ET TU Part Five HOMECOMING

 

I wish I could have seen at least one of the parades in the first week of September, 46 B.C..E. They lasted over four days and the spectacle must have been magnificent. Each morning the units formed up on property once owned by the last King of Rome - renamed the Field of Mars. There were cohorts of unarmed soldiers, battalions of slaves, wagons piled high with booty and treasures, and bizarre animals from distant conquered lands. 

All four parades were to exalt just one man, Julius Caesar. When all was ready each day, Caesar, dressed in his Senatorial robe (called in Latin "a candidus") edged in divine purple and with a laurel wreath atop his bald head, would climb into his chariot, and enter the usually bared Gate of Triumph.

Just inside the city walls Caesar would symbolically surrender his command to representatives of the Roman Senate and the Urban Praetir – the mayor. But if he bothered to notice each day, Caesar would have seen increasing tension on the face of one man in particular, the Praetor and Senator, Marcus Junius Brutus.

The politician Cicero described his contemporary Brutus as having “the courage of a man but the brains of a child”. You see, Brutus suffered from daddy issues. His legal father had been a first rate lawyer and a second rate politician. In 78 B.C.E. Brutus the elder had gotten involved with the Catiline Conspiracy. How much the elder Brutus actually knew of the murky plot is debatable, but he ended up in the Cisalpine city of Mutina (modern Modena), besieged by an army loyal to the Senate. The elder Brutus worked out a deal to surrender the town and switch sides. But the Senate army commander, Pompey the Great, decided he couldn't trust the elder Brutus, and had him executed. 

Thirty years later Brutus the Younger (above) took up to the sword to fight for the Senate and for his idol, Pompey - the man who had orphaned him.

The senators now led the Triumph along the Sacred Way, between cheering crowds. Behind them came the trumpeters, followed by the carts of booty, the slaves, and two white sacrificial bulls. Then came the stacks of captured arms, and then the political prisoners, the generals, kings and queens, staggering in their chains. 

And only then came Caesar, under a shower of flowers. He was over 50 now, but still handsome to Roman eyes. Behind him came the unarmed men from his legions, singing obscene soldier songs, mostly about their commander.

The widow of Brutus the Elder had become the mistress of the young Julius Caesar. Their affair was so well known in Rome that it was rumored Caesar was the younger Brutus' real father. It was an absurd claim. The year Brutus was born, Caesar was just 15. Still, the rumors refused to die, and even gained popularity after Pompey's defeat at Physallus in 48 B.C. After fighting alongside Pompey in that battle, Brutus had written Caesar a letter of apology. And amazingly, Caesar had forgiven him, even adopting him and appointing him governor of Trans-Alpine Gaul, one of Caesar's old posts.

Now, Caesars policy of magnanimity was an obvious attempt to make his one-time enemies beholden to him. But in the case of Brutus, Caesar was also trying to avoiding hurting his old girlfriend, Brutus' mother. I get the feeling this is what passed for love with Caesar, dispensing favors as a substitute for affection and intimacy. And if you were expecting more from the great man, you were certain to be disappointed. Open affection was not Caesar's style. Besides, after Pompey's death, he was pretty busy.

Once each Triumphant parade had reached the Capitoline Hill, Caesar climbed the steps to the Temple of Jupiter. Before entering he removed his laurel wreath as a sign of humility. Then, inside, he watched the two while bulls sacrificed, and their blood was smeared on his face. Then he handed over his political prisoners, such as Leader of the Gauls, Vercongetroix. In fact the big Gaul had spent the last five years held a few hundred yards away, in the prison atop Tullianum Rock. Now he was returned to the prison, lowered back into the dungeon, and tied to a post. A strung bow was slipped over his head and twisted until he was slowly strangled to death. Not all political prisoners were sacrificed during Caesar's four triumphs. On day two Cleopatra 7's younger sister, Arsinoe 4, was spared, but sent to a temple in Greece, from which she was not permitted to leave for the rest of her life.

