Suetonius: DE VITIS CAESARUM

* * * [1] Annum agens sextum decimum patrem amisit; sequentibusque consulibus flamen Dialis destinatus dimissa Cossutia, quae familia equestri sed admodum dives praetextato desponsata fuerat, Corneliam Cinnae quater consulis filiam duxit uxorem, ex qua illi mox Iulia nata est; neque ut repudiaret compelli a dictatore Sulla ullo modo potuit. Quare et sacerdotio et uxoris dote et gentilicis hereditatibus multatus diversarum partium habebatur, ut etiam discedere e medio et quamquam morbo quartanae adgravante prope per singulas noctes commutare latebras cogeretur seque ab inquisitoribus pecunia redimeret, donec per virgines Vestales perque Mamercum Aemilium et Aurelium Cottam propinquos et adfines suos veniam impetravit. Satis constat Sullam, cum deprecantibus amicissimis et ornatissimis viris aliquamdiu denegasset atque illi pertinaciter contenderent, expugnatum tandem proclamasse sive divinitus sive aliqua coniectura: vincerent ac sibi haberent, dum modo scirent eum, quem incolumem tanto opere cuperent, quandoque optimatium partibus, quas secum simul defendissent, exitio futurum; nam Caesari multos Marios inesse.

* * * [1] In the sixteenth year of his age he lost his father; and in the following consuls’ year, destined to be flamen Dialis, having dismissed Cossutia — who, though of equestrian family yet very wealthy, had been betrothed while wearing the praetexta — he took as wife Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, four-time consul, by whom shortly a Julia was born to him; nor could he in any way be forced by the dictator Sulla to repudiate her. Wherefore he was mulcted in his priesthood and in his wife’s dowry and in family inheritances and was counted among diverse parties, so that he was even forced to withdraw from the public scene and, although stricken with quartan fever worsening almost every night, to change his hiding-places and to redeem himself from the inquisitors with money, until through the Vestal virgins and through Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his kinsmen and relations, he obtained pardon. It is clear that Sulla, when he had for some time denied the pleas of the most friendly and most distinguished men and they pressed him obstinately, at last proclaimed that he had been vanquished — whether divinely or by some conjecture — “they would prevail and hold him for themselves, provided only they knew that he, whom they so greatly wished to be safe, would at some time be the ruin of the optimates’ party which they had defended together with him; for in Caesar there were many Marios.”

[2] Stipendia prima in Asia fecit Marci Thermi praetoris contubernio; a quo ad accersendam classem in Bithyniam missus desedit apud Nicomeden, non sine rumore prostratae regi pudicitiae; quem rumorem auxit intra paucos rursus dies repetita Bithynia per causam exigendae pecuniae, quae deberetur cuidam libertino clienti suo. Reliqua militia secundiore fama fuit et a Thermo in expugnatione Mytilenarum corona civica donatus est.

[2] His first military service he did in Asia in the contubernium of Marcus Thermus the praetor; from whom, sent to summon the fleet into Bithynia, he tarried at Nicomedia, not without rumor of the king’s chastity having been laid low; a rumor which he increased when, within a few days, Bithynia was again visited for the purpose of exacting money that was owed to a certain freedman client of his. The rest of his soldiery was of secondary repute, and he was by Thermus awarded the civic crown in the capture of Mytilene.

[3] Meruit et sub Servilio Isaurico in Cilicia, sed brevi tempore. Nam Sullae morte comperta, simul spe novae dissensionis, quae per Marcum Lepidum movebatur, Romam propere redit. Et Lepidi quidem societate, quamquam magnis condicionibus invitaretur, abstinuit, cum ingenio eius diffisus tum occasione, quam minorem opinione offenderat.

[3] He also served under Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia, but for a short time. For when Sulla's death became known, and at the same time with the hope of a new dissension, which was being stirred up by Marcus Lepidus, he hastily returned to Rome. And he indeed abstained from Lepidus's association, although he was invited with great conditions, being mistrustful of his disposition and by the occasion which had offended him in lesser regard.

[4] Ceterum composita seditione civili Cornelium Dolabellam consularem et triumphalem repetundarum postulavit; absolutoque Rhodum secedere statuit, et ad declinandam invidiam et ut per otium ac requiem Apollonio Moloni clarissimo tunc dicendi magistro operam daret. Huc dum hibernis iam mensibus traicit, circa Pharmacussam insulam a praedonibus captus est mansitque apud eos non sine summa indignatione prope quadraginta dies cum uno medico et cubicularis duobus. Nam comites servosque ceteros initio statim ad expediendas pecunias, quibus redimeretur, dimiserat.

[4] Moreover, the civil sedition having been composed, he demanded Cornelius Dolabella, consular and triumphal, for extortions; and, that settled, resolved to withdraw to Rhodes, and to decline envy and to give his attention, through leisure and rest, to Apollonius Molon, then the most renowned master of speaking. While he was crossing hither in the winter months, he was seized by pirates about the island Pharmacussa and remained with them, not without the greatest indignation, for nearly forty days with one physician and two chamberlains. For at the outset he had immediately sent away his companions and the other slaves to procure the monies by which he might be ransomed.

Numeratis deinde quinquaginta talentis expositus in litore non distulit quin e vestigio classe deducta persequeretur abeuntis ac redactos in potestatem supplicio, quod saepe illis minatus inter iocum fuerat, adficeret. Vastante regiones proximas Mithridate, ne desidere in discrimine sociorum videretur, ab Rhodo, quo pertenderat, transiit in Asiam auxiliisque contractis et praefecto regis provincia expulso nutantis ac dubias civitates retinuit in fide.

Then, the fifty talents having been counted and laid out on the shore, he did not delay but at once, from the spot where the fleet had been launched, pursued those departing and brought back the captured into his power for punishment — which he had oft threatened them in jest — and he inflicted it. Mithridates ravaging the neighboring regions, lest he seem idle in the peril of his allies, he crossed from Rhodos, to which he had put in, into Asia; auxiliaries being gathered and the king’s praefect expelled, he kept wavering and doubtful cities in fidelity.

[5] Tribunatu militum, qui primus Romam reverso per suffragia populi honor optigit, actores restituendae tribuniciae potestatis, cuius vim Sulla deminuerat, enixissime iuvit. L. etiam Cinnae uxoris fratri, et qui cum eo civili discordia Lepidum secuti post necem consulis ad Sertorium confugerant, reditum in civitatem rogatione Plotia confecit habuitque et ipse super ea re contionem.

[5] In the soldiers' tribunate — to which, when he first returned to Rome, the honor fell by the votes of the people — he most zealously aided the promoters of restoring the tribunician power, whose force Sulla had diminished. He also carried through the return into the state by the Plotian rogation for the brother of L. Cinna's wife, and for those who, having followed Lepidus with him in civil discord and after the consul's death had fled to Sertorius, and he himself held a contio on that matter.

[6] Quaestor Iuliam amitam uxoremque Corneliam defunctas laudavit e more pro rostris. Et in amitae quidem laudatione de eius ac patris sui utraque origine sic refert: 'Amitae meae Iuliae maternum genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis inmortalibus coniunctum est. Nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Venere Iulii, cuius gentis familia est nostra.

[6] The quaestor praised his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, deceased, according to custom at the rostra. And in the praise of his aunt indeed concerning both her and her father's origin he thus relates: 'To my aunt Julia the maternal stock arose from kings, the paternal was joined with the immortal gods. For from Ancus Marcius are the Marcii, Reges, by which name she was called mother; from Venus the Julii, of whom our family is a branch.'

Est ergo in genere et sanctitas regum, qui plurimum inter homines pollent, et caerimonia deorum, quorum ipsi in potestate sunt reges.' In Corneliae autem locum Pompeiam duxit Quinti Pompei filiam, L. Sullae neptem; cum qua deinde divortium fecit adulteratam opinatus a Publio Clodio, quem inter publicas caerimonias penetrasse ad eam muliebri veste tam constans fama erat, ut senatus quaestionem de pollutis sacris decreverit.

There is therefore in that class both the sanctity of kings, who hold very great power among men, and the ceremonial of the gods, over whom the kings themselves are in authority. But in Cornelia’s place he led in Pompeia, the daughter of Quintus Pompeius, granddaughter of L. Sulla; with whom afterwards he contracted a divorce, having supposed her adulterous by Publius Clodius, whom a report so constant held to have penetrated to her in female dress among the public ceremonies that the senate decreed an inquiry concerning the polluted sacred rites.

[7] Quaestori ulterior Hispania obvenit; ubi cum mandatu praetoris iure dicundo conventus circumiret Gadisque venisset, animadversa apud Herculis templum Magni Alexandri imagine ingemuit et quasi pertaesus ignaviam suam, quod nihil dum a se memorabile actum esset in aetate, qua iam Alexander orbem terrarum subegisset, missionem continuo efflagitavit ad captandas quam primum maiorum rerum occasiones in urbe. Etiam confusum eum somnio proximae noctis – nam visus erat per quietem stuprum matri intulisse – coiectores ad amplissimam spem incitaverunt arbitrium terrarum orbis portendi interpretantes, quando mater, quam subiectam sibi vidisset, non alia esset quam terra, quae omnium parens haberetur.

[7] Further Spain befell the quaestor; where, with the praetor’s mandate for administering justice, he made the rounds of the assemblies and had arrived at Gades, and, having noticed the image of Great Alexander at the temple of Hercules, he sighed and, as it were sickened with his own sloth—because nothing memorable had yet been done by him in an age in which Alexander had already subdued the world—he at once demanded a mission to seize, as soon as possible, the opportunities for greater affairs in the city. Also a bewildering dream of the next night—for it had been seen in sleep that he had committed rape upon his mother—led diviners, conjecturing and interpreting it as portending the mastery of the lands of the world, to stir him to the most ample hope, since the mother whom he had seen subjected to him was none other than the earth, which is held to be the parent of all.

[8] Decedens ergo ante tempus colonias Latinas de petenda civitate agitantes adiit, et ad audendum aliquid concitasset, nisi consules conscriptas in Ciliciam legiones paulisper ob id ipsum retinuissent.

[8] Therefore, departing before his time, he visited the Latin colonies urging them about seeking the citizenship, and would have stirred them to hear him, had not the consuls detained for a short time the legions levied in Cilicia for that very purpose.

[9] Nec eo setius maiora mox in urbe molitus est: siquidem ante paucos dies quam aedilitatem iniret, venit in suspicionem conspirasse cum Marco Crasso consulari, item Publio Sulla et L. Autronio post designationem consulatus ambitus condemnatis, ut principio anni senatum adorirentur, et trucidatis quos placitum esset, dictaturam Crassus invaderet, ipse ab eo magister equitum diceretur constitutaque ad arbitrium re publica Sullae et Autronio consulatus restitueretur. Meminerunt huius coniurationis Tanusius Geminus in historia, Marcus Bibulus in edictis, C. Curio pater in orationibus. De hac significare videtur et Cicero in quadam ad Axium epistula referens Caesarem in consulatu confirmasse regnum, de quo aedilis cogitarat.

[9] Nevertheless he soon attempted greater things in the city: for a few days before he entered the aedileship he came under suspicion of conspiring with Marcus Crassus, the ex-consular, likewise with Publius Sulla and L. Autronius, who had been condemned for electoral bribery after their nomination to the consulship, that at the beginning of the year they would attack the senate and, having slaughtered whomsoever they pleased, Crassus would seize the dictatorship, he himself would be named by him master of the horse, and the consulships would be restored to Sulla and Autronius at the republic’s discretion. Tanusius Geminus records this conspiracy in his history, Marcus Bibulus in his edicts, and C. Curio the elder in his orations. Cicero also seems to indicate this in a certain letter to Axius, relating that Caesar in his consulship confirmed the kingship of which he had thought as aedile.

Tanusius adicit Crassum paenitentia vel metu diem caedi destinatum non obisse et idcirco ne Caesarem quidem signum, quod ab eo dari convenerat, dedisse; convenisse autem Curio ait, ut togam de umero deiceret. Idem Curio sed et M. Actorius Naso auctores sunt conspirasse eum etiam cum Gnaeo Pisone adulescente, cui ob suspicionem urbanae coniurationis provincia Hispania ultro extra ordinem data sit; pactumque ut simul foris ille, ipse Romae ad res novas consurgerent, per Ambranos et Transpadanos; destitutum utriusque consilium morte Pisonis.

Tanusius adds that Crassus, through repentance or fear, did not perish on the day destined to be cut down, and therefore did not even give the signal to Caesar which had been agreed to be given by him; Curio, however, says they had agreed that he should fling the toga from his shoulder. The same Curio and also M. Actorius Naso are authorities that he conspired even with the young Gnaeus Piso, to whom, on suspicion of an urban conspiracy, the province of Hispania was voluntarily given out of order; and it was agreed that while that man should rise up abroad, he himself would in Rome rise for new affairs, with the Ambrones and the Transpadani — the design of both being abandoned by the death of Piso.

[10] Aedilis praeter comitium ac forum basilicasque etiam Capitolium ornavit porticibus ad tempus extructis, in quibus abundante rerum copia pars apparatus exponeretur. Venationes autem ludosque et cum collega et separatim edidit, quo factum est, ut communium quoque inpensarum solus gratiam caperet nec dissimularet collega eius Marcus Bibulus, evenisse sibi quod Polluci: ut enim geminis fratribus aedes in foro constituta tantum Castoris vocaretur, ita suam Caesarisque munificentiam unius Caesaris dici. Adiecit insuper Caesar etiam gladiatorium munus, sed aliquanto paucioribus quam destinaverat paribus; nam cum multiplici undique familia conparata inimicos exterruisset, cautum est de numero gladiatorum, quo ne maiorem cuiquam habere Romae liceret.

[10] The aedile, besides the comitium and the forum, also adorned the basilicas and the Capitol with porticoes erected for the time, in which, with an abundance of goods, part of the apparatus was displayed. He staged hunts and games both with his colleague and separately, whereby it came about that he alone won the gratitude even for common expenditures, nor did his colleague Marcus Bibulus conceal that to him it had happened as to Pollux: for as a temple set up for twin brothers in the forum was called of Castor alone, so his and Caesar’s munificence was said to belong to one Caesar. Caesar moreover added a gladiatorial munus also, but with somewhat fewer pairs than he had intended; for, when he had terrified enemies by preparing a numerous household from every quarter, caution was taken about the number of gladiators, so that no one might be permitted to have a greater number in Rome.

[11] Conciliato populi favore temptavit per partem tribunorum, ut sibi Aegyptus provincia plebiscito daretur, nanctus extraordinarii imperii occasionem, quod Alexandrini regem suum socium atque amicum a senatu appellatum expulerant resque vulgo inprobabatur. Nec obtinuit adversante optimatium factione: quorum auctoritatem ut quibus posset modis in vicem deminueret, tropaea Gai Mari de Iugurtha deque Cimbris atque Teutonis olim a Sulla disiecta restituit atque in exercenda de sicaris quaestione eos quoque sicariorum numero habuit, qui proscriptione ob relata civium Romanorum capita pecunias ex aerario acceperant, quamquam exceptos Corneliis legibus.

[11] Having won over the favor of the people, he attempted by means of certain tribunes that the province of Egypt be assigned to him by plebiscite, having seized the occasion of extraordinary imperium, because the Alexandrians had expelled their own king, called by the senate their ally and friend, and the matter was disapproved by the populace. He did not obtain it, the faction of the optimates opposing: and so, that he might in various ways diminish their authority by turns, he restored the trophies of Gaius Marius from the war with Iugurtha and from the Cimbri and Teutones — once broken up by Sulla — and, in conducting the inquiry into the sicarii, he also counted among the number of those assassins men who, on account of proscription and for delivering the heads of Roman citizens, had received money from the treasury, although exempted by the Cornelian laws.

[12] Subornavit etiam qui Gaio Rabirio perduellionis diem diceret, quo praecipuo adiutore aliquot ante annos Luci Saturnini seditiosum tribunatum senatus coercuerat, ac sorte iudex in reum ductus tam cupide condemnavit, ut ad populum provocanti nihil aeque ac iudicis acerbitas profuerit.

[12] He also suborned one to fix a day for prosecuting Gaius Rabirius for treason, in respect of which, with Lucius Saturninus as chief instigator some years earlier, the senate had repressed the seditious tribunate; and when by lot a judge was drawn and the accused led into court, he condemned so greedily that, when Rabirius appealed to the people, nothing availed so much as the judge’s bitterness.

[13] Deposita provinciae spe pontificatum maximum petit non sine profusissima largitione; in qua reputans magnitudinem aeris alieni, cum mane ad comitia descenderet, praedixisse matri osculanti fertur domum se nisi pontificem non reversurum. Atque ita potentissimos duos competitores multumque et aetate et dignitate antecedentes superavit, ut plura ipse in eorum tribubus suffragia quam uterque in omnibus tulerit.

[13] Having laid aside hope of a province, he sought the chief pontificate not without very lavish largess; in which, reckoning the magnitude of his debt, when he descended in the morning to the comitia he is said to have foretold to his kissing mother that he would not return home unless (he were) pontifex. And so he overcame two very powerful competitors, who in both age and dignity far preceded him, to such a degree that he himself carried more suffrages in their tribes than either of them carried in all.

[14] Praetor creatus, detecta coniuratione Catilinae senatuque universo in socios facinoris ultimam statuente poenam, solus municipatim dividendos custodiendosque publicatis bonis censuit. Quin et tantum metum iniecit asperiora suadentibus, identidem ostentans quanta eos in posterum a plebe Romana maneret invidia, ut Decimum Silanum consulem designatum non piguerit sententiam suam, quia mutare turpe erat, interpretatione lenire, velut gravius atque ipse sensisset exceptam. Obtinuisset adeo transductis iam ad se pluribus et in his Cicerone consulis fratre, nisi labantem ordinem confirmasset M. Catonis oratio.

[14] Elected praetor, with Catiline’s conspiracy laid bare and the whole senate determining the ultimate penalty for the partners in the crime, he alone voted that the confiscated goods should be distributed municipally and kept under guard. Moreover he threw such fear into those urging the harsher course, repeatedly displaying how great a hatred from the Roman people would rest upon them in the future, that he did not shrink from softening his own opinion by interpretation for Decimus Silanus, consul-designate, because it would have been disgraceful to reverse it, as if he himself had felt the objection more keenly. He would thus have prevailed, several having already been transferred to his control and among them the brother of Consul Cicero, had not the speech of M. Cato confirmed the wavering order.

