMPEIUS  was sent to Spain with the title of proconsul, and with an army of thirty thousand men. He crossed the Alps between the sources of the Rhone and Po, and advanced to the southern coast of Spain. Here he was met by Sertorius, and at first was worsted. I need not detail the varied events of this war in Spain. The Spaniards at length grew weary of a contest which was not to their benefit, but which was carried on in behalf of rival factions at the capital. Dissensions broke out among the officers of Sertorius, and he was killed at a banquet by Perpenna, his lieutenant. On the death of the only man capable of resisting the aristocracy of Rome, and whose virtues were worthy of the ancient heroes, the progress of Pompey was easy. Perpenna 

was taken prisoner and his army was dispersed, and Spain was reduced to obedience.

On the expiration of his consulship, Pompey remained 
inactive, refusing a province, until the troubles with the Mediterranean pirates again called him into active military service. These pirates swarmed on every coast, plundering cities, and cutting off communication between Rome and the provinces. They especially attacked the corn vessels, so that the price of provisions rose inordinately. The people, in distress, turned their eyes to Pompey; but he was not willing to accept any ordinary command, and through his intrigues, his tool, the tribune Gabinius, proposed that the people should elect a man for this service of consular rank, who should have absolute power for three years over the whole of the Mediterranean, and to a distance of fifty miles inward from the coast, and who should command a fleet of two hundred ships. He did not name Pompey, but everybody knew who was meant. The people, furious at the price of corn, and full of admiration for the victories of Pompey, were ready to appoint him; the Senate, alarmed and jealous, was equally determined to prevent his appointment. Tumults and riots were the consequence. Pompey affected to desire some other person for the command but himself; but the law passed, in spite of the opposition of the Senate, and Pompey was commissioned to prepare five hundred ships, enlist one hundred and twenty thousand sailors and soldiers, and also to take from the public treasury whatever sum he needed

This great success led to his command against Mithridates, who had again rallied his forces for one more decisive and desperate struggle with the Romans. Asia rallied against Europe, as Europe rallied against Asia [in the crusades. Mithridates, after his defeat by Sulla, had retired to Armenia to the court of his son-in-law, Tigranes, whose power was greater than that of any other Oriental potentate. Tigranes was not at first inclined to break with Rome, but (B.C. 70) he consented to the war, which continued for seven years without decisive results. The Romans were commanded by Lucullus, the old lieutenant of Sulla, and although his labors were not appreciated at Rome, he broke really the power of Mithridates. But, through the intrigues of Pompey and his friends, he was recalled, and Pompey was commissioned, with the extraordinary power of unlimited control of the Eastern army and fleet, and the rights of proconsul over the whole of Asia. He already had the dominion of the Mediterranean. The Senate opposed this dangerous precedent, but it was carried by the people, who could not heap too many honors on their favorite. Cicero, then forty years of age, with Cæsar, supported the measure, which was opposed by Hortensius and Catulus.

Pompey, before the death of Mithridates, went to Syria to regulate its affairs, it being ceded to Rome by Tigranes. After the defeat of Tigranes by Lucullus, that kingdom, however, had been recovered by Antiochus XIII., the last of the Seleucidæ, who held a doubtful sovereignty. He was, however, reduced by a legate of Pompey, and Syria became a Roman province. The next year, Pompey advanced south, and established the Roman supremacy in Phœnicia and Palestine, the latter country being the seat of civil war between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. It was then that Jerusalem was taken by the Roman general, after a siege of three months, and the conqueror entered the most sacred precincts of the temple, to the horror of the priesthood. He established Hyrcanus as high priest, as has been already related, and then retired to Pontus, settled its affairs, and departed with his army for Italy, having won a succession of victories never equaled in the East, except by Alexander. And never did victories receive such great éclat, which, however, were easily won, as those of Alexander had been. No Asiatic foe was a match for either Greeks or Romans in the field. The real difficulties were in marches, in penetrating mountain passes, in crossing arid plains.

But before the conqueror of Asia received the reward of his great services to the State—the most splendid triumph which had as yet been seen on the Via [Sacra—Rome was brought to the verge of ruin by the conspiracy of Catiline. The departure of Pompey to punish the pirates of the Mediterranean and conquer Mithridates, left the field clear to the two greatest men of their age, Cicero and Cæsar. It was while Cicero was consul that the conspiracy was detected.

Pompey was, however, greater in war than in peace. Had he known how to make use of his prestige and his advantages, he might have henceforth reigned without a rival. He was not sufficiently noble and generous to live without making grave mistakes and alienating some of his greatest friends, nor was he sufficiently bad and unscrupulous to abuse his military supremacy. He pursued a middle course, envious of all talent, absorbed in his own greatness, vain, pompous, and vacillating. His quarrels with Crassus and Lucullus severed him from the aristocratic party, whose leader he properly was. His haughtiness and coldness alienated the affections of the people, through whom he could only advance to supreme dominion. He had neither the arts of a demagogue, nor the magnanimity of a conqueror.