In October 48 B.C., after learning of the death of Pompey, Caesar had taken possession of the royal palace in Alexandria, Egypt. He then destroyed the army of the Pharaoh Ptolemy 13 and his younger sister Arsinoe 4. The boy Pharoh drowned, she had been captured. Then Caesar set Cleopatra 7 on the throne, making a firm alliance with her to feed his armies and refill his purse. After a fertile diversion with Cleo, on 23 June, 47 B.C., Caesar set off on a forced march, reminiscent of his quick invasion of Spain two years earlier. Caesar crossed the Sinai, marched through Judea and Syria, and the eastern half of modern day Turkey, covering 800 miles in just 47 days. On 2 August, at Zile, Caesar crushed an army under the the rebellious King Pharnaces, and captured his Roman Senate advisor, Gaius Cassius Longinus.  So smashing was his victory, that Caesar's message informing the Senate was reduced to only three words - “veni, vidi, vici”. The translation reads, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” But in this case, Caesar proved to be slightly optimistic.

His mistake was underestimating Cassius, a smart and feisty aristocrat. Cassius had warned against the invasion of Parthia back in 53 B.C. The few legionnaires who survived the debacle of Carrhea, were saved because Cassius lead them to safety. But after his own capture in 47 B.C., when Caesar offered Cassius a command in the expedition to destroy the last of the Senates' forces in Tunisia, Cassius said no. Almost any other Roman politician would have killed Cassius for that refusal. But again, Caesar chose to be magnanimous. He even decided to risk leaving this hot head unattended, loose back in Rome.

Leaving the Temple of Jupiter, Caesar now stood at the top of the steps while Marc Anthony held the Laurel wreath over his head. The crowd cheered this ritual, meant to display the hero's rejection of an offer of Kingship. But it seemed to those with suspicious minds that on each of the four days, Caesar waited a little longer before rejecting the laurel wreath. Brutus wasn't certain he noticed such reluctance on Caesar's part. But his brother-in-law Cassius, assured Brutus that he had indeed seen it.

From the Capitaline Hill, via the Sacred Way , each Triumpate parade marched to the Circus Flaminius, adjacent to the Tiber River and Mars' Field. Here the city held amateur chariot races, and public meetings. But now long tables were set for a banquet, where thousands of average Roman citizens could feast on exotic foods from the newly conquered lands. But this had been a civil war, Roman had killed Roman, and other than the first days triumph to celebrate Caesar's conquest of Gaul (50 B.C.), the lands Caesar had recently conquered had already been Roman lands. There were many within the Senate who did not feel Caesar should have been granted a triumph for his victories over Egypt (48 B.C.), King Pharnaces (47 B.C.) nor over the Senate Armies in North Africa and Spain (46 B.C.)

But the promise of parades and free meals, and the hundreds of new Senators Caesar had appointed, had swayed the Senate to vote to approve the unprecedented four Triumphs. As the sun set on the final Triumph, as the last tipsy guest staggered off to the vomitorium, Julius Caesar was at the pinnacle of his power.

But of all men, Caesar was the most likely to have known, there was nowhere left to go from here but down.

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ET TU Four Jewel of the Nile

I don't always believe the accuracy of Roman historian Plutarch (above).  Still, Plutarch always told a good story.  His version of the death of Pompey the Great is a perfect example. According to Plutarch, after losing at Pharsalus, Pompey sought refuge in Egypt.

The general was expecting support from fourteen year old Theos Philopator -  Pharaoh of Egypt, also known as Ptolemy 13.  Interesting number, don't you think?  Pompey had loaned his father, Ptolmey 12, enough money to put down a revolt, and figured the son would feel obligated to help him.  But Ptolmey 13 was having a few problems of his own.

You see, Pompey unexpectedly ran into Ptolemy 13 was in Pelusium, the silt plagued port and fortress at the eastern edge of the Nile delta. The new Pharoh was there because he was avoiding his two sisters, both of whom were trying to kill him. It was a great confused mess, and a very bad time to arrive in Egypt seeking help. But then Pompey's timing had never been very good.