Ac ne sic quidem impedire rem destitit, quoad manus equitum Romanorum, quae armata praesidii causa circumstabat, inmoderatius perseveranti necem comminata est, etiam strictos gladios usque eo intentans, ut sedentem una proximi deseruerint, vix pauci complexu togaque obiecta protexerint. Tunc plane deterritus non modo cessit, sed et in reliquum anni tempus curia abstinuit.

And not even thus did he cease to impede the matter, until the bands of Roman horsemen, which stood about armed for the sake of a garrison, threatened death to him persisting too immoderately, even brandishing drawn swords so far as that those nearest deserted him while he sat, and scarcely a few protected him with an embrace and a toga thrown over him. Then plainly deterred, he not only desisted, but even abstained from the curia for the remaining time of the year.

[15] Primo praeturae die Quintum Catulum de refectione Capitoli ad disquisitionem populi vocavit rogatione promulgata, qua curationem eam in alium transferebat; verum impar optimatium conspirationi, quos relicto statim novorum consulum officio frequentes obstinatosque ad resistendum concucurrisse cernebat, hanc quidem actionem deposuit.

[15] On the first day of his praetorship he summoned Quintus Catulus from the restoration of the Capitol to a popular inquiry by a rogation promulgated which transferred that care to another; but unequal to the conspiracy of the optimates — whom, the duty of the new consuls having been at once abandoned, he saw have flocked together numerous and obstinate to resist — he laid aside that very measure.

[16] Ceterum Caecilio Metello tribuno plebis turbulentissimas leges adversus collegarum intercessionem ferenti auctorem propugnatoremque se pertinacissime praestitit, donec ambo administratione rei publicae decreto patrum submoverentur. Ac nihilo minus permanere in magistratu et ius dicere ausus, ut comperit paratos, qui vi ac per arma prohiberent, dimissis lictoribus abiectaque praetexta domum clam refugit pro condicione temporum quieturus. Multitudinem quoque biduo post sponte et ultro confluentem operamque sibi in adserenda dignitate tumultuosius pollicentem conpescuit.

[16] Moreover, he most pertinaciously stood forth as author and champion for Caecilius Metellus, tribune of the plebs, who was proposing very turbulent laws against the intercession of his colleagues, until both were removed from the administration of the republic by a decree of the fathers. And nevertheless, having dared to remain in office and to administer justice, when he found men ready who would bar him by force and by arms, with the lictors dismissed and his praetexta cast aside he secretly fled home to await the condition of the times in quiet. He also quelled the multitude, which two days later was assembling of its own accord and more tumultuously promising its service in asserting his dignity.

Quod cum praeter opinionem evenisset, senatus ob eundem coetum festinato coactus gratias ei per primores viros egit accitumque in curiam et amplissimis verbis conlaudatum in integrum restituit inducto priore decreto.

When this had happened beyond expectation, the senate, hurriedly forced on account of that same assembly, offered him thanks through the foremost men, and, summoned into the curia and extolled in the most ample words, restored him in full, the prior decree having been introduced.

[17] Recidit rursus in discrimen aliud inter socios Catilinae nominatus et apud Novium Nigrum quaestorem a Lucio Vettio indice et in senatu a Quinto Curio, cui, quod primus consilia coniuratorum detexerat, constituta erant publice praemia. Curius e Catilina se cognovisse dicebat, Vettius etiam chirographum eius Catilinae datum pollicebatur. Id vero Caesar nullo modo tolerandum existimans, cum inplorato Ciceronis testimonio quaedam se de coniuratione ultro ad eum detulisse docuisset, ne Curio praemia darentur effecit; Vettium pignoribus captis et direpta supellectile male mulcatum ac pro rostris in contione paene discerptum coiecit in carcerem; eodem Novium quaestorem, quod compellari apud se maiorem potestatem passus esset.

[17] He again fell into another peril, being named among Catiline’s associates and accused before Novius Niger the quaestor by Lucius Vettius as informer and in the senate by Quintus Curio, to whom, because he first exposed the conspirators’ plans, rewards had been publicly established. Curio said that he had known Catiline beforehand; Vettius also promised that his own chirograph had been given to Catiline. Caesar, deeming this by no means tolerable, and since, without Cicero having been entreated, certain things proved that he himself had voluntarily brought to him concerning the conspiracy, saw to it that rewards were not given to Curio; he had Vettius seized with sureties and his plundered household goods severely mulcted, and, after being nearly torn to pieces at the rostra in the assembly, thrown into prison; he treated Novius the quaestor likewise, because he had allowed himself to be compelled by greater authority.

[18] Ex praetura ulteriorem sortitus Hispaniam retinentes creditores interventu sponsorum removit ac neque more neque iure, ante quam provinciae or[di]narentur, profectus est: incertum metune iudicii, quod privato parabatur, an quo maturius sociis inplorantibus subveniret; pacataque provincia pari festinatione, non expectato successore ad triumphum simul consulatumque decessit. Sed cum edictis iam comitis ratio eius haberi non posset nisi privatus introisset urbem, et ambienti ut legibus solveretur multi contra dicerent, coactus est triumphum, ne consulatu excluderetur, dimittere.

[18] Having drawn the more distant Spain from the praetorship, he removed intervening creditors by the intervention of sureties and set out neither according to custom nor law, before the provinces were allotted: it is uncertain whether from fear of the trial that was being prepared against him as a private man, or that thereby he might more quickly succor his beseeching allies; and with the province pacified with equal haste, not waiting for a successor, he departed to a triumph and at the same time to the consulship. But since by the edicts of his colleague his affairs could no longer be conducted unless he, a private man, had entered the city, and many spoke against the man seeking favor that he be discharged according to the laws, he was compelled to dismiss the triumph, lest he be excluded from the consulship.

[19] E duobus consulatus competitoribus, Lucio Lucceio Marcoque Bibulo, Lucceium sibi adiunxit, pactus ut is, quoniam inferior gratia esset pecuniaque polleret, nummos de suo communi nomine per centurias pronuntiaret. Qua cognita re optimates, quos metus ceperat nihil non ausurum eum in summo magistratu concordi et consentiente collega, auctores Bibulo fuerunt tantundem pollicendi, ac plerique pecunias contulerunt, ne Catone quidem abnuente eam largitionem e re publica fieri.

[19] Of the two competitors for the consulship, Lucius Lucceius and Marcus Bibulus, he attached Lucceius to himself, having agreed that he, since he would be inferior in favor and was possessed of money, should proclaim sums of money in his common name by hundreds. When this thing became known, the optimates, whom fear had seized that he would dare anything in the supreme magistracy with a colleague united and consenting, were the instigators to Bibulus of promising just as much, and very many contributed money, not even Cato refusing that largess should be made from the republic.

Igitur cum Bibulo consul creatur. Eandem ob causam opera ab optimatibus data est, ut provinciae futuris consulibus minimi negotii, id est silvae callesque, decernerentur. Qua maxime iniuria instinctus omnibus officiis Gnaeum Pompeium adsectatus est offensum patribus, quod Mithridate rege victo cunctantius confirmarentur acta sua; Pompeioque Marcum Crassum reconciliavit veterem inimicum ex consulatu, quem summa discordia simul gesserant; ac societatem cum utroque iniit, ne quid ageretur in re publica, quod displicuisset ulli e tribus.

Therefore, when Bibulus was created consul. For the same reason the effort was granted by the optimates, that the provinces of least business, that is forests and mountain-paths, be assigned to the consuls-to-be. By this great wrong, stirred by every duty, Gnaeus Pompey followed, offended at the fathers, because, with King Mithridates having been conquered, his acts were confirmed more slowly; and he reconciled Marcus Crassus, an old enemy from the consulship whom they had carried together in the greatest discord, to himself; and he entered into a partnership with both, so that nothing would be done in the res publica that would displease any one of the three.

[20] Inito honore primus omnium instituit, ut tam senatus quam populi diurna acta confierent et publicarentur. Antiquum etiam re[t]tulit morem, ut quo mense fasces non haberet, accensus ante eum iret, lictores pone sequerentur. Lege autem agraria promulgata obnuntiantem collegam armis foro expulit ac postero die in senatu conquestum nec quoquam reperto, qui super tali consternatione referre aut censere aliquid auderet, qualia multa saepe in levioribus turbis decreta erant, in eam coegit desperationem, ut, quoad potestate abiret, domo abditus nihil aliud quam per edicta obnuntiaret.

[20] Upon entering office he first of all instituted that both the senate’s and the people’s daily acts should be compiled and published. He also restored the old custom, that in the month in which he did not have the fasces an attendant should go before him and lictors follow behind. But when the agrarian law was promulgated, the colleague who objected was driven from the forum by armed men, and the next day complained in the senate, and nowhere was found anyone who, through such consternation, would dare to report or propose anything, such as many things often had been decreed in lighter tumults; he drove them to such despair that, while he was absent from power, hidden at home he announced nothing except by edicts.

Unus ex eo tempore omnia in re publica et ad arbitrium administravit, ut nonnulli urbanorum, cum quid per iocum testandi gratia signarent, non Caesare et Bibulo, sed Iulio et Caesare consulibus actum scriberent bis eundem praeponentes nomine atque cognomine, utque vulgo mox ferrentur hi versus:

One man from that time administered everything in the republic and at his arbitrium, so that some of the urban folk, when they marked something in jest for the sake of a will, would write the act as under Iulius and Caesar as consuls, not Caesar and Bibulus, placing the same twice, prefacing praenomen and cognomen, and thus these lines were soon commonly carried about:

non Bibulo quiddam nuper sed Caesare factum est:
nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.

Something was done not under Bibulus recently but under Caesar:
for I remember nothing happening while Bibulus was consul.

Campum Stellatem maioribus consecratum agrumque Campanum ad subsidia rei publicae vectigalem relictum divisit extra sortem ad viginti milibus civium, quibus terni pluresve liberi essent. Publicanos remissionem petentis tertia mercedum parte relevavit ac, ne in locatione novorum vectigalium inmoderatius licerentur, propalam monuit. Cetera item, quae cuique libuissent, dilargitus est contra dicente nullo ac, si conaretur quis, absterrito.

He divided the Campum Stellatum, consecrated to the ancestors, and the Campanian field, left as a revenue for the subsidies of the republic, beyond the ordinary allotment by lot to twenty thousand citizens, for whom there were three or more children. He relieved the publicans seeking remission by a third part of the payments and openly warned them, so that they should not be permitted to act immoderately in the leasing of the new revenues. Moreover he lavishly bestowed the other things that each desired, with no one speaking against it, and, if anyone tried, he put them to flight.

Marcum Catonem interpellantem extrahi curia per lictorem ducique in carcerem iussit. Lucio Lucullo liberius resistenti tantum calumniarum metum iniecit, ut ad genua ultro sibi accideret. Cicerone in iudicio quodam deplorante temporum statum Publium Clodium inimicum eius, frustra iam pridem a patribus ad plebem transire nitentem, eodem die horaque nona transduxit.

He ordered Marcus Cato, who was interrupting, to be dragged out of the curia by a lictor and led into prison. To Lucius Lucullus, resisting more freely, he put in only a fear of calumnies, so that he of his own accord fell down to his knees before him. In a certain trial, Cicero lamenting the state of the times, he transferred Publius Clodius, his enemy, who for some time in vain had been striving to pass from the senators to the plebs, on the same day and at the ninth hour.

Postremo in universos diversae factionis [indicem . . . . . . ] inductum praemiis, ut se de inferenda Pompeio nece sollicitatum a quibusdam profiteretur productusque pro rostris auctores ex conpacto nominaret; sed uno atque altero frustra nec sine suspicione fraudis nominatis desperans tam praecipitis consilii eventum intercepisse veneno indicem creditur.

Finally, an informer of a different faction [indicem . . . . . . ] was induced against all by rewards, so that he would declare that he had been solicited by certain men to bring about Pompeius’ death, and, brought forth to the rostra, would name the authors of the compact; but with one and another named in vain and not without suspicion of fraud, he is believed, despairing of the outcome of so precipitate a scheme, to have silenced the informer by poison.

[21] Sub idem tempus Calpurniam L. Pisonis filiam successuri sibi in consulatu duxit uxorem suamque, Iuliam, Gnaeo Pompeio conlocavit repudiato priore sponso Servilio Caepione, cuius vel praecipua opera paulo ante Bibulum inpugnaverat. Ac post novam adfinitatem Pompeium primum rogare sententiam coepit, cum Crassum soleret essetque consuetudo, ut quem ordinem interrogandi sententias consul Kal. Ianuariis instituisset, eum toto anno conservaret.

[21] About the same time he took as his wife Calpurnia, daughter of L. Piso, who was to succeed him in the consulship, and he bestowed his own wife, Julia, on Gnaeus Pompey, having repudiated her former fiancé Servilius Caepio, by whose chief action he had a little before assailed Bibulus. And after this new alliance he began to ask Pompey first for his opinion, as he was wont, it being the custom that whomever the consul had appointed on the Kalends of January to the order of questioning for opinions, he would retain for the whole year.

[22] Socero igitur generoque suffragantibus ex omni provinciarum copia Gallias potissimum elegit, + cuius emolumento et oportunitate idonea sit materia triumphorum +. Et initio quidem Galliam Cisalpinam Illyrico adiecto lege Vatinia accepit; mox per senatum Comatam quoque, veritis patribus ne, si ipsi negassent, populus et hanc daret. Quo gaudio elatus non temperavit, quin paucos post dies frequenti curia iactaret, invitis et gementibus adversaris adeptum se quae concupisset, proinde ex eo insultaturum omnium capitibus; ac negante quodam per contumeliam facile hoc ulli feminae fore, responderit quasi adludens: in Syria quoque regnasse Sameramin magnamque Asiae partem Amazonas tenuisse quondam.

[22] Therefore, with his father-in-law and son-in-law voting for him, from the whole stock of provinces he chose chiefly the Gauls, + whose profit and timely opportunity would be a fitting material for triumphs +. And at first he accepted Cisalpine Gaul with Illyricum added by the Vatinian law; soon through the senate he obtained Comata as well, the fathers fearing that if they themselves refused the people would grant even this. Carried away by that joy he did not restrain himself, but a few days later in a crowded curia he vaunted that, his adversaries unwilling and groaning, he had achieved what he desired, and would thus exult over all their heads; and when a certain man, by way of insult, said that this would scarcely befit any woman, he answered, as if jesting, that Semiramis had also once ruled in Syria and the Amazons had once held a large part of Asia.

[23] Functus consulatu Gaio Memmio Lucioque Domitio praetoribus de superioris anni actis referentibus cognitionem senatui detulit; nec illo suscipiente triduoque per inritas altercationes absumpto in provinciam abiit. Et statim quaestor eius in praeiudicium aliquot criminibus arreptus est. Mox et ipse a Lucio Antistio tr. pl. postulatus appellato demum collegio optinuit, cum rei publicae causa abesset reus ne fieret.

[23] Having completed his consulship, with Gaius Memmius and Lucius Domitius as praetors reporting to the senate the acts of the previous year, he laid the matter before the senate; and with the senate not taking it up and three days spent in vain altercations, he departed to his province. And immediately his quaestor was seized, to his prejudice, on several charges. Soon he himself also, after Lucius Antistius, tribune of the plebs, had been urged and summoned, finally secured a place in the college, the defendant being absent for the sake of the res publica so that no judgment might be given.

Ad securitatem ergo posteri temporis in magno negotio habuit obligare semper annuos magistratus et e petitoribus non alios adiuvare aut ad honorem pati pervenire, quam qui sibi recepissent propugnaturos absentiam suam; cuius pacti non dubitavit a quibusdam ius iurandum atque etiam syngrapham exigere.

Therefore, for the security of later times in so great a business he always compelled that the annual magistrates and petitioners should neither aid others nor attain office except those who had undertaken to him that they would defend his absence; of this pact he did not hesitate to exact from some an oath and even a syngrapham.

[24] Sed cum Lucius Domitius consulatus candidatus palam minaretur consulem se effecturum quod praetor nequisset adempturumque ei exercitus, Crassum Pompeiumque in urbem provinciae suae Lucam extractos conpulit, ut detrudendi Domitii causa consulatum alterum peterent, perfecitque [per] utrumque, ut in quinquennium sibi imperium prorogaretur. Qua fiducia ad legiones, quas a re publica acceperat, alias privato sumptu addidit, unam etiam ex Transalpinis conscriptam, vocabulo quoque Gallico – Alauda enim appellabatur –, quam disciplina cultuque Romano institutam et ornatam postea universam civitate donavit. Nec deinde ulla belli occasione, [ne] iniusti quidem ac periculosi abstinuit, tam foederatis quam infestis ac feris gentibus ultro lacessitis, adeo ut senatus quondam legatos ad explorandum statum Galliarum mittendos decreverit ac nonnulli dedendum eum hostibus censuerint.

[24] But when Lucius Domitius, candidate for the consulship, openly threatened that he would make himself consul and that no praetor could take it from him and would deprive him of his armies, he forced Crassus and Pompey to be brought out to the city of Luca in his province, so that, for the purpose of ousting Domitius, they should seek another consulship; and he effected by both that his imperium be prorogued for five years. With that confidence he added to the legions which he had received from the republic others at his private expense, even enrolling one from the Transalpine provinces, with a Gallic name — for it was called Alauda — which, after being established and adorned in Roman discipline and dress, he afterwards granted en masse the franchise. Nor thereafter did he refrain from any occasion of war, neither unjust nor indeed dangerous, against both federate and hostile and savage peoples, having been provoked on his own initiative, so that the senate once decreed that envoys be sent to reconnoiter the state of the Gauls, and some judged that he ought to be handed over to the enemies.

Sed prospere [de]cedentibus rebus et saepius et plurium quam quisquam umquam dierum supplicationes impetravit.

But with things prospering he obtained supplications more often and for more days than anyone ever did.

