Caesar and Christ (Story of Civilization, #3)

by Will Durant

The study of antiquity is properly accounted worthless except as it may be made living drama, or illuminate our contemporary life. The rise of Rome from a crossroads town to world mastery, its achievement of two centuries of security and peace from the Crimea to Gibraltar and from the Euphrates to Hadrian’s Wall, its spread of classic civilization over the Mediterranean and western European world, its struggle to preserve its ordered realm from a surrounding sea of barbarism, its long, slow crumbling and final catastrophic collapse into darkness and chaos—this is surely the greatest drama ever played by man; unless it be that other drama which began when Caesar and Christ stood face to face in Pilate’s court, and continued until a handful of hunted Christians had grown by time and patience, and through persecution and terror, to be first the allies, then

the masters, and at last the heirs, of the greatest empire in history.

Lowest of all were the slaves.

Contentment is as rare among men as it is natural among animals, and no form of government has ever satisfied its subjects.

Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.

Probably it was the rich merchants, rather than the aristocratic landowners, who provided the funds for those armies and navies which transformed Carthage from a trading post into an empire.

The Carthaginians were Semites, akin in blood and features to the ancient Jews.

It was the conquest of Sicily by this army, and the closing of the western Mediterranean to Roman commerce by this navy, that brought on the century-long duel to the death known to us as the three Punic Wars.

Carthage was now to be all but destroyed by its own greed.

Faced with this second threat in seven years to the very life of Rome, the Senate mobilized all its resources and called upon the states of Italy to unite in the defense of their land. With their help Rome raised armies totaling 300,000 foot, 14,000 horse, and 456,000 reserves.

Hannibal now controlled all northern Italy, but he knew that he was still outnumbered ten to one by a resolute foe. His only hope lay in persuading at least some of the Italian states to revolt against Rome. He released all prisoners whom he had taken from Rome’s allies, saying that he had come not to fight Italy but to set it free.

The Romans had 80,000 infantry, 6000 cavalry; Hannibal had 19,000 veterans, 16,000 unreliable Gauls, 10,000 horse;

Hannibal lost 6000 men, two thirds of them Gauls. It was a supreme example of generalship, never bettered in history. It ended the days of Roman reliance upon infantry, and set the lines of military tactics for two thousand years.

Charms or incantations were used to avert accidents, cure disease, bring rain, destroy a hostile army, wither an enemy’s crops or himself.

Mars, at first a god of tillage,

Liber (god of the grape);

Poseidon was identified with Neptune, Artemis with Diana, Hephaestus with Vulcan, Heracles with Hercules, Hades with Pluto, Hermes with Mercury.

If the official worship was gloomy and severe, its festivals redeemed it, and showed men and gods in a lighter mood. The year was adorned with over a hundred holy days

Men married early—usually by twenty; not through romantic love but for the sound purposes of having a helpmate, useful children, and a healthy sexual life.

Nevertheless, the prestige of the Senate was higher than ever before. It had brought Rome successfully through two Punic Wars and three Macedonian Wars; it had challenged and overcome all of Rome’s rivals, had won the subservient friendship of Egypt, and had captured so much of the world’s wealth that in 146 Italy was freed from direct taxation.

The principle of democracy is freedom, the principle of war is discipline; each requires the absence of the other. War demands superior intelligence and courage, quick decisions, united action, immediate obedience; the frequency of war doomed democracy.

The Greek conquest of Rome took the form of sending Greek religion and comedy to the Roman plebs; Greek morals, philosophy, and art to the upper classes.

Greek culture triumphed in the rise of Constantinople as first the rival and then the successor of Rome; and when Constantinople fell, Greek literature, philosophy, and art reconquered Italy and Europe in the Renaissance.

slaves, became tutors in Roman families;

In Rome, as in Athens, plays were presented to the public by state officials as partial celebration of a religious festival

The best feature of the Roman stage was the acting. The leading part was usually played by the manager, a freeman; the other performers were mostly Greek slaves. Any citizen who became an actor forfeited his civic rights—a custom that lasted till Voltaire. Female parts were taken by men. As audiences were small, actors in this age did not wear masks, but contented themselves with paint and wigs. About 100 B.C.., as audiences grew larger, the mask became necessary to distinguish the characters; it was called persona, apparently from the Etruscan word for mask, phersu; and the parts were called dramatis personae—masks of the play.

In the city all domestic service, many handicrafts, most trade, much banking, nearly all factory labor, and labor on public works, were performed by slaves, reducing the wages of free workers to a point where it was almost as profitable to be idle as to toil.

slaves were preferred because they were not subject to military service, and their number could be maintained, generation after generation, as a by-product of their only pleasure or their master’s vice.

The next act of the revolution came not from the free but from the slave. Lentulus Batiates kept at Capua a school of gladiators—slaves or condemned criminals trained to fight animals, or one another, to the death in public arenas or private homes. Two hundred of them tried to escape; seventy-eight succeeded, armed themselves, occupied a slope of Vesuvius, and raided the adjoining towns for food (73). As their leader they chose a Thracian, Spartacus, “a man not only of high spirit and bravery,” says Plutarch, “but also in understanding and gentleness superior to his condition.”

He issued a call to the slaves of Italy to rise in revolt; soon he had 70,000 men, hungering for liberty and revenge. He taught them to manufacture their own weapons, and to fight with such order and discipline that for years they outmatched every force sent to subdue them. His victories filled the rich men of Italy with fear, and its slaves with hope; so many of these tried to join him that after raising his army to 120,000 he refused further recruits, finding it difficult to care for them. He marched his horde toward the Alps, “intending, when he had passed them, that every man should go to his own home.”32 But his followers did not share these refined and pacific sentiments; revolting against his leadership, they began to loot the towns of northern Italy.