It was at this crisis that Cæsar returned from Spain as the conqueror of the Lusitanians. Caius Julius Cæsar belonged to the ancient patrician family of the Julii, and was born B.C.100, and was six years younger than Pompey and Cicero. But he was closely connected with the popular party by the marriage of his aunt Julia with the great Marius, and his marriage with Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, one of the chief opponents of Sulla. He early served in the army of the East, but devoted his earliest 
years to the art of oratory. His affable manners and unbounded liberality made him popular with the people. He obtained the quæstorship at thirty-two, the year he lost his wife, and went as quæstor to Antistius Vetus, into the province of Further Spain. On his return, the following year, he married Pompeia, the granddaughter of Sulla, of the Cornelia gens, and formed a union with Pompey. By his family connections he obtained the curule ædileship at the age of thirty-five, and surpassed his predecessors in the extravagance of his shows and entertainments, the money for which he borrowed. At thirty-seven he was elected Pontifex Maximus, so great was his popularity, and the following year he obtained the prætorship, B.C. 62, and on the expiration of his office he obtained the province of Further Spain. His debts were so enormous that he applied for aid to Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and readily obtained the loan he sought. In Spain, with an army at his command, he gained brilliant victories over the Lusitanians, and returned to Rome enriched, and sought the consulship. To obtain this, he relinquished the customary triumph, and, with the aid of Pompey, secured his election, and entered into that close alliance with Pompey and Crassus which historians call the first triumvirate. It was merely a private agreement between the three most powerful men of Rome to support each other, and not a distinct magistracy.

As consul, Cæsar threw his influence against the aristocracy, to whose ranks he belonged, both by birth and office, and caused an agrarian law to be passed, against the fiercest opposition of the Senate, by which the rich Campanian lands were divided for the benefit of the poorest citizens—a good measure, perhaps, but which brought him forward as the champion of the people. He next gained over the equites, by relieving them, by a law which he caused to be passed, of one-third of the sum they had agreed to pay for the farming of the taxes of Asia. He secured the favor of Pompey by causing all his acts in the East to be confirmed. At the expiration of his consulship he [pg 532]obtained the province of Gaul, as the fullest field for the development of his military talents, and the surest way to climb to subsequent greatness. At this period Cicero went into exile without waiting for his trial—that miserable period made memorable for aristocratic broils and intrigues, and when Clodius, a reckless young noble, entered into the house of the Pontifex Maximus, disguised as a woman, in pursuit of a vile intrigue with Cæsar's wife

The succeeding nine years of Cæsar's life were occupied by the subjugation of Gaul. In the first campaign he subdued the Helvetii, and conquered Ariovistus, a powerful German chieftain. In the second campaign he opposed a confederation of Belgic tribes—the most warlike of all the Gauls, who had collected a force of three hundred thousand men, and signally defeated them, for which victories the Senate decreed a public thanksgiving of fifteen days. That given in Pompey's honor, after the Mithridatic war, had lasted but ten. At this time he made a renewed compact with Pompey and Crassus, by which Pompey was to have the two Spains for his province, Crassus that of Syria, and he himself should have a prolonged government in Gaul for five years more. The combined influence of these men was enough to secure the elections, and the year following Crassus and Pompey were made consuls. Cæsar had to resist powerful confederations of the Gauls, and in order to strike terror among them, in the fourth year of the war, invaded Britain. But I can not describe the various campaigns of Cæsar in Gaul and Britain without going into details hard to be understood—his brilliant victories over enemies of vastly greater numbers, his marchings and countermarchings, his difficulties and dangers, his inventive genius, his strategic talents, his boundless resources, his command over his soldiers and their idolatry, until, after nine years, Gaul was subdued and added to the Roman provinces. During his long absence from Rome his interests were guarded by the tribune Curio, and Marcus Antonius, the future triumvir. During this time Crassus had ingloriously [conducted a distant war in Parthia, in quest of fame and riches, and was killed by an unknown hand after a disgraceful defeat. This avaricious patrician must not be confounded with the celebrated orator, of a preceding age, who was so celebrated for his elegance and luxury.

Affairs at Rome had also taken a turn which indicated a rupture with Cæsar and Pompey, now left, by the death of Crassus, at the head of the State. The brilliant victories of the former in Gaul were in everybody's mouth, and the fame of the latter was being eclipsed. A serious rivalry between these great generals began to show itself. The disturbances which also broke out on the death of Clodius led to the appointment of Pompey as sole consul, and all his acts as consul tended to consolidate his power. His government in Spain was prolonged for five years more; he entered into closer connections with the aristocracy, and prepared for a rupture with his great rival, which had now become inevitable, as both grasped supreme power.