[25] Gessit autem novem annis, quibus in imperio fuit, haec fere. Omnem Galliam, quae saltu Pyrenaeo Alpibusque et monte Cebenna, fluminibus Rheno ac Rhodano continetur patetque circuitu ad bis et tricies centum milia passuum, praeter socias ac bene meritas civitates, in provinciae formam redegit, eique CCCC in singulos annos stipendii nomine inposuit. Germanos, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, primus Romanorum ponte fabricato adgressus maximis adfecit cladibus; adgressus est et Britannos ignotos antea superatisque pecunias et obsides imperavit; per tot successus ter nec amplius adversum casum expertus: in Britannia classe vi tempestatis prope absumpta et in Gallia ad Gergoviam legione fusa et in Germanorum finibus Titurio et Aurunculeio legatis per insidias caesis.

[25] In the nine years in which he was in power he carried out roughly these things. He reduced all Gaul—which is bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the Alps and Mount Cebenna, and by the rivers the Rhine and the Rhone, and which extends to a circuit of 3,200,000 paces—into the form of a province, excepting allied and well‑deserving cities, and he imposed on it 400 for each year in the name of a stipend. He first attacked the Germans who dwell beyond the Rhine by constructing a Roman bridge and inflicted upon them the greatest defeats; he likewise attacked the Britons, previously unknown, and, having overcome them, exacted money and hostages; amid so many successes he suffered mishap three times and no more: in Britain his fleet was nearly destroyed by a gale of wind, in Gaul a legion was routed at Gergovia, and on the borders of the Germans his legates Titurius and Aurunculeius were slain by ambush.

[26] Eodem temporis spatio matrem primo, deinde filiam, nec multo post nepotem amisit. Inter quae, consternata Publi Clodi caede re publica, cum senatus unum consulem nominatimque Gnaeum Pompeium fieri censuisset, egit cum tribunis plebis collegam se Pompeio destinantibus, id potius ad populum ferrent, ut absenti sibi, quandoque imperii tempus expleri coepisset, petitio secundi consulatus daretur, ne ea causa maturius et inperfecto adhuc bello decederet. Quod ut adeptus est, altiora iam meditans et spei plenus nullum largitionis aut officiorum in quemquam genus publice privatimque omisit.

[26] In the same span of time he lost first his mother, then his daughter, and not long after his grandson. Among these, the republic, thrown into consternation by the murder of Publius Clodius, when the senate had decreed that one consul be chosen and that Gnaeus Pompeius be made consul by name, he acted with the tribunes of the plebs assigning Pompeius as his colleague, and carried this rather to the people, so that, with him absent, when at some time the term of command had begun to be filled, a candidacy for the second consulship might be granted, lest for that cause he withdraw more hastily and while the war was still unfinished. When he obtained this, meditating now on loftier matters and full of hope, he omitted no kind of largess or services to anyone, publicly or privately.

Forum de manubiis incohavit, cuius area super sestertium milies constitit. Munus populo epulumque pronuntiavit in filiae memoriam, quod ante eum nemo. Quorum ut quam maxima expectatio esset, ea quae ad epulum pertinerent, quamvis macellaris ablocata, etiam domesticatim apparabat.

He began the Forum of Spoils, whose area amounted to over three hundred million sesterces. He proclaimed a gift and a banquet to the people in memory of his daughter, which no one had done before him. And so that the expectation for these things might be as great as possible, the items pertaining to the banquet, although bought from the markets, were even displayed as if from his own household.

Gladiatores notos, sicubi infestis spectatoribus dimicarent, vi rapiendos reservandosque mandabat. Tirones neque in ludo neque per lanistas, sed in domibus per equites Romanos atque etiam per senatores armorum peritos erudiebat, precibus enitens, quod epistulis eius ostenditur, ut disciplinam singulorum susciperent ipsique dictata exercentibus darent. Legionibus stipendium in perpetuum duplicavit.

Gladiators known, and if anywhere they fought with hostile spectators, he ordered them to be seized by force and kept in reserve. He trained recruits neither in the ludus nor by the lanistae, but in private houses by Roman equites and even by senators skilled in arms, striving with pleadings, as his letters show, that they should take on the discipline of individuals and themselves give exercises to those practising what was dictated. He doubled the legions’ stipend in perpetuity.

Frumentum, quotiens copia esset, etiam sine modo mensuraque praebuit ac singula interdum mancipia e praeda viritim dedit.

He supplied grain, whenever abundance was present, even without limit or measure, and at times he gave individual mancipia (slaves) from the booty to each man in turn.

[27] Ad retinendam autem Pompei necessitudinem ac voluntatem Octaviam sororis suae neptem, quae Gaio Marcello nupta erat, condicionem ei detulit sibique filiam eius in matrimonium petit Fausto Sullae destinatam. Omnibus vero circa eum atque etiam parte magna senatus gratuito aut levi faenore obstrictis, ex reliquo quoque ordinum genere vel invitatos vel sponte ad se commeantis uberrimo congiario prosequebatur, libertos insuper servulosque cuiusque, prout domino patronove gratus qui esset. Tum reorum aut obaeratorum aut prodigae iuventutis subsidium unicum ac promptissimum erat, nisi quos gravior criminum vel inopiae luxuriaeve vis urgeret, quam ut subveniri posset a se; his plane palam bello civili opus esse dicebat.

[27] To retain Pompey’s connection and favor he offered a settlement to Octavia’s granddaughter — Octavia being his sister — who was married to Gaius Marcellus, and sought for himself her daughter in marriage, destined for Faustus Sulla. Indeed to all about him, and even to a large part of the senate bound by gratuitous or light usury, from the rest likewise of the orders — whether invited or coming of their own accord to him — he entertained with the most abundant largess; moreover he rewarded freedmen and the little slaves of each man according to how pleasing they were to their master or patron. Then he was the sole and most ready support of the accused, or of those in debt, or of a prodigal youth, excepting those whom the force of more serious crimes or of poverty or of luxury pressed so hard that they could not be succored by him; of these he openly declared that what was needed was civil war.

[28] Nec minore studio reges atque provincias per terrarum orbem adliciebat, aliis captivorum milia dono offerens, aliis citra senatus populique auctoritatem, quo vellent et quotiens vellent, auxilia submittens, superque Italiae Galliarumque et Hispaniarum, Asiae quoque et Graeciae potentissimas urbes praecipuis operibus exornans; donec, attonitis iam omnibus et quorsum illa tenderent reputantibus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus consul edicto praefatus, de summa se re publica acturum, rettulit ad senatum, ut ei succederetur ante tempus, quoniam bello confecto pax esset ac dimitti deberet victor exercitus; et ne absentis ratio comitiis haberetur, quando nec plebiscito Pompeius postea abrogasset. Acciderat autem, ut is legem de iure magistratuum ferens eo capite, quo petitione honorum absentis submovebat, ne Caesarem quidem exciperet per oblivionem, ac mox lege iam in aes incisa et in aerarium condita corrigeret errorem. Nec contentus Marcellus provincias Caesari et privilegium eripere, re[t]tulit etiam, ut colonis, quos rogatione Vatinia Novum Comum deduxisset, civitas adimeretur, quod per ambitionem et ultra praescriptum data esset.

[28] Nor with less zeal did he allure kings and provinces through the orb of the lands, offering to some thousands of captives as a gift, to others, without the authority of the senate and people, auxiliaries whenever and as often as they wished, and moreover adorning with chief works the most powerful cities of Italy and of the Gauls and Spain, also of Asia and Greece; until, all now astonished and considering whither those things tended, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, consul, by edict declaring that he would act concerning the supreme affairs of the republic, reported to the senate that he should be succeeded before the time, since with the war ended there would be peace and the victorious army ought to be dismissed; and that no account of an absentee should be held at the comitia, when Pompey had not afterwards abrogated it by plebiscite. It had happened, moreover, that he, bringing a law concerning the right of magistrates in that section by which he removed the absent from the petition for offices, had not even excepted Caesar through inadvertence, and soon corrected the error by a law already engraved on bronze and deposited in the treasury. Not content that Marcellus tore from Caesar provinces and privilege, he likewise reported that the citizenship be taken from the colonists whom, by the Vatinian rogation, he had led to Novum Comum, because it had been given through ambition and beyond the prescribed.

[29] Commotus his Caesar ac iudicans, quod saepe ex eo auditum ferunt, difficilius se principem civitatis a primo ordine in secundum quam ex secundo in novissimum detrudi, summa ope restitit, partim per intercessores tribunos, partim per Servium Sulpicium alterum consulem. Insequenti quoque anno Gaio Marcello, qui fratri patrueli suo Marco in consulatu successerat, eadem temptante collegam eius Aemilium Paulum Gaiumque Curionem violentissimum tribunorum ingenti mercede defensores paravit. Sed cum obstinatius omnia agi videret et designatos etiam consules e parte diversa, senatum litteris deprecatus est, ne sibi beneficium populi adimeretur, aut ut ceteri quoque imperatores ab exercitibus discederent; confisus, ut putant, facilius se, simul atque libuisset, veteranos convocaturum quam Pompeium novos milites.

[29] Caesar, moved by these things and judging—as they often say he heard from that source—that it is more difficult for a leader of the state to be pushed down from the first rank into the second than from the second into the last, resisted with the greatest effort, partly through interceding tribunes and partly through Servius Sulpicius the other consul. In the following year also, Gaius Marcellus, who had succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship, with the same man attempting it, prepared defenders for his colleague Aemilius Paulus and for Gaius Curio, the most violent of the tribunes, by a large reward. But when he saw that everything was being pressed more stubbornly and that even the consuls‑designate were of a different faction, he begged the senate by letters that the favor of the people not be taken from him, or that the other commanders likewise withdraw from their armies; confident, as they think, that he would more easily, as soon as he pleased, call up veterans than Pompey new soldiers.

Cum adversariis autem pepigit, ut dimissis octo legionibus Transalpinaque Gallia duae sibi legiones et Cisalpina provincia vel etiam una legio cum Illyrico concederetur, quoad consul fieret.

When, however, he struck a bargain with his adversaries, that, the eight legions having been dismissed and Transalpine Gaul given up, two legions and the Cisalpine province, or even one legion with Illyricum, should be conceded to him until he became consul.

[30] Verum neque senatu interveniente et adversariis negantibus ullam se de re publica facturos pactionem, transiit in citeriorem Galliam, conventibusque peractis Ravennae substitit, bello vindicaturus si quid de tribunis plebis intercedentibus pro se gravius a senatu constitutum esset.

[30] But with the senate intervening and his adversaries denying that he would make any pact concerning the republic, he crossed into nearer Gaul, and, the assemblies having been held, he stopped at Ravenna, to vindicate by war if anything more severe had been decreed against him by the senate on account of the intercessions of the tribunes of the plebs in his favor.

Et praetextum quidem illi civilium armorum hoc fuit; causas autem alias fuisse opinantur. Gnaeus Pompeius ita dictitabat, quod neque opera consummare, quae instituerat, neque populi expectationem, quam de adventu suo fecerat, privatis opibus explere posset, turbare omnia ac permiscere voluisse. Alii timuisse dicunt, ne eorum, quae primo consulatu adversus auspicia legesque et intercessiones gessisset, rationem reddere cogeretur; cum M. Cato identidem nec sine iure iurando denuntiaret delaturum se nomen eius, simul ac primum exercitum dimisisset; cumque vulgo fore praedicarent, ut si privatus redisset, Milonis exemplo circumpositis armatis causam apud iudices diceret.

And the pretext of civil arms for him indeed was this; but they think there were other causes. Gnaeus Pompeius kept repeating that, since he could neither complete the works which he had undertaken nor fill the people's expectation which he had raised about his coming with private resources, he wished to disturb and mingle everything. Others say they feared that he would be compelled to render an account of those things which in his first consulship he had carried out against auspices and laws and intercessions; since M. Cato again and again, not without swearing an oath, announced that he would bring forward his name as soon as he had dismissed the first army; and because it was publicly being proclaimed that, if he returned a private man, he would, by the example of Milo with armed men placed around him, plead his cause before the judges.

Quod probabilius facit Asinius Pollio, Pharsalica acie caesos profligatosque adversarios prospicientem haec eum ad verbum dixisse referens: 'hoc voluerunt; tantis rebus gestis Gaius Caesar condemnatus essem, nisi ab exercitu auxilium petissem.' Quidam putant captum imperii consuetudine pensitatisque suis et inimicorum viribus usum occasione rapiendae dominationis, quam aetate prima concupisset. Quod existimasse videbatur et Cicero scribens de Officiis tertio libro semper Caesarem in ore habuisse Euripidis versus, quos sic ipse convertit:

Which is made more probable by Asinius Pollio, reporting that, looking upon the slain and routed foes at the Pharsalian battle-line, he spoke these words to the letter: 'this they wished; with such deeds done I, Gaius Caesar, would have been condemned, if I had not sought aid from the army.' Some think that, taken by the custom of power and, after weighing his own and his enemies' forces, he used the opportunity to seize domination, which in his earliest years he had desired. Which Cicero also seemed to have thought, writing in De Officiis, Book 3, always having Caesar on his lips in a verse of Euripides, which he himself thus turns:

nam si violandum est ius, [regnandi] gratia
violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.

for if the law is to be violated, let it be violated for the sake of [regnandi]
cultivate piety in other matters.

[31] Cum ergo sublatam tribunorum intercessionem ipsosque urbe cessisse nuntiatum esset, praemissis confestim clam cohortibus, ne qua suspicio moveretur, et spectaculo publico per dissimulationem interfuit et formam, qua ludum gladiatorium erat aedificaturus, consideravit et ex consuetudine convivio se frequenti dedit. Dein post solis occasum mulis e proximo pistrino ad vehiculum iunctis occultissimum iter modico comitatu ingressus est; et cum luminibus extinctis decessisset via, diu errabundus tandem ad lucem duce reperto per angustissimos tramites pedibus evasit. Consecutusque cohortis ad Rubiconem flumen, qui provinciae eius finis erat, paulum constitit, ac reputans quantum moliretur, conversus ad proximos: 'etiam nunc,' inquit, 'regredi possumus; quod si ponticulum transierimus, omnia armis agenda erunt.'

[31] When therefore the intercession of the tribunes had been removed and it had been reported that they themselves had withdrawn from the city, he at once sent forward cohorts in secret, so that no suspicion might be aroused, and by way of dissimulation attended the public spectacle and considered the plan by which he was to erect the gladiatorial games, and, following custom, gave himself to a crowded banquet. Then, after sunset, with mules from the nearby mill hitched to a vehicle, he entered a most secret journey with a small retinue; and when the lights were extinguished and the street was deserted, wandering long, at last he found his way by following a light and escaped on foot through very narrow passages. Having come up with the cohorts at the river Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, he paused a little, and reckoning what he was attempting, turned to those nearest him: "Even now," he said, "we can return; but if we cross the little bridge, all things must be done by arms."

[32] Cunctanti ostentum tale factum est. Quidam eximia magnitudine et forma in proximo sedens repente apparuit harundine canens; ad quem audiendum cum praeter pastores plurimi etiam ex stationibus milites concurrissent interque eos et aeneatores, rapta ab uno tuba prosilivit ad flumen et ingenti spiritu classicum exorsus pertendit ad alteram ripam. Tunc Caesar: 'eatur,' inquit, 'quo deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas vocat.

[32] To him hesitating such an portent was shown. A certain man of extraordinary size and form, sitting close by, suddenly appeared, playing a reed; to hear him, since besides the very many shepherds also soldiers had run together from their stations and among them the trumpeters, having snatched a trumpet from one he sprang forth to the river and, with a mighty breath, began a clarion and held it forth toward the opposite bank. Then Caesar: "let us go," he said, "whither the omens of the gods and the injustice of our enemies call."

Iacta alea est,' inquit.

"The die is cast," he said.

[33] Atque ita traiecto exercitu, adhibitis tribunis plebis, qui pulsi supervenerant, pro contione fidem militum flens ac veste a pectore discissa invocavit. Existimatur etiam equestres census pollicitus singulis; quod accidit opinione falsa. Nam cum in adloquendo adhortandoque saepius digitum laevae manus ostentans adfirmaret se ad satis faciendum omnibus, per quos dignitatem suam defensurus esset, anulum quoque aequo animo detracturum sibi, extrema contio, cui facilius erat videre contionantem quam audire, pro dicto accepit, quod visu suspicabatur; promissumque ius anulorum cum milibus quadringenis fama distulit.

[33] And so, the army having been transported across, with tribunes of the plebs summoned who had come on after being driven out, before the assembly he invoked the soldiers’ faith, weeping and with his garment torn from his chest. It is thought that he also promised equestrian census to individuals; which came to pass from a false opinion. For when, in addressing and exhorting, he often displayed the finger of his left hand and declared that, to make good to all by whom he would defend his dignity, he would with an equal mind even remove his ring, the last assembly — to which it was easier to see the speaker than to hear him — accepted the statement because it was suspected by sight; and the promised grant of rings, together with four hundred thousand, he postponed by rumor.

[34] Ordo et summa rerum, quas deinceps gessit, sic se habent. Picenum Umbriam Etruriam occupavit et Lucio Domitio, qui per tumultum successor ei nominatus Corfinium praesidio tenebat, in dicionem redacto atque dimisso secundum Superum mare Brundisium tetendit, quo consules Pompeiusque confugerant quam primum transfretaturi. Hos frustra per omnis moras exitu prohibere conatus Romam iter convertit appellatisque de re publica patribus validissimas Pompei copias, quae sub tribus legatis M. Petreio et L. Afranio et Marrone in Hispania erant, invasit, professus ante inter suos, ire se ad exercitum sine duce et inde reversurum ad ducem sine exercitu.

[34] The order and summary of the affairs which he subsequently carried on are as follows. He occupied Picenum, Umbria, and Etruria, and, having reduced Lucius Domitius — who had been named his successor in the tumult and was holding Corfinium with a garrison — into his power and dismissed him, he stretched out toward Brundisium on the Upper Sea, to which the consuls and Pompey had fled and were about to cross as soon as possible. Having in vain tried by every delay to prevent their departure, he turned his march toward Rome, and, after summoning the senators to a discussion about the republic, attacked Pompey’s very strong forces which were in Spain under three legates, M. Petreius and L. Afranius and Marron; he had declared beforehand among his men that he would go to the army without a general and from there return to the general without an army.

Et quanquam obsidione Massiliae, quae sibi in itinere portas clauserat, summaque frumentariae rei penuria retardante brevi tamen omnia subegit.

