He entered Rome in a galaxy of glory. A splendid column commemorated the cities which he had taken, the twelve million human beings whom he had slain or subjected. His triumph was the most magnificent which the Roman citizens had ever witnessed, and by special vote he was permitted to wear his triumphal robe in the senate as often and as long as might please him. The fireworks over, and with the aureole of glory about his brow, the great Pompey, like another Samson shorn of his locks, dropped into impotence and insignificance.

 

The fact was—and Caesar in the remaining weeks before he left for Spain will have had time to discern it—Pompey was no orator, and a poor politician. He might shine on distant fields of battle and in military organization but he did not distinguish himself in the senate. Like many another returning warrior who has been years away from home (MacArthur springs to mind), during his long residence in other climates and among his soldiers or the prostrate conquered he had lost touch with the seat of power and the tortuous maze of manipulation. Caesar, as has been observed, was always, even as a youth in the East, accustomed to hear regularly from correspondents in Rome and to return there whenever opportunity offered. He knew—as Pompey perhaps did not, or had forgotten—that it was in the capital that the alliances were made and the political maneuvers engendered. Cicero, in a letter to his friend Atticus, reported with evident satisfaction, after listening to a speech by Pompey: “He gave no pleasure to the wretched; to the bad he seemed vapid and spineless; he was not pleasing to the well-to-do; to the good he seemed without any weight; and so he was looked on coldly.” He had also made the grave error—in the eyes of the senate—of settling affairs abroad in a high-handed manner without bothering to consult them, and he had made extravagant promises of land to his soldiers which the senators were determined he should not keep.

But all this was in the future and Caesar, after first taking the measure of his man, had now set off for Spain. The journey from Rome to Corduba took him three weeks, the standard time for that day, but Caesar was never the man to relax on this or other similar rounds of travel. On one journey which took twenty-seven days from Rome to southern Spain he composed a long poem called “The Journey,” while during a crossing of the Alps he wrote, or dictated, a two-volume work On Analogy. The elder Pliny recorded that he had heard how “Caesar was accustomed to write or dictate and read at the same time, simultaneously dictating to his secretaries four letters on the most important subjects or, if he had nothing else to do, as many as seven.” On this occasion Plutarch provides the somewhat unconvincing tale that, as they were passing through a squalid Alpine village, and the conversation turned jokingly to the question of what political offices were competed for there, Caesar remarked seriously: “For my part I would rather be first among these wretches than second in Rome.”

His province at once engaged his attention and he clearly showed which part of it was of most concern to him, for, not content with the twenty cohorts at his disposal (about 10,000 men), he at once set about enlisting a further ten. It was clear that he intended action against the mountain tribes, who were constantly harassing the peaceful inhabitants in the south. As he was to do many times afterward, he issued an ultimatum (which he knew would be ignored) telling them to leave their homes in the Herminius range and settle peacefully in the plain. Dio Cassius remarks that Caesar was perfectly well aware that they would refuse, but he now had his casus belli; the occasion for a war which he hoped would make him both rich and famous.

Compared with the campaigns which Pompey had been conducting in the East these military operations against mountain tribes were small indeed, but they nevertheless enabled Caesar and his soldiers to loot and despoil a number of cities—sometimes, so his critics maintained, ones which had offered no resistance or had previously submitted. This mattered little to Caesar and less to his troops, while as far as the distant senate in Rome was concerned he was taming and bringing within Roman control new areas of land and, therefore, new sources of wealth. He was careful also to see that the appropriate amount of money was sent back to Rome—and to the right people—so that any critics would be silenced. His dispatches (which we do not have) were almost certainly couched in the same exhilarating style as his famous later ones from Gaul. He had early discovered in himself a talent for soldiering, but now he showed that he was born to generalship. As an administrator he also displayed all his notable powers and he managed to secure for himself many grateful clients and followers among the peaceful inhabitants of Spain. His troops hailed him as Imperator, Victorious Commander, while by canceling a major part of outstanding debts he secured many supporters who would be useful in the future. But all the time he had his eye on Rome.

In the elections of 60 Caesar was entitled to stand for the consulship of 59. He was entitled to a triumph and, with this in mind, returned to Rome before the expiry of his office. However, all hinged on a legal technicality which forced him to choose between standing as a candidate for the consulship or being accorded a triumph. If the senate had been well-disposed toward him, and if Cato had not ensured that the law remained unchanged, he might have enjoyed both. As it was, and it shows as always Caesar’s choice of options when it came to military or political matters, he forwent the triumph and chose to stand for the consulship. In this he was wise, for many triumphs would fall his way in later years. It was a gamble, but at this moment he needed a consulship more than anything else. And Caesar was always a gambler.

Another candidate for the consulship was the same Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus who had been Caesar’s more-than-uneasy colleague as praetor and who took almost the same view of Caesar as did Cato. These two old aristocrats, as well as many others, regarded the profligate Caesar as a man who had used his birth—and the advantages which it gave him—as a means of attaining power by joining the Left. (Modern examples are not uncommon.) True conservatives viewed such men not only with suspicion but considerable dislike, which could easily turn to hatred.

Many in the senate believed Caesar might well become one of the next consuls, but whether his fellow consul would be Bibulus or a third candidate, one Lucius Lucceius (not even a member of the nobility), was in some doubt.