Pompey's arrival on 29 September,  48 B.C.E., presented Ptolemy 13's advisors with a bit of a conundrum. If they helped Pompey they would anger Julius Caesar, who had just defeated Pompey's army at Pharsalus. It they sent Pompey packing and he later won his civil war with Caesar, Pompey would make sure bad things happened to Ptolemy 13 and his advisers. However, there was a simple solution to this problem, and I am surprised it never occurred to Pompey. It certainly occurred to Ptolemy 13's advisers.

According to Plutarch, Ptolemy 13's advisors sent a boat out to Pompey's ships, which were anchored just outside the harbor of Pelesium.  In the boat was a Roman centurion named Lucius Septimius, who had been sent to Egypt by Pompey to reinstate Ptolemy 12.   

Septimius assured his old commander that it was safe to come ashore.  So, leaving his wife and children on board, Pompey climbed down into the boat. As they approached the shore, Pompey could see Ptolemy 13 in his sedan chair, waiting on the beach. But something did not seem right, and Pompey hesitated. Then one of Ptolemy's generals, a half Greek named Achilles, called out that the Pharaoh was very busy but could give Pompey a few minutes of his time, right now. It still smelled fishy, but Pompey really had very little choice. His crews and his family needed water, and food, and somebody who knew the coastline down to Tunisia, where he had more legions and allies...So the old fool got in the boat. Well, as they say in  Apocalypse Now, "Never get out of the fucking boat".

According to Plutarch, as the boat passed the breakwater Pompey was rehearsing his Greek greetings for the Ptolemy 13, when Septimius stabbed him in the back. They then dragged the boat ashore and then dragged the wounded Pompey up onto the sand. There they  chopped off his head   It was a cold and heartless thing to do, particularly since Pompey's wife was watching from the galley off shore. But it wasn't anything Pompey hadn't done to countless others. And that was the death of Pompey the Great, one of the most overrated generals in history, a man whose greatest sin was in believing his own press releases, which he had written.

That was one problem solved, leaving Ptolemy 13's advisers with their original problem, his sisters - in particular his elder sister. She had hired an army, and she and it were hovering out in the Sinai desert, short of food, water and money to pay her soldiers.  It  looked as if she was about to crushed by Ptolemy 13's army when, just two days later- 1 October, 48 B.C. - yet another Roman annoyance arrived off shore. This time it was Julius Caesar (above), with a single Roman legion. Dutifully, the advisers of Ptolemy 13 sent a boat out to Caesar, carrying the head of Pompey.   But if Ptolemy 13's advisers expected Caesar to thank them for eliminating his enemy, leaving them free to finish off their sororicide without further distraction, they were sadly mistaken. Oh,  Caesar did sail off from Pelusium. He just didn't didn't sail for Rome. A few days later Cesar landed in Alexandria and took over the empty royal palace.

I honestly don't know if Caesar really cried when he saw Pompey's head. He said he did. But Caesar must have known the instant he looked into those foggy dead eyes that he had won his civil war. There was more fighting to be done, of course. He would have to move on to Tunisia, to finish off Pompey's troops there. But there was no longer any need to rush. With Pompey dead the Senate aristocrats had lost their champion and rallying point. Caesar could allow their army in Tunisia to wither on the vine a little, while he took advantage of an opportunity right here in Egypt. 

Ptolemy's army at Pelusium might be blocking his sister's army from entering Egypt, but Caesar's 5,500 man force in Alexandria was sitting on the Egyptian treasury, and the gold used to pay Ptolemy 13's soldiers. To paraphrase an American Vietnam War general, grab them by their ingots and their hearts and minds will follow. Caesar now summoned both Ptolemy 13 and his sisters to Alexandria to settle their civil war. And to be honest with you, I don't think Caesar particularly cared which ones, if any of them, showed up.