And although by the siege of Massilia, which had shut its gates against him on the march, and the extreme penury of the grain supply causing delay, nevertheless he soon subdued all things.

[35] Hinc urbe repetita in Macedoniam transgressus Pompeium, per quattuor paene menses maximis obsessum operibus, ad extremum Pharsalico proelio fudit et fugientem Alexandriam persecutus, ut occisum deprehendit, cum Ptolemaeo rege, a quo sibi quoque insidias tendi videbat, bellum sane difficillimum gessit, neque loco neque tempore aequo, sed hieme anni et intra moenia copiosissimi ac sollertissimi hostis, inops ipse omnium rerum atque inparatus. Regnum Aegypti victor Cleopatrae fratrique eius minori permisit, veritus provinciam facere, ne quandoque violentiorem praesidem nacta novarum rerum materia esset. Ab Alexandria in Syriam et inde Pontum transiit urgentibus de Pharnace nuntiis, quem Mithridatis Magni filium ac tunc occasione temporum bellantem iamque multiplici successu praeferocem, intra quintum quam adfuerat diem, quattuor quibus in conspectum venit horis, una profligavit acie; crebro commemorans Pompei felicitatem, cui praecipua militiae laus de tam inbelli genere hostium contigisset.

[35] From there, the city having been regained, he crossed into Macedonia and routed Pompey—who had been besieged for nearly four months by very great works—at the final Pharsalian battle; and having pursued the fleeing man to Alexandria, where he found him slain, he waged with King Ptolemy, by whom he also saw ambushes laid against himself, a certainly very difficult war, neither equal in place nor in time, but in the winter of the year and within the walls against an exceedingly numerous and crafty enemy, he himself destitute of all things and unprepared. He entrusted the kingdom of Egypt to Cleopatra and to her younger brother, having feared to make it a province, lest by chance, if a more violent governor were obtained, it become a source of new disturbances. From Alexandria he crossed into Syria and thence into Pontus on urgent news of Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates the Great, then warring by reason of the opportunity of the times and already overbold from manifold success; within the fifth day after he had arrived, in the four hours in which he came into view, Pompey routed him with a single battle-line; often recalling Pompey’s good fortune, to whom the chief praise of soldiership had fallen on account of so unmilitary a sort of enemy.

Dehinc Scipionem ac Iubam reliquias partium in Africa refoventis devicit, Pompei liberos in Hispania.

Then he defeated Scipio and Juba, who were reviving the remnants of the faction in Africa, and (defeated) Pompey’s children in Hispania.

[36] Omnibus civilibus bellis nullam cladem nisi per legatos suos passus est, quorum C. Curio in Africa periit, C. Antonius in Illyrico in adversariorum devenit potestatem, P. Dolabella classem in eodem Illyrico, Cn. Domitius Calvinus in Ponto exercitum amiserunt. Ipse prosperrime semper ac ne ancipiti quidem umquam fortuna praeterquam bis dimicavit: semel ad Dyrrachium, ubi pulsus non instante Pompeio negavit eum vincere scire, iterum in Hispania ultimo proelio, cum desperatis rebus etiam de consciscenda nece cogitavit.

[36] In all the civil wars he suffered no disaster except through his legates: of these G. Curio perished in Africa, C. Antonius fell into the power of the enemy in Illyricum, P. Dolabella lost a fleet in that same Illyricum, and Cn. Domitius Calvinus lost an army in Pontus. He himself was always supremely fortunate and never engaged with doubtful fortune except twice: once at Dyrrachium, where, being routed and Pompey not present, he declared that he did not know how to be conquered; and again in Spain in the final battle, when, with affairs desperate, he even contemplated arranging his own death.

[37] Confectis bellis quinquiens triumphavit, post devictum Scipionem quater eodem mense, sed interiectis diebus, et rursus semel post superatos Pompei liberos. Primum et excellentissimum triumphum egit Gallicum, sequentem Alexandrinum, deinde Ponticum, huic proximum Africanum, novissimum Hispaniensem, diverso quemque apparatu et instrumento. Gallici triumphi die Velabrum praetervehens paene curru excussus est axe diffracto ascenditque Capitolium ad lumina quadraginta elephantis dextra sinistraque lychnuchos gestantibus.

[37] Having completed wars he celebrated five triumphs: four after the defeat of Scipio in the same month, though with days intervening, and again once after Pompey's sons were overcome. First and most excellent he celebrated the Gallic triumph, the next the Alexandrine, then the Pontic, next the African, and the last the Hispanic, each with different pageantry and equipment. On the day of the Gallic triumph, while passing through the Velabrum almost thrown from his chariot when the axle broke, he ascended the Capitol to the lights of forty elephants, with lamp-bearers on the right and the left.

Pontico triumpho inter pompae fercula trium verborum praetulit titulum VENI : VIDI : VICI non acta belli significantem sicut ceteris, sed celeriter confecti notam.

At the Pontic triumph, among the pomp’s trays of the triumph he displayed the three-word title VENI : VIDI : VICI, not signifying deeds of war like the others, but a mark of a war quickly completed.

[38] Veteranis legionibus praedae nomine in pedites singulos super bina sestertia, quae initio civilis tumultus numeraverat, vicena quaterna milia nummum dedit. Adsignavit et agros, sed non continuos, ne quis possessorum expelleretur. Populo praeter frumenti denos modios ac totidem olei libras trecenos quoque nummos, quos pollicitus olim erat, viritim divisit et hoc amplius centenos pro mora.

[38] To the veteran legions, in the name of plunder, he gave to each foot-soldier a little more than two sestertii, which he had counted at the outset of the civil tumult, in the total of twenty-four thousand coins. He likewise assigned lands, but not contiguous, so that no one might be expelled from possessed holdings. To the people, besides ten modii of grain and the same number of pounds of oil, he distributed three hundred coins, which he had once promised, man by man, and moreover an additional one hundred for the delay.

Annuam etiam habitationem Romae usque ad bina milia nummum, in Italia non ultra quingenos sestertios remisit. Adiecit epulum ac viscerationem et post Hispaniensem victoriam duo prandia; nam cum prius parce neque pro liberalitate sua praebitum iudicaret, quinto post die aliud largissimum praebuit.

He also remitted the annual habitation at Rome up to 2,000 nummi, in Italy not beyond 500 sestertii. He added a banquet and a distribution of victuals, and after the Spanish victory two public lunches; for whereas before he judged that little had been given and not as an act of his liberality, on the fifth day after he furnished another very lavish one.

[39] Edidit spectacula varii generis: munus gladiatorium, ludos etiam regionatim urbe tota et quidem per omnium linguarum histriones, item circenses athletas naumachiam. Munere in foro depugnavit Furius Leptinus stirpe praetoria et Q. Calpenus senator quondam actorque causarum. Pyrricham saltaverunt Asiae Bithyniaeque principum liberi.

[39] He presented spectacles of diverse kinds: a gladiatorial munus, games also regionally throughout the whole city and indeed by actors of all tongues, likewise circus athletes, and a naumachia. In a munus in the forum fought Furius Leptinus of praetorian stock and Q. Calpenus, once a senator and an actor of causes. The children of the princes of Asia and of Bithynia danced the Pyrrhic.

Ludis Decimus Laberius eques Romanus mimum suum egit donatusque quingentis sestertiis et anulo aureo sessum in quattuordecim [e] scaena per orchestram transiit. Circensibus spatio circi ab utraque parte producto et in gyrum euripo addito quadrigas bigasque et equos desultorios agitaverunt nobilissimi iuvenes. Troiam lusit turma duplex maiorum minorumque puerorum.

At the games Decimus Laberius, a Roman eques, performed his mime, and having been presented with five hundred sesterces and a gold ring he took his seat among the fourteen and passed across the stage through the orchestra. In the circus games, with the space of the circus extended on both sides and a channel added into the circuit, the most noble youths drove four-horse and two-horse chariots and performed on desultory horses. A double turma of elder and younger boys played the Trojan game.

Venationes editae per dies quinque ac novissime pugna divisa in duas acies, quingenis peditibus, elephantis vicenis, tricenis equitibus hinc et inde commissis. Nam quo laxius dimicaretur, sublatae metae inque earum locum bina castra exadversum constituta erant. Athletae stadio ad tempus extructo regione Marti campi certaverunt per triduum.

Hunts were held for five days, and lastly a battle was divided into two lines, with 500 foot soldiers, 20 elephants, 30 horsemen assigned on either side. For that the fighting might be the more free, the turning-posts were removed and in their place two camps were set up facing one another. Athletes contended in a stadium built for the time in the region of the Campus Martius for three days.

Navali proelio in minore Codeta defosso lacu biremes ac triremes quadriremesque Tyriae et Aegyptiae classis magno pugnatorum numero conflixerunt. Ad quae omnia spectacula tantum undique confluxit hominum, ut plerique advenae aut inter vicos aut inter vias tabernaculis positis manerent, ac saepe prae turba elisi exanimatique sint plurimi et in his duo senatores.

In a naval engagement in the smaller Codeta, in a lake dug out, the biremes and triremes and quadriremes of the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets clashed with a great number of combatants. To all these spectacles men flocked from every side so much that many strangers either remained among the quarters or in the streets with booths set up, and often, pressed by the throng, very many were crushed and rendered lifeless — among them two senators.

[40] Conversus hinc ad ordinandum rei publicae statum fastos correxit iam pridem vitio pontificum per intercalandi licentiam adeo turbatos, ut neque messium feriae aestate neque vindemiarum autumno conpeterent; annumque ad cursum solis accommodavit, ut trecentorum sexaginta quinque dierum esset et intercalario mense sublato unus dies quarto quoque anno intercalaretur. Quo autem magis in posterum ex Kalendis Ianuariis novis temporum ratio congrueret, inter Novembrem ac Decembrem mensem interiecit duos alios; fuitque is annus, quo haec constituebantur, quindecim mensium cum intercalario, qui ex consuetudine in eum annum inciderat.

[40] Turning then to ordering the state of the republic, he corrected the fasti, long before so disturbed by the vice of the pontiffs through the licence of intercalation, that neither the harvest festivals in summer nor the vintage festivals in autumn were duly observed; and he adjusted the year to the course of the sun, so that it should be three hundred and sixty‑five days, and with the intercalary month removed one day was inserted every fourth year. Moreover, so that thereafter the new reckoning of times might agree from the Kalends of January, he inserted two other months between November and December; and that year in which these things were established was fifteen months long with the intercalary month, which by custom had fallen into that year.

[41] Senatum supplevit, patricios adlegit, praetorum aedilium quaestorum, minorum etiam magistratuum numerum ampliavit; nudatos opere censorio aut sententia iudicum de ambitu condemnatos restituit. Comitia cum populo partitus est, ut exceptis consulatus conpetitoribus de cetero numero candidatorum pro parte dimidia quos populus vellet pronuntiarentur, pro parte altera quos ipse dedisset. Et edebat per libellos circum tribum missos scriptura brevi: 'Caesar dictator illi tribui.

[41] He filled the Senate, adlected patricians, increased the number of praetors, aediles, quaestors, and even of lesser magistracies; he restored those stripped by the censorial action or condemned by the sentence of the judges for ambitus. He shared the comitia with the people, so that, excepting the competitors for the consulship, thereafter half the number of candidates would be proclaimed on the people's side whom the people desired, and the other half those whom he himself had given. And he issued in short writings sent round through the tribes the brief inscription: 'Caesar is to be granted the dictatorship.'

Commendo vobis illum et illum, ut vestro suffragio suam dignitatem teneant.' Admisit ad honores et proscriptorum liberos. Iudicia ad duo genera iudicum redegit, equestris ordinis ac senatorii; tribunos aerarios, quod erat tertium, sustulit. Recensum populi nec more nec loco solito, sed vicatim per dominos insularum egit atque ex viginti trecentisque milibus accipientium frumentum e publico ad centum quinquaginta retraxit; ac ne qui novi coetus recensionis causa moveri quandoque possent, instituit, quotannis in demortuorum locum ex iis, qui recensi non essent, subsortitio a praetore fieret.

'I commend to you this one and that one, that by your suffrage they may hold their dignity.' He admitted to honors even the children of the proscribed. He reduced trials to two kinds of judges, of the equestrian order and of the senatorial; he abolished the tribunes of the aerarium, which was the third. He took the census of the people not in the customary way nor in the customary place, but district by district through the masters of the insulae, and he withdrew from the public grain for the recipients numbering 320,000 down to 150; and lest new gatherings might at times be moved for the sake of the census, he instituted that annually a allotment by lot by the praetor be made into the place of the dead from those who had not been registered.

[42] Octoginta autem civium milibus in transmarinas colonias distributis, ut exhaustae quoque urbis frequentia suppeteret, sanxit, ne quis civis maior annis viginti minorve + decem +, qui sacramento non teneretur, plus triennio continuo Italia abesset, neu qui senatoris filius nisi contubernalis aut comes magistratus peregre proficisceretur; neve ii, qui pecuariam facerent, minus tertia parte puberum ingenuorum inter pastores haberent. Omnisque medicinam Romae professos et liberalium artium doctores, quo libentius et ipsi urbem incolerent et ceteri adpeterent, civitate donavit.

[42] And with eighty thousand citizens distributed to overseas colonies, so that the depleted populousness of the city might suffice, he enacted that no citizen older than twenty years or younger than ten years, who was not bound by the sacrament, should be absent from Italy for more than three continuous years, nor should any son of a senator go abroad except as a contubernal attendant or companion of a magistrate; and that those who pursued pastoral (pecuaria) occupations should not have fewer than one‑third part of freeborn youths among their shepherds. And he bestowed citizenship on all who practised medicine at Rome and on teachers of the liberal arts, that they themselves might the more willingly dwell in the city and others might seek them out.

De pecuniis mutuis disiecta novarum tabularum expectatione, quae crebro movebatur, decrevit tandem, ut debitores creditoribus satis facerent per aestimationem possessionum, quanti quasque ante civile bellum comparassent, deducto summae aeris alieni, si quid usurae nomine numeratum aut perscriptum fuisset; qua condicione quarta pars fere crediti deperibat. Cuncta collegia praeter antiquitus constituta distraxit. Poenas facinorum auxit; et cum locupletes eo facilius scelere se obligarent, quod integris patrimoniis exulabant, parricidas, ut Cicero scribit, bonis omnibus, reliquos dimidia parte multavit.

On mutual loans. With the expectation of the new registers having been scattered, which was frequently disturbed, he at last decreed that debtors should satisfy creditors by an appraisal of possessions — how much each had acquired before the civil war — after deducting the total of the debt, if anything had been entered or recorded under the name of interest; by which condition nearly a quarter of the loan was lost. He suppressed all collegia except those instituted in ancient times. He increased the penalties for crimes; and since the wealthy the more readily bound themselves by crime, because they were exiled with their patrimonies intact, he punished parricides, as Cicero writes, by confiscation of all their goods, and punished the other offenders by half (their goods).

[43] Ius laboriosissime ac severissime dixit. Repetundarum convictos etiam ordine senatorio movit. Diremit nuptias praetorii viri, qui digressam a marito post biduum statim duxerat, quamvis sine probri suspicione.

[43] He gave judgment most laboriously and most sternly. He even removed those convicted of repetundae (extortion) from the senatorial order. He dissolved the marriage of a praetorian man who had, immediately after two days, led away a woman who had departed from her husband, although without suspicion of dishonor.

Peregrinarum mercium portoria instituit. Lecticarum usum, item conchyliatae vestis et margaritarum nisi certis personis et aetatibus perque certos dies ademit. Legem praecipue sumptuariam exercuit dispositis circa macellum custodibus, qui obsonia contra vetitum retinerent deportarentque ad se, submissis nonnumquam lictoribus atque militibus, qui, si qua custodes fefellissent, iam adposita e triclinio auferrent.

He instituted customs duties on foreign merchandise. He deprived people of the use of lecticae, likewise of purple-dyed dress and of pearls, except for certain persons and ages and for certain days. He chiefly enforced the sumptuary law, posting guards about the market who would detain and seize to themselves any victuals contrary to the prohibition, with lictors and soldiers sometimes put under their command; and if any of the guards had been deceived, they would at once carry them off from the triclinium where they had been placed.

[44] Nam de ornanda instruendaque urbe, item de tuendo ampliandoque imperio plura ac maiora in dies destinabat: in primis Martis templum, quantum nusquam esset, extruere repleto et conplanato lacu, in quo naumachiae spectaculum ediderat, theatrumque summae magnitudinis Tarpeio monti accubans; ius civile ad certum modum redigere atque ex immensa diffusaque legum copia optima quaeque et necessaria in paucissimos conferre libros; bibliothecas Graecas Latinasque quas maximas posset publicare data Marco Varroni cura comparandarum ac digerendarum; siccare Pomptinas paludes; emittere Fucinum lacum; viam munire a mari Supero per Appennini dorsum ad Tiberim usque; perfodere Isthmum; Dacos, qui se in Pontum et Thraciam effuderant, coercere; mox Parthis inferre bellum per Armeniam minorem nec nisi ante expertos adgredi proelio.

[44] For concerning adorning and equipping the city, likewise about guarding and enlarging the empire he set his mind daily on more and greater things: above all to erect a temple of Mars, as large as anywhere, by filling and leveling the lake in which he had exhibited a naumachia spectacle, and a theatre of the utmost magnitude leaning on the Tarpeian mount; to reduce civil law to a certain form and to bring together from the immense and diffuse store of laws the best and necessary things into very few books; to publish Greek and Latin libraries as large as he could, giving to Marcus Varro the care of collecting and arranging them; to dry the Pomptine marshes; to drain the Fucine lake; to make a road from the Upper Sea over the backbone of the Apennines as far as the Tiber; to cut through the Isthmus; to restrain the Daci, who had poured themselves into Pontus and Thrace; and soon to bring war against the Parthians through Lesser Armenia, and not to undertake it except after they had first been tried in battle.

Talia agentem atque meditantem mors praevenit. De qua prius quam dicam, ea quae ad formam et habitum et cultum et mores, nec minus quae ad civilia et bellica eius studia pertineant, non alienum erit summatim exponere.

Death anticipated him while he was pursuing and meditating on such matters. Before I speak of that, it will not be inappropriate to set forth summarily those things which pertain to his form and bearing and dress and manners, and no less those which pertain to his civil and military studies.