The Senate now sent both consuls, with heavy forces, against the rebels. One army met a detachment that had seceded from Spartacus, and slaughtered it; the other attacked the main rebel body, and was defeated. Moving again toward the Alps, Spartacus encountered a third army, led by Cassius, and decimated it; but find...

Half the slaves of Italy were on the verge of insurrection, and in the capital no man could tell when the revolution would break out in his very home. All that opulent society, which had enjoyed every luxury slavery could produce, trembled at the thought of losing everything—mastery, property, life. Senators and millionaires cried out for a better general; few offered themselves, for all feared this strange new foe. At last Crassus came forward and was given the comma...

Knowing that he had an empire against him, and that his men could never administer either the Empire or the capital, Spartacus passed Rome by and continued south to Thurii, marching the length of Italy in the hope of transporting his men to Sicily or Africa. For a third year he fought off all attacks. But again his impatient soldiers rejected his authority and began to ravage the neighboring towns. Crassus came upon a horde of these marauders and slew them, 12,300 in number, every man fighting to the last. Meanwhile Pompey’s legions, returning from Spain, were sent to swell the forces of Crassu...

Two centurions fell by his hand; struck down and unable to rise, he continued the fight on his knees; at last he was so cut to pieces that his body could not later be identified. The great majority of his followers perished with him; some fled, and became hunted men in the woods of Italy; 6000 captives were crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome (71). There their rotting b...

CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR traced his pedigree to lulus Ascanius, son of Aeneas, son of Venus, daughter of Jupiter: he began and ended as a god.

He would continue these habits in his campaigns, dallying with Cleopatra in Egypt,

On January 10, 49, he led one legion across the Rubicon, a small stream, near Ariminum, that marked the southern boundary of Cisalpine Gaul. lacta est alea, he is reported to have said—“the die is cast.”

Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek by origin, and more probably blonde than brunette.45 She was not particularly beautiful; but the grace of her carriage, the vivacity of her body and her mind, the variety of her accomplishments, the suavity of her manners, the very melody of her voice, combined with her royal position to make her a heady wine even for a Roman general.

She was acquainted with Greek history, literature, and philosophy; she spoke Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, and allegedly other languages, well; she added the intellectual fascination of an Aspasia to the seductive abandon of a completely uninhibited woman.

She saw that Egypt could no longer be independent of Rome and knew no reason why she should not dominate their union.

It is hard to understand why Caesar remained nine months in Alexandria while hostile armies were being organized against him near Utica, and while Rome, stirred to radical revolt by Caelius and Milo, longed for his fine administrative hand. Perhaps he felt that he deserved a little rest and play after ten years of war. He “often feasted with Cleopatra till daybreak,”

Caesar alone, therefore, though prematurely old at fifty-five, set himself with Roman energy to remake the Roman state.

When, in 44, his dictatorship for ten years was extended for life, he did not much exaggerate the difference, though he could hardly foresee that in five months he would be dead.

The most resented of his undertakings was to make the freemen of Italy equal citizens with those of Rome, and the provinces ultimately

equal with Italy.

Brutus was needed as the front of the conspiracy, for he had won a wide reputation as the most virtuous of men. He was supposedly descended from the Brutus who had expelled the kings 464 years before. His mother Servilia was Cato’s half sister; his wife Portia was Cato’s daughter and the widow of Caesar’s enemy Bibulus. “It was thought,” says Appian, “that Brutus was Caesar’s son, as Caesar was the lover of Servilia about the time of Brutus’ birth”;62 Plutarch adds that Caesar believed Brutus to be his son.63 Possibly Brutus himself shared this opinion, and hated the dictator for having seduced his mother and made him, in the gossip of Rome, a bastard instead of a Brutus.

Meanwhile it was whispered among the patricians that at the next meeting of the Senate, on March 15, Lucius Cotta would move that Caesar be made king, on the ground that according to the Sibylline oracle the Parthians would be conquered only by a king.67 A Senate half filled with Caesar’s appointees, said Cassius, would pass the measure, and all hope of restoring the Republic would be lost.

Brutus yielded, and the conspirators then made definite plans. Portia drew the secret from her husband by stabbing her thigh to show that no physical injury could make her speak against her will. In a moment of unprophetic sentiment Brutus insisted that Antony should be spared. On the evening of March 14, to a gathering at his home, Caesar proposed as topic of conversation, “What is the best death?” His own answer was, “A sudden one.” The next morning his wife begged him not to go to the Senate, saying that she had dreamed of seeing him covered with blood.

“But they have not passed,” answered Spurinna. While Caesar was offering the usual presession sacrifice before Pompey’s theater, where the Senate was to meet, a tablet informing him of the conspiracy was put into his hands. He ignored it, and tradition says that it was found in his hand after his death.VI

When Caesar entered the theater and took his seat, the “Liberators” flung themselves upon him without delay. “Some have written,” reports Suetonius, “that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him he said, in Greek, kai su teknon—‘You, too, my child?’ ”69 When Brutus struck him, says Appian, Caesar ended all resistance; drawing his robe over his face and head, he submitted to the blows and fell at the foot of Pompey’s statue.70 One wish had been granted to the most complete man that antiquity produced.