It turned out they all did - Ptolemy 13 and his two sisters, Asinoe 4, and Cleopatra 7. Ptolemy 13 had the easier time getting to the Alexandria, but even Cleo made it, and she first had to slip around her brother's army and be smuggled into the palace in a rolled up carpet - if you believe Plutarch. But once she was there, Caesar was required to protect her since he had summoned her. And as Caesar was a heterosexual, he quickly fell under the spell of this extraordinary young woman.

She was 21, and he was 52. He came from a world where women were not allowed to compete with men. The only thing that had kept her head on her shoulders to this point was her brains. A modern Egyptologist described the lady this way, “Cleopatra was a mistress of disguise and costume. She could reinvent herself to suit the occasion, and I think that's a mark of the consummate politician.” 

Was she a great beauty? Plutarch, who was born a half-century after she died, wrote that she was not. But he also consulted every word written about her by people who had known her, and the consensus was that “her presence...was irresistible.... (Her) character...was something bewitching.” Wrote another Roman historian, she was “...brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime.” By all indications, the love-sated old man succumbed the very first night.

The advisers of Ptolemy 13 saw which way the perfumed wind was blowing.  They formed a secret alliance with Cleopatra's younger sister, Asinoe 4. She slipped out of Alexandria and hurried to join Ptolemy 13's army at Pelusium. But, once there she started calling herself Pharaoh, and when the commander of the Ptolemy 13's army, General Achilles, protested her use of the title. She had him killed. Well, turn about is fair play, isn't it? The army did not approve of the lady's ego trip, and offered her in trade for Ptolemy 13. For some reason Caesar accepted the deal.  But once back with his army, Ptolemy 13 and his advisers chose to lay siege to Cesar in Alexandria in December of 48 B.C.

Caesar was trapped in the city, with just one legion, and that was not enough. But he had already called for reinforcements, and when they arrived in early January of 47 B.C. they smashed Ptolemy 13's army. On 13 January  the fifteen year old Ptolemy 13 was drowned in the Nile, maybe by accident and maybe by a bribed Egyptian. But however the boy died, Cleopatra 7 was now the Pharaoh in Egypt. Caesar had Asinoe 4 placed under arrest, probably to protect her from Cleopatra – the lady had an understandably heightened sense of self preservation.

Just 8 months after Cleopatra 7 first rolled out of a carpet at the feet of Julius Caesar, on 23 June, 47 BC, she gave birth to a son. It was observed that as the boy, Ceasarian, grew, the more he resembled Caesar. This infant was one of two males who may have been Caesar's sons. The other was the child of Caesar's widowed girlfriend, Servilla. That boy, whom Caesar never officially adopted, was Marcus Junius Brutus.

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ET TU, Part One THE CURTAIN RISES

 

I believe the murder was first set in motion far from the scene of the crime -  in modern day Turkey, in a patch of desert about ten miles north of the border with Syria.  In 53 B.C.E., this spot of emptiness was called Carrhae, and in Roman history that name is synonymous with shame.  It was at Carrhae that 20,000 Legionaries died, and worse, 10,000 were captured. And even worse, it was here the greedy Marcus Licinius Crassus (above), the richest man in Rome, was killed. 

His death should not have been a great tragedy, as not many outside his immediate family had reason to mourn his demise.  But within ten years of his death, the Roman Republic would collapse, and the cause of democracy would be set back two thousand years – and all that occurred because Crassus got what he deserved. I would label all that followed his death, the horrible unintended consequences of a good thing. And one of those consequences was the murder on the Ides of March.

Crassus, the richest man in Rome, had also once been a hero. He led the right wing at the battle of Coline Gate, which made Sulla dictator of Rome.  He had defeated the slave armies of Spartacus, and lined the Appian Way with 6,000 crucified slaves. Then he had turned to running the finances of Sulla' s brutal regime. 

Now, at 60, he wanted to be a hero again.  His plan to achieve this was to invade Parthia, the empire centered upon present day Iran.  But age had not made Crassus more intellectually flexible or humble of spirit. When offered assistance from the King of Armenia, Crassus chose to keep all the plunder for himself.

So, in the spring of 53 B.C.E., at the head of seven veteran legions and 8,000 cavalry commanded by his son, Publius, Crassus crossed the Euphrates river at Zeugma, and almost immediately started making mistakes.