[45] Fuisse traditur excelsa statura, colore candido, teretibus membris, ore paulo pleniore, nigris vegetisque oculis, valitudine prospera, nisi quod tempore extremo repente animo linqui atque etiam per somnum exterreri solebat. Comitiali quoque morbo bis inter res agendas correptus est. Circa corporis curam morosior, ut non solum tonderetur diligenter ac raderetur, sed velleretur etiam, ut quidam exprobraverunt, calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret saepe obtrectatorum iocis obnoxiam expertus.

[45] It is handed down that he was of towering stature, of fair complexion, with rounded limbs, his mouth a little fuller, his eyes black and vigorous, in prosperous health, except that in extreme moments he was wont suddenly to be left by his spirit and even to be terrified in sleep. He was seized twice by a comitial disease amidst public business. More fastidious about the care of his body, so that not only was he carefully shorn and shaved, but he was even plucked, as some reproached; yet he very unfairly bore the deformity of baldness, often exposed to the jeers of detractors.

Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice adsueverat et ex omnibus decretis sibi a senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius quam ius laureae coronae perpetuo gestandae.

And therefore he had been accustomed to draw back his thinning hair from the crown, and of all the honors decreed to him by the senate and the people he received or assumed nothing more willingly than the right to wear the laurel crown perpetually.

Etiam cultu notabilem ferunt: usum enim lato clavo ad manus fimbriato nec umquam aliter quam [ut] super eum cingeretur, et quidem fluxiore cinctura; unde emanasse Sullae dictum optimates saepius admonentis, ut male praecinctum puerum caverent.

They also report him remarkable in dress: for he used a broad stripe at the wrists, fringed, and never otherwise than [ut] it was girded over him, and indeed with a rather looser girding; whence the optimates oftentimes said the saying came from Sulla, admonishing that they should beware of a boy ill-girt.

[46] Habitavit primo in Subura modicis aedibus, post autem pontificatum maximum in Sacra via domo publica. Munditiarum lautitiarumque studiosissimum multi prodiderunt: villam in Nemorensi a fundamentis incohatam magnoque sumptu absolutam, quia non tota ad animum ei responderat, totam diruisse, quanquam tenuem adhuc et obaeratum; in expeditionibus tessellata et sectilia pavimenta circumtulisse.

[46] He dwelt at first in the Subura in modest houses, but afterwards, in his greatest pontificate, in a public house on the Sacred Way. Many have handed him down as most devoted to neatness and luxury: that he razed an entire villa in the Nemorensis begun from its foundations and completed at great expense, because it did not wholly suit his mind or taste, though still slight and in debt; and that on his expeditions he carried off tessellated and dressed-stone pavements.

[47] Britanniam petisse spe margaritarum, quarum amplitudinem conferentem interdum sua manu exegisse pondus; gemmas, toreumata, signa, tabulas operis antiqui semper animosissime comparasse; servitia rectiora politioraque inmenso pretio, et cuius ipsum etiam puderet, sic ut rationibus vetaret inferri.

[47] That he sought Britain in the hope of pearls, the size of which, when comparing, he would at times gauge the weight with his own hand; that he most eagerly collected gems, toreutic works, statues, and panels of ancient workmanship; that he bought household-slaves more proper and more polished at immense expense, and of whom he himself would even be ashamed, so that he forbade them to be entered in the accounts.

[48] Convivatum assidue per provincias duobus tricliniis, uno quo sagati palliative, altero quo togati cum inlustrioribus provinciarum discumberent. Domesticam disciplinam in parvis ac maioribus rebus diligenter adeo severeque rexit, ut pistorem alium quam sibi panem convivis subicientem compedibus vinxerit, libertum gratissimum ob adulteratam equitis Romani uxorem, quamvis nullo querente, capitali poena adfecerit.

[48] He continually held banquets through the provinces with two triclinia, one in which the sagati sat in a palliative fashion, the other in which the togati reclined with the more illustrious persons of the provinces. He governed domestic discipline in small and great affairs so diligently and severely that he bound with fetters a baker who, instead of serving him, set bread before the guests, and he afflicted a most pleasing freedman with capital punishment for adultery with the wife of a Roman eques, although no one complained.

[49] Pudicitiae eius famam nihil quidem praeter Nicomedis contubernium laesit, gravi tamen et perenni obprobrio et ad omnium convicia exposito. Omitto Calvi Licini notissimos versus:

[49] His reputation for pudicity was harmed by nothing indeed except the cohabitation with Nicomedes, yet exposed to a grave and perennial reproach and to the insults of all. I omit the very well-known verses of Calvus Licinus:

Bithynia quicquid
et pedicator Caesaris umquam habuit.

Bithynia, whatever the emperor’s pederast ever possessed.

Praetereo actiones Dolabellae et Curionis patris, in quibus eum Dolabella 'paelicem reginae, spondam interiorem regiae lecticae,' at Curio 'stabulum Nicomedis et Bithynicum fornicem' dicunt. Missa etiam facio edicta Bibuli, quibus proscripsit collegam suum Bithynicam reginam, eique antea regem fuisse cordi, nunc esse regnum. Quo tempore, ut Marcus Brutus refert, Octavius etiam quidam valitudine mentis liberius dicax conventu maximo, cum Pompeium regem appellasset, ipsum reginam salutavit.

I omit the prosecutions of Dolabella and of Curio the father, in which Dolabella calls him "paelicem reginae, spondam interiorem regiae lecticae," and Curio "stabulum Nicomedis et Bithynicum fornicem." I likewise pass over the edicts of Bibulus, by which he proscribed his colleague as a Bithynian queen, and that it had formerly pleased him to be king, now that there is a kingdom. At that time, as Marcus Brutus reports, Octavius also, somewhat more free-speaking by unsoundness of mind at a great assembly, after he had called Pompey "king," saluted him himself as "queen."

Sed C. Memmius etiam ad cyathum + et vi + Nicomedi stetisse obicit, cum reliquis exoletis, pleno convivio, accubantibus nonnullis urbicis negotiatoribus, quorum refert nomina. Cicero vero non contentus in quibusdam epistulis scripsisse a satellitibus eum in cubiculum regium eductum in aureo lecto veste purpurea decubuisse floremque aetatis a Venere orti in Bithynia contaminatum, quondam etiam in senatu defendenti ei Nysae causam, filiae Nicomedis, beneficiaque regis in se commemoranti: 'remove,' inquit, 'istaec, oro te, quando notum est, et quid ille tibi et quid illi tute dederis.' Gallico denique triumpho milites eius inter cetera carmina, qualia currum prosequentes ioculariter canunt, etiam illud vulgatissimum pronuntiaverunt:

But he also alleges that C. Memmius stood at Nicomedes’ cyathum + et vi +, with the other exoleti, at a full banquet, some urbane negotiators reclining there, whose names he reports. Cicero, moreover, not content with having written in certain letters that by satellites he was led into the royal bedchamber and reclined on a golden couch in purple dress, and that the flower of his age, sprung from Venus, was defiled in Bithynia, once even defending in the senate the cause of Nysa, daughter of Nicomedes, and recounting the king’s favors to himself, says: “remove those things, I beg you, since it is known, and what he gave to you and what you yourself gave him.” Finally, at the Gallic triumph his soldiers, among other songs of the sort they jokingly sing escorting the chariot, also proclaimed that most common refrain:

Gallias Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem:
Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat qui subegit Gallias,
Nicomedes non triumphat qui subegit Caesarem.

Caesar subdued the Gauls, Nicomedes subdued Caesar:
Behold Caesar now triumphs who subdued the Gauls,
Nicomedes does not triumph who subdued Caesar.

[50] Pronum et sumptuosum in libidines fuisse constans opinio est, plurimasque et illustres feminas corrupisse, in quibus Postumiam Servi Sulpici, Lolliam Auli Gabini, Tertullam Marci Crassi, etiam Cn. Pompei Muciam. Nam certe Pompeio et a Curionibus patre et filio et a multis exprobratum est, quod cuius causa post tres liberos exegisset uxorem et quem gemens Aegisthum appellare consuesset, eius postea filiam potentiae cupiditate in matrimonium recepisset. Sed ante alias dilexit Marci Bruti matrem Serviliam, cui et proximo suo consulatu sexagiens sestertium margaritam mercatus est et bello civili super alias donationes amplissima praedia ex auctionibus hastae minimo addixit; cum quidem plerisque vilitatem mirantibus facetissime Cicero: 'quo melius,' inquit, 'emptum sciatis, tertia deducta'; existimabatur enim Servilia etiam filiam suam Tertiam Caesari conciliare.

[50] There is a constant opinion that he was inclined and luxurious toward lusts, and that he corrupted very many and illustrious women, among whom Postumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius, Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, Tertulla, wife of Marcus Crassus, even Mucia, wife of Cn. Pompeius. For certainly Pompey was reproached both by the Curiones, father and son, and by many, because for whose sake he had taken a wife after three children, and whom, groaning, he had accustomed to call Aegisthus, he afterwards received that man’s daughter in marriage out of a desire for power. But before the others he loved the mother of Marcus Brutus, Servilia, to whom, in his most recent consulship, he bought a pearl for sixty million sesterces and, beyond other donations in the civil war, adjudged very ample estates from the auctions to the lowest bidder; and Cicero, many marveling at the cheapness, wittily: “all the better,” he said, “that you may know it was bought, the third having been deducted”; for Servilia was thought even to conciliate her own daughter Tertia to Caesar.

[51] Ne provincialibus quidem matrimoniis abstinuisse vel hoc disticho apparet iactato aeque a militibus per Gallicum triumphum:

[51] That he had not even abstained from provincial marriages is shown also by this distich, tossed about equally by the soldiers during the Gallic triumph:

Urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus.
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.

Urbani, keep your wives: we bring a bald adulterer.
You squandered gold in Gaul, here you have taken a loan.

[52] Dilexit et reginas, inter quas Eunoen Mauram Bogudis uxorem, cui maritoque eius plurima et immensa tribuit, ut Naso scripsit; sed maxime Cleopatram, cum qua et convivia in primam lucem saepe protraxit et eadem nave thalamego paene Aethiopia tenus Aegyptum penetravit, nisi exercitus sequi recusasset, quam denique accitam in urbem non nisi maximis honoribus praemiisque auctam remisit filiumque natum appellare nomine suo passus est. Quem quidem nonnulli Graecorum similem quoque Caesari et forma et incessu tradiderunt. M. Antonius adgnitum etiam ab eo senatui adfirmavit, quae scire C. Matium et C. Oppium reliquosque Caesaris amicos; quorum Gaius Oppius, quasi plane defensione ac patrocinio res egeret, librum edidit, non esse Caesaris filium, quem Cleopatra dicat.

[52] He loved also queens, among whom Eunoë the Moor, wife of Bogud, to whom and to her husband he bestowed very many and immense things, as Naso wrote; but above all Cleopatra, with whom he often prolonged feasts into the first light and by the same ship with a bridal-chamber almost penetrated Egypt as far as Ethiopia, had not the army refused to follow; whom at last, having been brought into the city, he sent back after having endowed her only with the greatest honors and rewards, and he permitted the son born to be called by his own name. Whom indeed some of the Greeks likewise handed down as resembling Caesar both in form and in gait. Marcus Antonius also affirmed to the senate that he had been acknowledged by him, as Gaius Matius and Gaius Oppius and the other friends of Caesar know; of whom Gaius Oppius, as if plainly pleading a defense and patronage, published a book that the son whom Cleopatra names is not Caesar’s.

Helvius Cinna tr. pl. plerisque confessus est habuisse se scriptam paratamque legem, quam Caesar ferre iussisset cum ipse abesset, uti uxores liberorum quaerendorum causa quas et quot uellet ducere liceret. At ne cui dubium omnino sit et impudicitiae et adulteriorum flagrasse infamia, Curio pater quadam eum oratione omnium mulierum virum et omnium virorum mulierem appellat.

Helvius Cinna, tribune of the people, confessed to many that he had had a written and prepared law, which Caesar had ordered to be carried when he himself was absent, that it should be lawful, for the sake of procuring offspring, to take as wives whom and as many as one wished. But that there be no doubt at all that the infamy of both unchastity and adulteries had flared up, Curio the father in a certain oration called him "the husband of all women and the wife of all men."

[53] Vini parcissimum ne inimici quidem negaverunt. Marci Catonis est: unum ex omnibus Caesarem ad evertendam rem publicam sobrium accessisse. Nam circa victum Gaius Oppius adeo indifferentem docet, ut quondam ab hospite conditum oleum pro viridi adpositum aspernantibus ceteris solum etiam largius appetisse scribat, ne hospitem aut neglegentiae aut rusticitatis videretur arguere.

[53] Not even his enemies denied that he was most sparing of wine. It is said of Marcus Cato: that Caesar was the only one among them who approached the overthrow of the republic sober. For concerning victuals Gaius Oppius shows him so indifferent, that once oil preserved by a host, set beside the greens and scorned by the others, he alone even more eagerly sought, lest he seem to accuse the host of either negligence or rusticity.

[54] Abstinentiam neque in imperiis neque in magistratibus praestitit. Ut enim quidam monumentis suis testati sunt, in Hispania pro consule et a sociis pecunias accepit emendicatas in auxilium aeris alieni et Lusitanorum quaedam oppida, quanquam nec imperata detrectarent et advenienti portas patefacerent, diripuit hostiliter. In Gallia fana templaque deum donis referta expilavit, urbes diruit saepius ob praedam quam ob delictum; unde factum, ut auro abundaret ternisque milibus nummum in libras promercale per Italiam provinciasque divenderet.

[54] He displayed no abstinence in his commands nor in his magistracies. For, as some have testified by their monuments, in Spain, while proconsul, and from his allies he received monies begged for the relief of indebtedness and certain towns of the Lusitani; although they neither refused his orders nor barred their gates to the arriving man, he plundered them hostilely. In Gaul he rifled shrines and temples of the gods filled with votive gifts, he often razed cities more for plunder than for crime; whence it came about that he abounded in gold and used to sell coin as merchandise — three thousand to the pound — throughout Italy and the provinces.

In primo consulatu tria milia pondo auri furatus e Capitolio tantundem inaurati aeris reposuit. Societates ac regna pretio dedit, ut qui uni Ptolemaeo prope sex milia talentorum suo Pompeique nomine abstulerit. Postea vero evidentissimis rapinis ac sacrilegis et onera bellorum civilium et triumphorum ac munerum sustinuit impendia.

In his first consulship he restored three thousand pounds of gold stolen from the Capitol and as much of gilded bronze; he sold off alliances and kingdoms for money, so that he took from a single Ptolemy nearly six thousand talents in his own and Pompey’s name. Afterwards, however, by the most manifest plunders and sacrileges he bore the outlays of civil wars, of triumphs, and of public games.

[55] Eloquentia militarique re aut aequavit praestantissimorum gloriam aut excessit. Post accusationem Dolabellae haud dubie principibus patronis adnumeratus est. Certe Cicero ad Brutum oratores enumerans negat se videre, cui debeat Caesar cedere, aitque eum elegantem, splendidam quoque atque etiam magnificam et generosam quodam modo rationem dicendi tenere; et ad Cornelium Nepotem de eodem ita scripsit: 'quid?

[55] By eloquence and by military deed he either equalled or surpassed the glory of the most eminent. After the accusation of Dolabella he was, without doubt, reckoned among the foremost patrons. Certainly Cicero, enumerating orators to Brutus, says that he sees no one to whom Caesar ought to yield, and says that he holds a manner of speaking both elegant, also splendid and even magnificent and in a certain way noble; and to Cornelius Nepos about the same he wrote thus: 'what?

oratorem quem huic antepones eorum, qui nihil aliud egerunt? quis sententiis aut acutior aut crebrior? quis verbis aut ornatior aut elegantior?' genus eloquentiae dumtaxat adulescens adhuc Strabonis Caesaris secutus videtur, cuius etiam ex oratione, quae inscribitur 'pro Sardis,' ad verbum nonnulla transtulit in divinationem suam.

'An orator whom you set before this one of those who have done nothing else? Who sharper or more frequent in sententiae? Who in words more ornate or more elegant?' The kind of eloquence, however, while still youthful, seems to have followed Strabo Caesar, from whose oration, which is entitled 'Pro Sardis,' he even transferred some things verbatim into his own divination.

Pronuntiasse autem dicitur voce acuta, ardenti motu gestuque, non sine venustate. Orationes aliquas reliquit, inter quas temere quaedam feruntur. 'Pro Quinto Metello' non immerito Augustus existimat magis ab actuaris exceptam male subsequentibus verba dicentis, quam ab ipso editam; nam in quibusdam exemplaribus invenio ne inscriptam quidem 'pro Metello,' sed 'quam scripsit Metello,' cum ex persona Caesaris sermo sit Metellum seque adversus communium obtrectatorum criminationes purgantis.

He is said, moreover, to have pronounced with a sharp voice, with ardent motion and gesture, not without charm. He left behind some speeches, among which some are reported rashly. Augustus not undeservedly judges that 'Pro Quinto Metello' was more taken down by actarii, ill following the speaker's words, than issued by the author himself; for in certain copies I find not even the heading 'pro Metello,' but 'quam scripsit Metello,' since the speech, put in the persona of Caesar, represents Metellus and his clearing himself against the accusations of common detractors.

'Apud milites' quoque 'in Hispania' idem Augustus vix ipsius putat, quae tamen duplex fertur: una quasi priore habita proelio, altera posteriore, quo Asinius Pollio ne tempus quidem contionandi habuisse eum dicit subita hostium incursione.

'Apud milites' also and 'in Hispania' the same things Augustus scarcely believes to be his own, which, however, are reported in twofold fashion: one as if held in the earlier engagement of battle, the other later, in which Asinius Pollio says he did not even have time for a contio (to address the troops) because of a sudden enemy incursion.

