But they had not done it for nothing, and the sum they received from the King in return for their help was so vast that even the wealthy Ptolemy had to borrow from Roman financiers to meet it. Caesar was now certainly tasting the fruits of office, but still he needed to look ahead and make plans for the proconsulship that would follow next year.

The only way to effect a change from the ignominious appointments was to secure one of the tribunes as an ally (well-compensated, of course) to introduce a motion before the people’s assembly appointing Caesar to a real command for the following year in a province that was worthy of his attention. He found his man in a certain Publius Vatinius, a tribune who was prepared to take up the matter without consulting the senate. Now Caesar knew well that, with the East settled by Pompey, the major areas of the Roman world where there was plenty of money to be made, as well as fame and reputation, were to the north and west. The areas in which he was interested, he indicated to Vatinius, were Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Illyricum (the Adriatic coast of what is now Yugoslavia). The reasons for his choice of Cisalpine Gaul were relatively simple. He had long shown an interest in its people and had tried to secure Roman citizenship for them, while the region was rich and its large population would make a good recruiting ground. Caesar would need troops, for in troops lay power. Illyricum, on the other hand, was Romanized only along the coast and Caesar no doubt had plans for campaigns which would extend far inland: an opportunity to gain fame, extend the empire, and loot without fear of consequences. Vatinius secured both of these provinces for him, and something more. The governorship of the two areas was to be extended from the usual one or two years to five, starting from the expiry of his consulship on 1 January 58.

 

 

 

11

 

Proconsul

 

WHILE “Pompey was king, and Caesar was queen,” his fellow consul Bibulus had not entirely given up the battle. True, he had withdrawn to his: house, but from here he waged a propaganda war against Caesar that attracted the attention of Rome. Even the ordinary people of the city must have felt that there was something very curious about a year in which there appeared to be only one consul: “The event occurred, as I recall, when Caesar governed Rome…”

And as early as this in Caesar’s career Bibulus was able to circulate via gossip and graffiti the telling words: “Caesar was once in love with a king, but now he is in love with kingship.” There can be little doubt that in the latter part of the consulship this constant slanderous activity managed to damage him, even in the eyes of some of those who had been his supporters. Moreover, once a politician is in power he becomes a different man from the one who has previously held out promises. Caesar on his own had not only possessed grace and charm and oratorical skills, but had displayed all the popular traits of caring for the masses—and indeed doing something for them. He had shown this already in his consulship, but the people in general did not take to his associates: Crassus the millionaire without the human touch, and Pompey, respected as a soldier yet somehow unable to show much warmth or communicate with his fellows. Cicero, who had returned to Rome now that the most dangerous troubles seemed to be over, was happy to be able to report to his friend Atticus that Caesar had been ill-received at a new play, and that among the lines which had caused the audience to applaud was one where the principal actor turned toward Caesar’s seat and, pointing, said: “It is our misery which has made you so great…”

It was a year of great bitterness on account of numerous actions initiated by Caesar in the senate, but in which nevertheless he overcame his opponents. Even Pompey and Crassus must occasionally have felt a twinge of concern at the superlative ease with which their fellow triumvir rode the horse of power. Caesar, with his almost feline prescience, must have sensed this—and have known that, as the year drew to an end, it was fortunate that he had to go to his commands where he would be far from Rome, yet able to lay his hands on the source of power as Pompey had done in his military career in the East. At the instigation of Vatinius he had been voted three legions for the task and, with the view to campaigning in Illyricum, he stationed them at Aquileia, one of the strongest of all Roman fortresses, standing at the head of the Adriatic.

As the year of Caesar’s consulship drew to an end it was seen to have been, for those times, relatively moderate. Even those who had anticipated anarchy, revolution and terror, had to acknowledge that such had not been the case, although it was clear that the senate was cowed by the triumvirate. Cicero, who had gloomily foreseen the establishment of a dictatorship, was proved incorrect, while the rich found that their wealth had remained relatively unassailed. The people, on the other hand, had benefited comparatively little from the new agrarian law, except some of the poor and, of course, Pompey’s soldiers. On the one side there was probably a feeling of some relief, and on the other some disappointment, but it would take a very long time to improve the condition of the poor and Caesar seems to some extent to have adopted the motto that was to be dear to his successor Octavius/Augustus: “Hasten slowly.” Now that he had held the consulship and could, as it were, proceed no farther in that direction of political power, he looked to the coming years to give him an unassailable power-base. Meanwhile Pompey and Crassus would remain in Rome to uphold the triumvirate. Then, almost as Caesar was about to leave for his province in the north and east, the appointee to the other Gallic province, Narbonese or Transalpine Gaul, suddenly died.

Named after its capital Narbo (Narbonne) this area of southern France had been Romanized for at least fifty years. The great port of Massilia (Marseilles), which had been an early Greek foundation, had been faithful to Rome right through the Hannibalic war and had disseminated Greco-Roman trade and culture for over a century. The Romans had taken it under their protection and using it as a base had gradually infiltrated most of the area of the Rhone valley. Beyond it lay the lowering North: the lands of the untamed Gauls who threatened the Roman province, and beyond that the savage and almost unknown tribes of the Belgians and the Germans. Here was an area quite unlike the civilized regions of the East which Pompey had conquered, and it was here, Caesar felt, that immense gains might be won.