[56] Reliquit et rerum suarum commentarios Gallici civilisque belli Pompeiani. Nam Alexandrini Africique et Hispaniensis incertus auctor est: alii Oppium putant, alii Hirtium, qui etiam Gallici belli novissimum imperfectumque librum suppleverit. De commentariis Caesaris Cicero in eodem Bruto sic refert: 'commentarios scripsit valde quidem probandos: nudi sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta; sed dum voluit alios habere parata, unde sumerent qui vellent scribere historiam, ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui illa volent calamistris inurere, sanos quidem homines a scribendo deterruit.' De isdem commentariis Hirtius ita praedicat: 'adeo probantur omnium iudicio, ut praerepta, non praebita facultas scriptoribus videatur.

[56] He also left commentaries of his Gallic affairs and of the civil Pompeian war. For the author of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish [books] is uncertain: some think Oppius, others Hirtius, who moreover supplied the last and unfinished book of the Gallic war. Concerning Caesar’s commentaries Cicero reports in the same Brutus thus: 'he wrote commentaries to be very much approved: they are naked, straight, and graceful, stripped of every ornament of speech as of a garment; but while he wished others to have ready sources from which those who would write history might draw, perhaps he made them pleasing to the inept, who would fain brand them with curling-irons, and he deterred sane men from writing.' Of the same commentaries Hirtius proclaims: 'they are so approved by the judgment of all, that the facility seems praerepted, not granted, to writers.'

[Cuius tamen rei maior nostra quam reliquorum est admiratio; ceteri enim, quam bene atque emendate,] nos etiam, quam facile atque celeriter eos perscripserit, scimus.' Pollio Asinius parum diligenter parumque integra veritate compositos putat, cum Caesar pleraque et quae per alios erant gesta temere crediderit et quae per se, vel consulto vel etiam memoria lapsus perperam ediderit; existimatque rescripturum et correcturum fuisse. Reliquit et 'de analogia' duos libros et 'Anticatones' totidem ac praeterea poema quod inscribitur Iter. Quorum librorum primos in transitu Alpium, cum ex citeriore Gallia conventibus peractis ad exercitum rediret, sequentes sub tempus Mundensis proelii fecit; novissimum, dum ab urbe in Hispaniam ulteriorem quarto et vicensimo die pervenit.

[Whose matter, however, our admiration is greater than that of the rest; for the others, how well and corrected,] we also know how easily and swiftly he wrote them.' Asinius Pollio thinks them composed rather carelessly and rather lacking in integral truth, since Caesar rashly believed most things and those done by others, and those which he published himself, whether deliberately or even through a lapse of memory, wrongly; and he judges that he would have rewritten and corrected them. He left also two books 'de analogia' and as many 'Anticatones' and moreover a poem entitled Iter. Of these books the first he made in the passage of the Alps, when returning to the army from nearer Gaul after the assemblies were completed; the following ones he made about the time of the Munda battle; the last, when he reached from the city into further Spain on the twenty-fourth day.

Epistulae quoque eius ad senatum extant, quas primum videtur ad paginas et formam memorialis libelli convertisse, cum antea consules et duces non nisi transversa charta scriptas mitterent. Extant et ad Ciceronem, item ad familiares domesticis de rebus, in quibus, si qua occultius perferenda erant, per notas scripsit, id est sic structo litterarum ordine, ut nullum verbum effici posset: quae si qui investigare et persequi velit, quartam elementorum litteram, id est D pro A et perinde reliquas commutet. Feruntur [a puero et] ab adulescentulo quaedam scripta, ut 'Laudes Herculis,' tragoedia 'Oedipus,' item 'Dicta collectanea': quos omnis libellos vetuit Augustus publicari in epistula, quam brevem admodum ac simplicem ad Pompeium Macrum, cui ordinandas bibliothecas delegaverat, misit.

His letters to the senate also survive, which at first appear to have been converted into the pages and form of a little memorial book, since previously consuls and generals sent writings written only on a transverse sheet. There are also letters to Cicero, likewise to intimates about household matters, in which, if anything had to be conveyed more secretly, he wrote by notae, that is, with the order of letters so arranged that no word could be made; which, if anyone wishes to investigate and pursue, he should substitute the fourth letter of the alphabet, that is D for A, and similarly exchange the rest. Certain writings are reported [a puero et] from boyhood and from youth, such as "Laudes Herculis," the tragedy "Oedipus," and likewise "Collected Sayings": all these little books Augustus forbade to be published in a letter, very brief and simple, which he sent to Pompeius Macer, to whom he had delegated the arranging of libraries.

[57] Armorum et equitandi peritissimus, laboris ultra fidem patiens erat. In agmine nonnumquam equo, saepius pedibus anteibat, capite detecto, seu sol seu imber esset; longissimas vias incredibili celeritate confecit, expeditus, meritoria raeda, centena passuum milia in singulos dies; si flumina morarentur, nando traiciens vel innixus inflatis utribus, ut persaepe nuntios de se praevenerit.

[57] Most skilled in arms and in horseriding, he was enduring of labor beyond belief. In the column sometimes on horseback, more often on foot he went ahead, with his head uncovered, whether it were sun or rain; he accomplished the longest roads with incredible swiftness, unencumbered, with a serviceable carriage, hundreds of thousands of paces in single days; if rivers delayed him, crossing by swimming or leaning on inflated skins, so that very often he reached messengers about him beforehand.

[58] In obeundis expeditionibus dubium cautior an audentior, exercitum neque per insidiosa itinera duxit umquam nisi perspeculatus locorum situs, neque in Britanniam transvexit, nisi ante per se portus et navigationem et accessum ad insulam explorasset. At idem obsessione castrorum in Germania nuntiata per stationes hostium Gallico habitu penetravit ad suos. A Brundisio Dyrrachium inter oppositas classes hieme transmisit cessantibusque copiis, quas subsequi iusserat, cum ad accersendas frustra saepe misisset, novissime ipse clam noctu parvulum navigium solus obvoluto capite conscendit, neque aut quis esset ante detexit aut gubernatorem cedere adversae tempestati passus est quam paene obrutus fluctibus.

[58] In setting out on expeditions he was of doubtful mien, whether more cautious or more daring; he never led the army by treacherous routes except after having reconnoitred the situation of the places, nor did he cross over into Britain unless beforehand he himself had explored the ports, the navigation, and the approach to the island. Yet the same man, when news came of the siege of the camps in Germany, penetrated in Gallic garb through the enemy’s sentries to his own men. From Brundisium he conveyed himself to Dyrrachium in winter between opposing fleets, and, his forces which he had ordered to follow lagging behind — whom he had often sent in vain to be summoned — at last he himself secretly at night boarded a small craft alone with his head wrapped, nor did anyone detect him beforehand, nor did he suffer the steersman to yield to an adverse storm until he was almost overwhelmed by the waves.

[59] Ne religione quidem ulla a quoquam incepto absterritus umquam vel retardatus est. Cum immolanti aufugisset hostia, profectionem adversus Scipionem et Iubam non distulit. Prolapsus etiam in egressu navis verso ad melius omine: 'teneo te,' inquit, 'Africa.' Ad eludendas autem vaticinationes, quibus felix et invictum in ea provincia fataliter Scipionum nomen ferebatur, despectissimum quendam ex Corneliorum genere, cui ad opprobrium vitae Saluitoni cognomen erat, in castris secum habuit.

[59] Nor by any religious scruple was he ever by anyone deterred or delayed from an undertaking. When the sacrificial victim fled from the sacrificer he did not postpone the departure against Scipio and Juba. Having slipped moreover in disembarking from the ship, he turned it into a better omen: "I hold you," he said, "Africa." And to evade the prophecies by which the name of Scipio was fatefully borne as fortunate and unconquered in that province, he kept in camp with him a certain most despised man of the Cornelian stock, whose cognomen for the reproach of his life was Saluitoni.

[60] Proelia non tantum destinato, sed ex occasione sumebat ac saepe ab itinere statim, interdum spurcissimis tempestatibus, cum minime quis moturum putaret; nec nisi tempore extremo ad dimicandum cunctatior factus est, quo saepius vicisset, hoc minus experiendos casus opinans nihilque se tantum adquisiturum victoria, quantum [ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ] hostem fudit, quin castris quoque exueret: ita [ut] nullum spatium perterritis dabat. Ancipiti proelio equos dimittebat et in primis suum, quo maior permanendi necessitas imponeretur auxilio fugae erepto.

[60] He took up battles not only by design but from occasion, and often straight from the march, sometimes in the foulest storms when one would least think anyone would move; nor was he become more reluctant to fight except at the last moment — by which he had more often prevailed — thinking that the fewer chances there were to be tried the better, and that he would gain by victory nothing so much as [ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ] routed the enemy, nay even strip the camp: thus he gave the terrified no breathing-space. In a doubtful fight he dismissed the horses, and foremost his own, by which, the aid of flight being taken away, a greater necessity of standing fast would be imposed.

[61] Utebatur autem equo insigni, pedibus prope humanis et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis, quem natum apud se, cum haruspices imperium orbis terrae significare domino pronuntiassent, magna cura aluit nec patientem sessoris alterius primus ascendit; cuius etiam instar pro aede Veneris Genetricis postea dedicavit.

[61] He moreover used a remarkable horse, its feet almost human and its hooves split like toes, which he nourished with great care as born beside him when the haruspices announced to the lord that it signified dominion of the world; and he was not the first to mount as the patient rider of another; he afterwards even dedicated an image of it for the temple of Venus Genetrix.

[62] Inclinatam aciem solus saepe restituit obsistens fugientibus retinensque singulos et contortis faucibus convertens in hostem et quidem adeo plerumque trepidos, ut aquilifer[o] moranti se cuspide sit comminatus, alius in manu detinentis reliquerit signum.

[62] He alone often restored a bent line, standing in the way of the fleeing and holding back individuals, and by wrenching their throats turning them back against the enemy; and indeed so often did he put the terrified to rout that the standard-bearer, lingering, threatened him with his spear, and another left the standard in the hand of the man detaining it.

[63] Non minor illa constantia eius, maiora etiam indicia fuerint. Post aciem Pharsalicam cum praemissis in Asiam copiis per angustias Hellesponti vectoria navicula traiceret, L. Cassium partis adversae cum decem rostratis navibus obvium sibi neque refugit et comminus tendens, ultro ad deditionem hortatus, supplicem ad se recepit.

[63] Not less was that constancy of his; indeed there were even greater indications. After the Pharsalian line, when with forces sent ahead into Asia he was crossing by transport-ships through the narrows of the Hellespont, he met L. Cassius of the opposing party with ten beaked ships; he did not flee from him, but pressing on to close quarters and even urging him to surrender of his own accord, received him as a suppliant to himself.

[64] Alexandriae circa oppugnationem pontis eruptione hostium subita conpulsus in scapham pluribus eodem praecipitantibus, cum desilisset in mare, nando per ducentos passus evasit ad proximam navem, elata laeva, ne libelli quos tenebat madefierent, paludamentum mordicus trahens, ne spolio poteretur hostis.

[64] At Alexandria, about the assault on the bridge, having been driven by a sudden sortie of the enemy into a skiff with many others precipitating in the same, when he had leapt into the sea he swam about two hundred paces and reached the nearest ship; with his paludamentum raised on the left, holding it in his teeth so that the little books he carried would not be wetted, lest the enemy be able to seize them as spoil.

[65] Militem neque a moribus neque a fortuna probabat, sed tantum a viribus, tractabatque pari severitate atque indulgentia. Non enim ubique ac semper, sed cum hostis in proximo esset, coercebat: tum maxime exactor gravissimus disciplinae, ut neque itineris neque proelii tempus denuntiaret, sed paratum et intentum momentis omnibus quo vellet subito educeret. Quod etiam sine causa plerumque faciebat, praecipue pluviis et festis diebus.

[65] He judged a soldier not by manners nor by fortune, but only by strength, and he handled him with equal severity and indulgence. For not everywhere and always, but when the enemy was close, he restrained them: then he was above all the most exacting enforcer of discipline, so that he would announce neither the time of march nor of battle, but would suddenly lead forth men prepared and intent at whatever moments he wished. Which he also for the most part did without cause, especially on rainy and festival days.

Ac subinde observandum se admonens repente interdiu vel nocte subtrahebat, augebatque iter, ut serius subsequentis defetigaret.

And repeatedly, reminding himself to be cautious, he would suddenly withdraw by day or by night, and would quicken the march, so as to exhaust those followers who came on later.

[66] Fama vero hostilium copiarum perterritos non negando minuendove, sed insuper amplificando ementiendoque confirmabat. Itaque cum expectatio adventus Iubae terribilis esset, convocatis ad contionem militibus: 'Scitote,' inquit, 'paucissimis his diebus regem adfuturum cum decem legionibus, equitum triginta, levis armaturae centum milibus, elephantis trecentis. Proinde desinant quidam quaerere ultra aut opinari mihique, qui compertum habeo, credant; aut quidem vetustissima nave impositos quocumque vento in quascumque terras iubebo avehi.'

[66] The rumor, moreover, of the enemy forces, neither denying nor diminishing the terrified, but rather amplifying and fabricating, confirmed them. And so, since the expectation of the arrival of Juba was terrible, having summoned the soldiers to an assembly he said, "Know that in a very few days the king will be present with 10 legions, 30 cavalry, 100,000 light-armed men, and 300 elephants. Therefore let some cease to inquire further or to conjecture, and believe me, who have it ascertained; or indeed I will order those placed on the oldest ship to be borne by whatever wind to whatever lands."

[67] Delicta neque observabat omnia neque pro modo exsequebatur, sed desertorum ac seditiosorum et inquisitor et punitor acerrimus conivebat in ceteris. Ac nonnumquam post magnam pugnam atque victoriam remisso officiorum munere licentiam omnem passim lasciviendi permittebat, iactare solitus milites suos etiam unguentatos bene pugnare posse. Nec milites eos pro contione, sed blandiore nomine commilitones appellabat habebatque tam cultos, ut argento et auro politis armis ornaret, simul et ad speciem et quo tenaciores eorum in proelio essent metu damni.

[67] He neither observed all offenses nor executed them according to measure, but was a most keen inquisitor and punisher of deserters and seditious men, while winkingly allowing others off. And sometimes, after a great battle and victory, with the discharge of duties relaxed he permitted every license of wantonness everywhere, being wont to vaunt that his soldiers, even anointed, could fight well. Nor did he call those soldiers by the name contio, but by the more flattering title commilitones, and he kept them so groomed that he adorned their arms polished with silver and gold, both for show and that they might be the more tenacious in battle from fear of loss.

Diligebat quoque usque adeo, ut audita clade Tituriana barbam capillumque summiserit nec ante dempserit quam vindicasset.

He also loved him so greatly that, on hearing of the Titurian disaster, he let his beard and hair hang down and did not cut them off until he had avenged him.

[68] Quibus rebus et devotissimos sibi et fortissimos reddidit. Ingresso civile bellum centuriones cuiusque legionis singulos equites e viatico suo optulerunt, universi milites gratuitam et sine frumento stipendioque operam, cum tenuiorum tutelam locupletiores in se contulissent. Neque in tam diuturno spatio quisquam omnino descivit, plerique capti concessam sibi sub condicione vitam, si militare adversus eum vellent, recusarunt.

[68] By these acts he made them both most devoted to himself and very brave. When the civil war began, the centurions of each legion offered single horsemen from their own viaticum; all the soldiers offered their service freely and without grain or pay, since the wealthier had taken upon themselves the protection of the poor. Nor in so long a time did anyone at all desert; the majority of those captured refused the life granted them on the condition that they would serve as soldiers against him.

Famem et ceteras necessitates, non cum obsiderentur modo sed et si ipsi alios obsiderent, tanto opere tolerabant, ut Dyrrachina munitione Pompeius viso genere panis ex herba, quo sustinebantur, cum feris sibi rem esse dixerit amoverique ocius nec cuiquam ostendi iusserit, ne patientia et pertinacia hostis animi suorum frangerentur.

They endured famine and the other necessities so greatly, not only when they were besieged but even if they themselves besieged others, that at Dyrrachium, the fortification being seen and the sort of bread made from herb by which they were sustained, Pompeius said that it was a thing for beasts and ordered it to be removed swiftly and not shown to anyone, lest the patience and pertinacity of the spirit of his men be broken.

Quanta fortitudine dimicarint, testimonio est quod adverso semel apud Dyrrachium proelio poenam in se ultro depoposcerunt, ut consolandos eos magis imperator quam puniendos habuerit. Ceteris proeliis innumeras adversariorum copias multis partibus ipsi pauciores facile superarunt. Denique una sextae legionis cohors praeposita castello quattuor Pompei legiones per aliquot horas sustinuit paene omnis confixa multitudine hostilium sagittarum, quarum centum ac triginta milia intra vallum reperta sunt.

How great their bravery was is attested by the fact that, after a defeat once in the battle at Dyrrachium, they themselves voluntarily demanded punishment upon themselves, so that the commander held them to be more in need of consolation than of chastisement. In other engagements they easily overcame countless masses of the enemy in many actions, although they themselves were fewer. Finally, one cohort of the sixth legion, placed in charge of the castle, held off four of Pompey’s legions for several hours, nearly all pierced by the multitude of the enemy’s arrows, of which 130,000 were found within the rampart.

Nec mirum, si quis singulorum facta respiciat, vel Cassi Scaevae centurionis vel Gai Acili militis, ne de pluribus referam. Scaeva excusso oculo, transfixus femore et umero, centum et viginti ictibus scuto perforato, custodiam portae commissi castelli retinuit. Acilius navali ad Massiliam proelio iniecta in puppem hostium dextera et abscisa memorabile illud apud Graecos Cynegiri exemplum imitatus transiluit in navem umbone obvios agens.

Not surprising, if anyone considers the deeds of individuals, whether of the centurion Cassius Scaeva or of the soldier Gaius Acilius, to say nothing of others. Scaeva, his eye knocked out, pierced through the thigh and shoulder, his shield perforated by one hundred and twenty blows, held the guard of the gate of the castle entrusted to him. Acilius, in a naval battle off Massilia, having thrown himself upon the stern of the enemy ships and his right hand cut off, imitating that memorable example among the Greeks, Cynegirus, leapt into a ship, driving at those before him with the boss of his shield.

[69] Seditionem per decem annos Gallicis bellis nullam omnino moverunt, civilibus aliquas, sed ut celeriter ad officium redierint, nec tam indulgentia ducis quam auctoritate. Non enim cessit umquam tumultuantibus atque etiam obviam semper iit; et nonam quidem legionem apud Placentiam, quanquam in armis adhuc Pompeius esset, totam cum ignominia missam fecit aegreque post multas et supplicis preces, nec nisi exacta de sontibus poena, restituit.

[69] They raised no sedition at all during ten years of the Gallic wars; some civil disturbances indeed, but so that they quickly returned to their duty, not so much by the indulgence of the leader as by his authority. For he never yielded to those in tumult and always went out to meet them; and indeed he caused the ninth legion at Placentia—although Pompey was still in arms—to be sent away entirely with ignominy, and with difficulty, after many and supplicatory entreaties, restored it only when punishment had been exacted from the guilty.

[70] Decimanos autem Romae cum ingentibus minis summoque etiam urbis periculo missionem et praemia flagitantes, ardente tunc in Africa bello, neque adire cunctatus est, quanquam deterrentibus amicis, neque dimittere; sed una voce, qua 'Quirites' eos pro militibus appellarat, tam facile circumegit et flexit, ut ei milites esse confestim responderint et quamvis recusantem ultro in Africam sint secuti; ac sic quoque seditiosissimum quemque et praedae et agri destinati tertia parte multavit.

[70] The Decimanos at Rome, with enormous threats and with even the greatest danger to the city, clamoring for discharge and for rewards, while the war was then blazing in Africa, he did not hesitate to go to them, although friends were deterring him, nor to dismiss them; but with the one voice by which he had called them "Quirites" instead of soldiers, he so easily turned and won them over that they at once replied that they were his soldiers, and, although he refused, of their own accord followed him into Africa; and thus he also mulcted each most seditious man of a third part of both the booty and the land assigned.

[71] Studium et fides erga clientis ne iuveni quidem defuerunt. Masintham nobilem iuvenem, cum adversus Hiempsalem regem tam enixe defendisset, ut Iubae regis filio in altercatione barbam invaserit, stipendiarium quoque pronuntiatum et abstrahentibus statim eripuit occultavitque apud se diu et mox ex praetura proficiscens in Hispaniam inter officia prosequentium fascesque lictorum lectica sua avexit.

[71] Zeal and fidelity toward his client did not fail even in the young man. Masintha, a noble youth, when he had defended so vigorously against King Hiempsal that in an altercation he laid hands on the beard of King Juba’s son, was even proclaimed a mercenary; and when they were dragging him off he at once snatched him away and hid him long with himself, and soon, setting out from the praetorship for Spain, among those attending upon his duties and the fasces of the lictors he carried him off in his litter.

[72] Amicos tanta semper facilitate indulgentiaque tractavit, ut Gaio Oppio comitanti se per silvestre iter correptoque subita valitudine deversoriolo[co], quod unum erat, cesserit et ipse humi ac sub divo cubuerit. Iam autem rerum potens quosdam etiam infimi generis ad amplissimos honores provexit, cum ob id culparetur, professus palam, si grassatorum et sicariorum ope in tuenda sua dignitate usus esset, talibus quoque se parem gratiam relaturum.

[72] He always treated friends with such facility and indulgence that, when Gaius Oppius, accompanying him, seized him on a wooded road and, struck by sudden sickness, he gave way to the little inn (which was the only one) and himself lay upon the ground and under the open sky. Moreover, now powerful in affairs, he promoted certain men even of the lowest sort to the most ample honors; and when he was blamed for this, he openly professed that if he had used the aid of brigands and assassins in defending his dignity, he would render equal favor to such men as well.

[73] Simultates contra nullas tam graves excepit umquam, ut non occasione oblata libens deponeret. Gai Memmi, cuius asperrimis orationibus non minore acerbitate rescripserat, etiam suffragator mox in petitione consulatus fuit. Gaio Calvo post famosa epigrammata de reconciliatione per amicos agenti ultro ac prior scripsit.

[73] He never took up enmities so grave that, when an occasion was offered, he would not willingly lay them aside. To Gaius Memmius, whose very harsh speeches he had answered with no less bitterness, he soon even became a supporter in the petition for the consulship. To Gaius Calvus, who after famous epigrams was seeking reconciliation through friends, he wrote voluntarily and beforehand.

Valerium Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satis facientem eadem die adhibuit cenae hospitioque patris eius, sicut consuerat, uti perseveravit.

He admitted Valerius Catullus, by whom he had not concealed that perpetual stigmas had been imposed upon him in verses about Mamurra, deeming him satisfactory, and on that same day admitted him to his father's supper and lodging, as he was accustomed, and continued to make use of him.

[74] Sed et in ulciscendo natura lenissimus piratas, a quibus captus est, cum in dicionem redegisset, quoniam suffixurum se cruci ante iuraverat, iugulari prius iussit, deinde suffigi; Cornelio Phagitae, cuius quondam nocturnas insidias aeger ac latens, ne perduceretur ad Sullam, vix praemio dato evaserat, numquam nocere sustinuit; Philemonem a manu servum, qui necem suam per venenum inimicis promiserat, non gravius quam simplici morte puniit; in Publium Clodium Pompeiae uxoris suae adulterum atque eadem de causa pollutarum caerimoniarum reum testis citatus negavit se quicquam comperisse, quamvis et mater Aurelia et soror Iulia apud eosdem iudices omnia ex fide re[t]tulissent; interrogatusque, cur igitur repudiasset uxorem: 'quoniam,' inquit, 'meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere.'

[74] But even in taking vengeance his nature was very gentle: the pirates, by whom he had been captured, when he had brought them back into his jurisdiction, since they had sworn that they would crucify him, he ordered to be strangled first, and then crucified; Cornelius Phagitus, who once, sick and hiding, had with difficulty escaped—reward having been given—from being delivered to Sulla, he never permitted to be harmed; Philemon, a household slave who had promised his death by poison to his enemies, he punished no more severely than with a simple death; and as a witness, when summoned concerning Publius Clodius, the adulterer of his wife Pompeia and accused for rites polluted for the same cause, he denied that he had learned anything, although both his mother Aurelia and his sister Julia before the same judges had faithfully reported everything; and when asked why, therefore, he had repudiated his wife, he said, "Because I judge that my household ought to be free as much from suspicion as from crime."

[75] Moderationem vero clementiamque cum in administratione tum in victoria belli civilis admirabilem exhibuit. Denuntiante Pompeio pro hostibus se habiturum qui rei publicae defuissent, ipse medios et neutrius partis suorum sibi numero futuros pronuntiavit. Quibus autem ex commendatione Pompei ordines dederat, potestatem transeundi ad eum omnibus fecit.

[75] He showed moderation and clemency, admirable both in administration and in the victory of the civil war. While Pompey was declaring that those who had failed the republic would be treated as enemies, he himself proclaimed that men of the middle sort and of neither party would be counted among his own following. But to those to whom he had given ranks on Pompey's recommendation, he granted leave for all to transfer to him.

Motis apud Ilerdam deditionis condicionibus, cum, assiduo inter utrasque partes usu atque commercio, Afranius et Petreius deprehensos intra castra Iulianos subita paenitentia interfecissent, admissam in se perfidiam non sustinuit imitari. Acie Pharsalica proclamavit, ut civibus parceretur, deincepsque nemini non suorum quem vellet unum partis adversae servare concessit. Nec ulli perisse nisi in proelio reperientur, exceptis dum taxat Afranio et Fausto et Lucio Caesare iuvene; ac ne hos quidem voluntate ipsius interemptos putant, quorum tamen et priores post impetratam veniam rebellaverant et Caesar libertis servisque eius ferro et igni crudelem in modum enectis bestias quoque ad munus populi comparatas contrucidaverat.

With the conditions of surrender stirred up at Ilerda, when, by continual intercourse and commerce between the two sides, Afranius and Petreius, apprehended within the Julian camp, had been put to death by a sudden fit of repentance, he would not endure to imitate the perfidy shown against himself. From the Pharsalic line he proclaimed that citizens should be spared, and thereafter granted that no one of the opposite party should be saved except one of his own whom he chose to preserve. Nor do they find that any perished except in battle, save only Afranius and Faustus and the young Lucius Caesar; and they do not even reckon these as slain by his will, although the former of these, after the pardon had been granted, had rebelled, and Caesar, with his freedmen and slaves, had cruelly delivered some to sword and fire and had even slaughtered beasts prepared for the people's games.

Denique tempore extremo etiam quibus nondum ignoverat, cunctis in Italiam redire permisit magistratusque et imperia capere; sed et statuas Luci Sullae atque Pompei a plebe disiectas reposuit; ac si qua posthac aut cogitarentur gravius adversus se aut dicerentur, inhibere maluit quam vindicare. Itaque et detectas coniurationes conventusque nocturnos non ultra arguit, quam ut edicto ostenderet esse sibi notas, et acerbe loquentibus satis habuit pro contione denuntiare ne perseverarent, Aulique Caecinae criminosissimo libro et Pitholai carminibus maledicentissimis laceratam existimationem suam civili animo tulit.

Finally, at the last moment even to those whom he had not yet forgiven, he permitted all to return to Italy and to assume magistracies and commands; and he restored the statues of Lucius Sulla and of Pompey which had been thrown down by the plebs; and if anything thereafter were either thought or said more harshly against him, he preferred to forbid it rather than to vindicate it. Thus he did not pursue exposed conspiracies and nocturnal assemblies further than to show by edict that they were known to him, and to those speaking bitterly he had enough to warn in the assembly that they should not persist; and with a civil spirit he bore his reputation torn by Aulus Caecina’s most criminal book and by Pitholaus’s most slanderous poems.

[76] Praegravant tamen cetera facta dictaque eius, ut et abusus dominatione et iure caesus existimetur. Non enim honores modo nimios recepit: continuum consulatum, perpetuam dictaturam praefecturamque morum, insuper praenomen Imperatoris, cognomen Patris patriae, statuam inter reges, suggestum in orchestra; sed et ampliora etiam humano fastigio decerni sibi passus est: sedem auream in curia et pro tribunali, tensam et ferculum circensi pompa, templa, aras, simulacra iuxta deos, pulvinar, flaminem, lupercos, appellationem mensis e suo nomine; ac nullos non honores ad libidinem cepit et dedit. Tertium et quartum consulatum titulo tenus gessit contentus dictaturae potestate decretae cum consulatibus simul atque utroque anno binos consules substituit sibi in ternos novissimos menses, ita ut medio tempore comitia nulla habuerit praeter tribunorum et aedilium plebis praefectosque pro praetoribus constituerit, qui apsente se res urbanas administrarent.

[76] Yet his other deeds and sayings weigh so heavily that he is regarded as guilty of abuse of domination and struck down by law. For he did not only receive excessive honors: a continuous consulship, a perpetual dictatorship and the prefecture of morals, moreover the praenomen Imperator, the cognomen Father of the Fatherland, a statue among kings, a platform in the orchestra; but he also suffered even greater marks of human exaltation to be decreed for him: a golden seat in the curia and before the tribunal, a canopy and a ferculum in the circus procession, temples, altars, images beside the gods, a pulvinum, a flamen, Luperci, the naming of a month from his own name; and there was no honor he did not take and give at will. He held the third and fourth consulships only in title, content with the power of the dictatorship; at the decreed consulships together and in the second year he substituted the two consuls with himself for the last three months, so that in the meantime he held no elections but appointed tribunes and aediles of the plebs and prefects in place of praetors, who, with him absent, administered the urban affairs.

Pridie autem Kalendas Ianuarias repentina consulis morte cessantem honorem in paucas horas petenti dedit. Eadem licentia spreto patrio more magistratus in pluris annos ordinavit, decem praetoriis viris consularia ornamenta tribuit, civitate donatos et quosdam e semibarbaris Gallorum recepit in curiam. Praeterea monetae publicisque vectigalibus peculiares servos praeposuit.

But on the day before the Kalends of January he gave, within a few hours, the office that had lapsed through the consul’s sudden death to one seeking it. With the same license, spurning the ancestral custom, he appointed magistrates for several years; he bestowed consular ornaments on ten praetorian men, admitted into the curia those granted citizenship and certain semi-barbarian Gauls. Moreover he set peculiar slaves in charge of the mint and of the public revenues.

Trium legionum, quas Alexandreae relinquebat, curam et imperium Rufioni liberti sui filio exoleto suo demandavit.

He entrusted the care and command of the three legions, which he was leaving at Alexandria, to Rufio, the son of his freedman, his grown-up son.

[77] Nec minoris inpotentiae voces propalam edebat, ut Titus Amp[r]ius scribit: nihil esse rem publicam, appellationem modo sine corpore ac specie. Sullam nescisse litteras, qui dictaturam deposuerit. Debere homines consideratius iam loqui secum ac pro legibus habere quae dicat.

[77] Nor did he cease to utter aloud words of no less impotence, as Titus Amprius writes: that the res publica is nothing, an appellation only without body and form. That Sulla knew not letters, he who had laid down the dictatorship. That men ought now to speak more considerately among themselves and to hold as laws those things which he says.

Eoque arrogantiae progressus est, ut haruspice tristia et sine corde exta quondam nuntiante futura diceret laetiora, cum vellet; nec pro ostento ducendum, si pecudi cor defuisset.

And he advanced in arrogance to the point that, when a haruspex once announced the future from mournful, heartless entrails, he would pronounce the things to come more joyful whenever he wished; nor were they to be led about for show, if the beast’s heart had been lacking.

[78] Verum praecipuam et exitiabilem sibi invidiam hinc maxime movit. Adeuntis se cum plurimis honorificentissimisque decretis universos patres conscriptos sedens pro aede Veneris Genetricis excepit. Quidam putant retentum a Cornelio Balbo, cum conaretur assurgere; alii, ne conatum quidem omnino, sed etiam admonentem Gaium Trebatium ut assurgeret minus familiari vultu respexisse.

[78] But from this above all he stirred up for himself a chief and ruinous envy. When those approaching came, he received them, sitting before the temple of Venus Genetrix, with very many and most honourific decrees for all the patres conscripti. Some think he was held back by Cornelius Balbus when he tried to rise; others that he did not even attempt it at all, but, even as Gaius Trebatius was admonishing him to rise, he looked back with a less familiar countenance.

Idque factum eius tanto intolerabilius est visum, quod ipse triumphanti et subsellia tribunicia praetervehenti sibi unum e collegio Pontium Aquilam non assurrexisse adeo indignatus sit, ut proclamaverit: 'repete ergo a me Aquila rem publicam tribunus!' et nec destiterit per continuos dies quicquam cuiquam nisi sub exceptione polliceri: 'si tamen per Pontium Aquilam licuerit.'

And that action seemed to him all the more intolerable, because he himself, riding by in triumph and on the tribunician benches, was so offended that one of the college, Pontius Aquila, had not risen for him, that he cried out, "Then demand the republic from me, Aquila the tribune!" and he did not cease for successive days to promise anything to anyone except with the proviso, "if, however, it be permitted through Pontius Aquila."

[79] Adiecit ad tam insignem despecti senatus contumeliam multo arrogantius factum. Nam cum in sacrificio Latinarum revertente eo inter inmodicas ac novas populi acclamationes quidam e turba statuae eius coronam lauream candida fascia praeligata inposuisset et tribuni plebis Epidius Marullus Caesetiusque Flavus coronae fasciam detrahi hominemque duci in vincula iussissent, dolens seu parum prospere motam regni mentionem sive, ut ferebat, ereptam sibi gloriam recusandi, tribunos graviter increpitos potestate privavit. Neque ex eo infamiam affectati etiam regii nominis discutere valuit, quanquam et plebei regem se salutanti Caesarem se, non regem esse responderit et Lupercalibus pro rostris a consule Antonio admotum saepius capiti suo diadema reppulerit atque in Capitolium Iovi Optimo Maximo miserit.

[79] He added to the so marked affront of the senate’s contempt a deed much more arrogant. For when, returning from the Latin sacrifice, amid the excessive and novel acclamations of the people, someone from the crowd had placed upon his statue a laurel crown with a white fillet fastened about it, and the tribunes of the plebs Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavus ordered the crown’s fillet to be torn away and the man to be led in bonds, grieving either at the mention of kingship stirred too little prosperously or, as was said, at the glory snatched away and refusing it, he deprived the tribunes, who had been severely rebuked, of their power. Nor thereby could he shake off the infamy of having sought the royal name, although, when the plebeian greeted him as king he replied that he was Caesar, not king, and at the Lupercalia when a diadem was repeatedly brought near his head from the rostra by the consul Antonius he thrust it from his head and sent it up to the Capitol to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

Quin etiam varia fama percrebruit migraturum Alexandream vel Ilium, translatis simul opibus imperii exhaustaque Italia dilectibus et procuratione urbis amicis permissa, proximo autem senatu Lucium Cottam quindecimvirum sententiam dicturum, ut, quoniam fatalibus libris contineretur Parthos nisi a rege non posse vinci, Caesar rex appellaretur.

Indeed a various rumour spread further that he would migrate to Alexandria or Ilium, resources of the empire being transferred away and Italy exhausted, the levies removed and the administration of the city entrusted to friends, and that at the next senate Lucius Cotta, a quindecimvir, would pronounce the opinion that, since the fatal books contained that the Parthians could not be conquered except by a king, Caesar should be called king.

[80] Quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia, ne assentiri necesse esset. Consilia igitur dispersim antea habita et quae saepe bini ternive ceperant, in unum omnes contulerunt, ne populo quidem iam praesenti statu laeto, sed clam palamque detrectante dominationem atque assertores flagitante. Peregrinis in senatum allectis libellus propositus est: 'Bonum factum: ne quis senatori novo curiam monstrare velit!' et illa vulgo canebantur:

[80] Which cause the conspirators assigned for hastening their affairs, lest it should be necessary to assent. Accordingly the councils previously held apart and those which had often been taken in twos or threes they all brought together into one, not with the people now present in a joyful state, but with the populace secretly and openly declining the domination and clamoring for assertors. With foreigners drawn into the senate a little placard was presented: 'Well done: let no one wish to show the curia to the new senator!' and such things were being chanted commonly:

Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit, idem in curiam:
Galli bracas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt.

Caesar leads the Gauls in triumph, the same into the Curia:
The Gauls laid aside their bracas, and took up the broad clavus.

Quinto Maximo suffecto trimenstrique consule theatrum introeunte, cum lictor animadverti ex more iussisset, ab universis conclamatum est non esse eum consulem. Post remotos Caesetium et Marullum tribunos reperta sunt proximis comitiis complura suffragia consules eos declarantium. Subscripsere quidam Luci Bruti statuae: 'utinam viveres!' item ipsius Caesaris:

With Quintus Maximus having been appointed suffect and consul for a three‑month term, as he was entering the theater, when he had ordered the lictor to take note in the customary way, it was shouted by all that he was not consul. After the tribunes Caesetius and Marullus were removed, in the next comitia many votes were found declaring them consuls. Some persons inscribed on the statue of Lucius Brutus, "Would that you live!" likewise on that of Caesar:

Brutus, quia reges eiecit, consul primus factus est:
hic, quia consules eiecit, rex postremo factus est.

Brutus, because he expelled kings, was made the first consul:
this man, because he expelled consuls, was at last made king.

Conspiratum est in eum a sexaginta amplius, Gaio Cassio Marcoque et Decimo Bruto principibus conspirationis. Qui primum cunctati utrumne in Campo per comitia tribus ad suffragia vocantem partibus divisis e ponte deicerent atque exceptum trucidarent, an in Sacra via vel in aditu theatri adorirentur, postquam senatus Idibus Martiis in Pompei curiam edictus est, facile tempus et locum praetulerunt.

A conspiracy was plotted against him by more than sixty men, with Gaius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, and Decimus Brutus as the chiefs of the plot. They at first, hesitating whether, when he was calling the people to vote in the Field by the tribal comitia, to throw him from the bridge amid divided factions and, if taken, to butcher him, or to fall upon him on the Sacred Way or at the entrance of the theatre, after the senate had been summoned to Pompey’s Curia on the Ides of March, easily preferred the time and the place.

[81] Sed Caesari futura caedes evidentibus prodigiis denuntiata est. Paucos ante menses, cum in colonia Capua deducti lege Iulia coloni ad extruendas villas vetustissima sepulcra dis[s]icerent idque eo studiosius facerent, quod aliquantum vasculorum operis antiqui scrutantes reperiebant, tabula aenea in monimento, in quo dicebatur Capys conditor Capuae sepultus, inventa est conscripta litteris verbisque Graecis hac sententia: quandoque ossa Capyis detecta essent, fore ut illo prognatus manu consanguineorum necaretur magnisque mox Italiae cladibus vindicaretur. Cuius rei, ne quis fabulosam aut commenticiam putet, auctor est Cornelius Balbus, familiarissimus Caesaris.

[81] But the forthcoming slaughter was proclaimed to Caesar by manifest prodigies. A few months earlier, when colonists settled in the colony of Capua under the Julian law were breaking up very ancient tombs to erect villas — and did so the more eagerly because, rummaging among certain small vessels of ancient workmanship, they found a bronze tablet in a monument in which it was said that Capys, founder of Capua, was buried — it was discovered inscribed with letters and words in Greek with this sentence: "whenever the bones of Capys shall be uncovered, it will come to pass that a descendant sprung from him will be slain by the hand of his kinsmen and will soon avenge [himself] with great disasters for Italy." As to this matter, lest anyone think it fabulous or invented, the authority is Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's most intimate friend.

Proximis diebus equorum greges, quos in traiciendo Rubiconi flumini consecrarat ac vagos et sine custode dimiserat, comperit pertinacissime pabulo abstinere ubertimque flere. Et immolantem haruspex Spurinna monuit, caveret periculum, quod non ultra Martias Idus proferretur. Pridie autem easdem Idus avem regaliolum cum laureo ramulo Pompeianae curiae se inferentem volucres varii generis ex proximo nemore persecutae ibidem discerpserunt.

In the following days he found that the herds of horses, which he had consecrated when crossing the Rubicon river and had dismissed wandering and without a keeper, stubbornly refrained from pasture and bellowed copiously. And the sacrificing haruspex Spurinna warned him to beware of the danger, that it would not be carried beyond the Martian Ides. But on the day before those same Ides, birds of various kinds, having pursued from the nearby grove a little royal bird bearing a laurel twig as it entered the Pompeian curia, there tore it to pieces.

Ea vero nocte, cui inluxit dies caedis, et ipse sibi visus est per quietem interdum supra nubes volitare, alias cum Iove dextram iungere; et Calpurnia uxor imaginata est conlabi fastigium domus maritumque in gremio suo confodi; ac subito cubiculi fores sponte patuerunt.

On that night, on which the day of the slaughter dawned, he himself seemed to himself in sleep at times to fly above the clouds, at other times to join right hand with Jupiter; and Calpurnia his wife imagined the roof of the house to be collapsing and her husband to be stabbed in her lap; and suddenly the doors of the bedchamber opened of their own accord.

Ob haec simul et ob infirmam valitudinem diu cunctatus an se contineret et quae apud senatum proposuerat agere differret, tandem Decimo Bruto adhortante, ne frequentis ac iam dudum opperientis destitueret, quinta fere hora progressus est libellumque insidiarum indicem ab obvio quodam porrectum libellis ceteris, quos sinistra manu tenebat, quasi mox lecturus commiscuit. Dein pluribus hostiis caesis, cum litare non posset, introiit curiam spreta religione Spurinnamque irridens et ut falsum arguens, quod sine ulla sua noxa Idus Martiae adessent: quanquam is venisse quidem eas diceret, sed non praeterisse.

Because of these things and because of weak health he long hesitated whether to restrain himself and to put off what he had proposed to do before the senate; at length, Decimus Brutus exhorting him not to abandon the assembly, already numerous and long expecting him, he went forward at about the fifth hour, and mingled a little note—a list (index) of the plot, handed by a certain passer-by—with the other little papers which he held in his left hand, as if about to read them soon. Then, after many victims had been slain, since he could not perform the auspices (litare), he entered the curia, religion having been scorned, mocking Spurinna and arguing it false that the Ides of March were present without any harm to him—although that seer would say that they had come, but had not passed.

[82] Assidentem conspirati specie officii circumsteterunt, ilicoque Cimber Tillius, qui primas partes susceperat, quasi aliquid rogaturus propius accessit renventique et gestu in aliud tempus differenti ab utroque umero togam adprehendit: deinde clamantem: 'ista quidem vis est!' alter e Cascis aversum vulnerat paulum infra iugulum. Caesar Cascae brachium arreptum graphio traiecit conatusque prosilire alio vulnere tardatus est; utque animadvertit undique se strictis pugionibus peti, toga caput obvoluit, simul sinistra manu sinum ad ima crura deduxit, quo honestius caderet etiam inferiore corporis parte velata. Atque ita tribus et viginti plagis confossus est uno modo ad primum ictum gemitu sine voce edito, etsi tradiderunt quidam Marco Bruto irruenti dixisse: καὶ σὺ τέκνον; Exanimis diffugientibus cunctis aliquamdiu iacuit, donec lecticae impositum, dependente brachio, tres servoli domum rettulerunt.

[82] The conspirators, pretending duty, stood around him as he sat, and immediately Cimber Tillius, who had taken the first parts, as if to ask something, came nearer and, finding him, with a gesture delaying to another moment seized the toga from each shoulder; then, as one shouted, 'that indeed is force!' another, turning away from Casca, stabbed a little below the throat. Caesar, having seized Casca’s arm, ran a stylus through it and, slowed by another wound while trying to spring back; and when he perceived that he was being attacked on all sides with drawn daggers, he wrapped his head with his toga, and at the same time with his left hand drew the fold down to the lower legs, so that he might fall more honorably with even the lower part of his body covered. And thus, having been pierced with twenty-three blows, he in one manner at the first stroke uttered a groan without voice, though some have reported that he said to Marcus Brutus, rushing at him: καὶ σὺ τέκνον; with all the conspirators fled and lying there for a while senseless, until, put upon a litter with an arm hanging down, three slaves carried him back to the house.

Nec in tot vulneribus, ut Antistius medicus existimabat, letale ullum repertum est, nisi quod secundo loco in pectore acceperat.

Nor in so many wounds, as the physician Antistius judged, was any found to be lethal, except that which he had received in the second place in the breast.

Fuerat animus coniuratis corpus occisi in Tiberim trahere, bona publicare, acta rescindere, sed metu Marci Antoni consulis et magistri equitum Lepidi destiterunt.

The conspirators had the intent to drag the body of the slain into the Tiber, to make his goods public, to annul his acts; but they desisted through fear of Marcus Antonius, consul, and of Lepidus, master of the horse.

[83] Postulante ergo Lucio Pisone socero testamentum eius aperitur recitaturque in Antoni domo, quod Idibus Septembribus proximis in Lavicano suo fecerat demandaveratque virgini Vestali maximae. Quintus Tubero tradit heredem ab eo scribi solitum ex consulatu ipsius primo usque ad initium civilis belli Cn. Pompeium, idque militibus pro contione recitatum. Sed novissimo testamento tres instituit heredes sororum nepotes, Gaium Octavium ex dodrante, et Lucium Pinarium et Quintum Pedium ex quadrante reliquo[s]; in ima cera Gaium Octavium etiam in familiam nomenque adoptavit; plerosque percussorum in tutoribus fili, si qui sibi nasceretur, nominavit, Decimum Brutum etiam in secundis heredibus.

[83] At the request therefore of Lucius Piso his father‑in‑law his will was opened and read in Antony’s house, which he had made on the next Ides of September at his Lavican estate and had entrusted to the chief Vestal Virgin. Quintus Tubero relates that the heir Gnaeus Pompey was accustomed to be written from his first consulship up to the outbreak of the civil war, and that this was recited to the soldiers as if at an assembly. But in his latest will he appointed three heirs — the nephews, the Gaius Octavius from a dodrant, and Lucius Pinarius and Quintus Pedius from the remaining quadrans; on the lower wax tablet he even adopted Gaius Octavius into the family and the name; he named as guardians of his children most of the slain, in case any should be born to him, and he also placed Decimus Brutus among the secondary heirs.

Populo hortos circa Tiberim publice et viritim trecenos sestertios legavit.

He bequeathed to the people the gardens around the Tiber, and three hundred sestertii to be given publicly and per capita.

[84] Funere indicto rogus extructus est in Martio campo iuxta Iuliae tumulum et pro rostris aurata aedes ad simulacrum templi Veneris Genetricis collocata; intraque lectus eburneus auro ac purpura stratus et ad caput tropaeum cum veste, in qua fuerat occisus. Praeferentibus munera, quia suffecturus dies non videbatur, praeceptum, ut omisso ordine, quibus quisque vellet itineribus urbis, portaret in Campum. Inter ludos cantata sunt quaedam ad miserationem et invidiam caedis eius accommodata, ex Pacuvi Armorum iudicio:

[84] With the funeral proclaimed a pyre was raised in the Campus Martius beside Julia’s tomb, and before the rostra a gilded shrine was set up at the image of the temple of Venus Genetrix; and within an ivory couch was spread with gold and purple, and at its head a trophy with the garment in which he had been slain. With offerings borne in front, because the day did not seem likely to suffice, a command was given that, the usual order omitted, each should carry (them) into the Campus by whatever routes of the city he wished. During the games certain pieces were sung fitted to excite pity and to stir resentment at his slaughter, taken from Pacuvius’ Judgment of the Arms:

men servasse, ut essent qui me perderent?

Had they saved me, so that there should be those who would destroy me?

et ex Electra Acili ad similem sententiam. Laudationis loco consul Antonius per praeconem pronuntiavit senatus consultum, quo omnia simul ei divina atque humana decreverat, item ius iurandum, quo se cuncti pro salute unius astrinxerant; quibus perpauca a se verba addidit. Lectum pro rostris in forum magistratus et honoribus functi detulerunt.

and from Electra Acilius to a similar opinion. In place of a eulogy the consul Antonius, through a praeco, proclaimed the senatus consultum by which all things, divine and human alike, had been decreed for him, and likewise the ius iurandum by which all had bound themselves for the safety of one; to these he added very few words of his own. The magistrates, having discharged their offices and honors, carried the lectus before the rostra into the forum.

Quem cum pars in Capitolini Iovis cella cremare pars in curia Pompei destinaret, repente duo quidam gladiis succincti ac bina iacula gestantes ardentibus cereis succenderunt confestimque circumstantium turba virgulta arida et cum subselliis tribunalia, quicquid praeterea ad donum aderat, congessit. Deinde tibicines et scaenici artifices vestem, quam ex triumphorum instrumento ad praesentem usum induerant, detractam sibi atque discissam iniecere flammae et veteranorum militum legionarii arma sua, quibus exculti funus celebrabant; matronae etiam pleraeque ornamenta sua, quae gerebant, et liberorum bullas atque praetextas.

When part intended to burn him in the cella of Capitoline Jove and part in the Curia of Pompey, suddenly two certain men, girt with swords and bearing two spears, set alight burning candles and straightaway the surrounding crowd heaped up dry brushwood and, with the benches, the tribunalia, and whatever besides was at hand as a gift. Then the flute-players and stage-artificers threw into the flames the garment, which they had put on from the triumphal trappings for present use, having stripped and torn it off, and the veteran soldiers, the legionaries, their own arms, with which they, decked out, celebrated the funeral; and most matrons likewise cast in their ornaments which they wore, and the children’s bullae and praetextae.

In summo publico luctu exterarum gentium multitudo circulatim suo quaeque more lamentata est praecipueque Iudaei, qui etiam noctibus continuis bustum frequentarunt.

In the utmost public mourning the multitude of foreign nations lamented each in their own fashion in turn, and especially the Jews, who even for consecutive nights frequented the pyre.

[85] Plebs statim a funere ad domum Bruti et Cassi[i] cum facibus tetendit atque aegre repulsa obvium sibi Helvium Cinnam per errorem nominis, quasi Cornelius is esset, quem graviter pridie contionatum de Caesare requirebat, occidit caputque eius praefixum hastae circumtulit. Postea solidam columnam prope viginti pedum lapidis Numidici in foro statuit [in]scripsitque PARENTI PATRIAE. Apud eam longo tempore sacrificare, vota suscipere, controversias quasdam interposito per Caesarem iure iurando distrahere perseveravit.

[85] The mob at once from the funeral marched with torches to the house of Brutus and Cassius and, hardly driven back, met and killed Helvius Cinna by mistake of name, as if he were Cornelius, whom they had loudly demanded in the assembly the day before concerning Caesar; and they bore his head fixed to a spear about the place. Afterwards they set up in the forum a solid column of Numidian stone nearly twenty feet high and inscribed it PARENTI PATRIAE. At it they persisted for a long time in sacrificing, receiving vows, and settling certain controversies by an oath sworn with Caesar interposed.

[86] Suspicionem Caesar quibusdam suorum reliquit neque voluisse se diutius vivere neque curasse quod valitudine minus prospera uteretur, ideoque et quae religiones monerent et quae renuntiarent amici neglexisse. Sunt qui putent, confisum eum novissimo illo senatus consulto ac iure iurando etiam custodias Hispanorum cum gladiis + adinspectantium + se removisse. Alii e diverso opinantur insidias undique imminentis subire semel quam cavere [semper sollicitum maluisse.

[86] Caesar left with some of his men the suspicion that he had not wished to live longer nor had cared that he should be less favoured by health, and therefore had neglected both those rites that warn and those things that friends reported. There are those who think that, confident in that very last decree of the senate and in the oath, he even removed himself from the guards of the Spaniards with swords + watching +. Others, on the contrary, judge that he preferred once to undergo the ambushes looming on every side rather than to be always anxious to guard against them [sempre sollicitum maluisse.

Quidam dicere etiam] solitum ferunt: non tam sua quam rei publicae interesse, uti salvus esset: se iam pridem potentiae gloriaeque abunde adeptum; rem publicam, si quid sibi eveniret, neque quietam fore et aliquanto deteriore condicione civilia bella subituram.

Some even say he was wont to say: that it concerned him not so much his own safety as the res publica; that he had long since abundantly gained power and glory; and that the republic, if anything should befall him, would be neither peaceful nor would civil wars be undertaken in a somewhat worse condition.

[87] Illud plane inter omnes fere constitit, talem ei mortem paene ex sententia obtigisse. Nam et quondam, cum apud Xenophontem legisset Cyrum ultima valitudine mandasse quaedam de funere suo, aspernatus tam lentum mortis genus subitam sibi celeremque optaverat; et pridie quam occideretur, in sermone nato super cenam apud Marcum Lepidum, quisnam esset finis vitae commodissimus, repentinum inopinatumque praetulerat.

[87] That stood clear among almost all: that such a death had befallen him almost by common consent. For once, when he had read in Xenophon that Cyrus in his last sickness had committed certain things about his funeral, scorning so slow a kind of death he had wished for himself a sudden and swift one; and on the day before he was killed, in a conversation arisen over dinner at Marcus Lepidus’s, as to which end of life would be most convenient, he had preferred a sudden and unexpected one.

[88] Periit sexto et quinquagensimo aetatis anno atque in deorum numerum relatus est, non ore modo decernentium, sed et persuasione volgi. Siquidem ludis, quos primos consecrato ei heres Augustus edebat, stella crinita per septem continuos dies fulsit exoriens circa undecimam horam, creditumque est animam esse Caesaris in caelum recepti; et hac de causa simulacro eius in vertice additur stella. Curiam, in qua occisus est, obstrui placuit Idusque Martias Parricidium nominari, ac ne umquam eo die senatus ageretur.

[88] He perished in the fifty-sixth year of his age and was reckoned among the gods, not only by the mouth of those who decree but also by the persuasion of the common folk. For at the games which his heir Augustus, having consecrated him, was holding first in his honor, a hairy star (a comet) shone for seven continuous days, rising about the eleventh hour, and it was believed that the soul of Caesar had been received into heaven; and for this reason a star is added to his image on the brow. It was decreed that the Curia in which he was slain be closed, that the Ides of March be called Parricide, and that the senate never be held on that day.

[89] Percussorum autem fere neque triennio quisquam amplius supervixit neque sua morte defunctus est. Damnati omnes alius alio casu periit, pars naufragio, pars proelio; nonnulli semet eodem illo pugione, quo Caesarem violaverant, interemerunt.

[89] Of the struck, however, almost no one survived beyond three years, nor did any die a natural death. All the condemned perished, each by a different fate: some by shipwreck, some in battle; several put themselves to death with that same dagger with which they had violated Caesar.