He hired a guide who led him deep into a treeless desert near Carrhea (above), and then vanished. And once the legions were ankle deep in sand and desperately short of water, only then did the Parthian army appear - 10,000 cavalry, mounted on horses and camels, all armed with powerful bows.

Arrows showered upon the massed legions, wounding men and sapping moral. The Roman tactical response was to form the infantry into turtles (testudos) (above), closing ranks tightly, with the center ranks marching beneath their shields, and the soldiers on the edges presenting the enemy with a moving wall. But so strong were the Parthian bows that some arrows even penetrated the turtle's shells. It went on for hours. The turtles could only march slowly and only in a straight line, under a baking desert sun. Eventually, reasoned Crassus, the Parthian bowmen would run out of arrows. But then he spotted large camel trains approaching, each dromedary carrying a fresh supply of arrows.

In desperation Publius's cavalry charged the camels, but the Parthian's proved adept at shooting while retreating - the famous Parthian shot (above), the sting in the scorpion's tail.  Publius was killed and his cavalry scattered. After that, the Parthians closed in again and the arrows continued to shower down upon the turtles. The sun continued to beat down. Eventually Crassus was forced to slowly retreat into the village of Carrhea. After a night without water, his officers forced Crassus to parlay with the Parthian commander.

The morning meeting was a disaster. The deaf Crassus perceived an insult in some Parthian translation, and moved to remount his horse. To stop him a Parthian officer grabbed the horses' bridle. A proud Roman officer pulled his gladius to defend his commander's honor, and the Parthian generals slaughtered the Roman officers, including Marcus Licinius Crassus. After that, the Parthians fell upon the leaderless legions, and effectively wiped them out. The sad survivors limped back to Antioch.

The legend is that after the slaughter, the Parthians poured molten gold into the severed head of the greedy Crassus. It sounds like a terrible waste of a precious metal, but then the war had been a terrible waste of seven irreplaceable Roman legions. But the two men in all the world who understood intuitively what a disaster Crassus' death really was for Rome, were his two greatest competitors.

The sardonic Sulla had nicknamed Gnaeus Pompeius, as Pompey the Great (above). But Sulla had meant it as a joke - whatever else he was, Sulla was a ruthless judge of character. Sent by Sulla to secure the Roman grain supplies in Sicily, the young Pompey had earned another nickname, 'the adolescent butcher'. When the citizens of one small Sicilian village argued his attack upon them was illegal, Pompey responded bluntly, “Stop quoting laws. We carry weapons!” He then slaughtered the entire village  Returning home, Pompey demanded a triumphal parade, usually reserved for great military victories. After Sulla's death, the Senate dispatched Pompey to crush a rebellious general. Pompey bribed one of the rebel officers to kill the general, and then eliminated the traitor. His justification was typically blunt. “A dead man cannot bite”. And he claimed another triumph. Sent to crush pirates who were raiding Roman grain fleets, Pompey bought them off, and again, claimed yet another triumph - Pompey Maximus, indeed.

As the two richest and most ambitious men in Rome, Pompey and Crassus had initially cooperated to strengthen the tribunes. This was not out of some faith in the Senate, but to use the tribunes as a buffer between them. For four hundred years these 'Tribunes of the Plebs' had been a counter-balance to the aristocrats in the Senate. Elected by the whole male population, tribunes could not make laws, but they could veto any law passed by the Senate (above), and lead soldiers in battle. Sulla had reduced the tribunes to a ceremonial post. But Pompey and Crassus, increasingly driven apart by suspicion, paranoia and envy, used the tribunes to enact their policies. And one of the men supported by Crassus for tribune of the people was Gaius Julius Caesar.

Sulla had taken one look at the smart, ambitious young Caesar (above), and marked him down for elimination. Julius avoided Sulla's assassins by joining the army. Once Sulla died, Julius returned to Rome, where Crassus backed his election as a Tribune and then sent him to Spain. While there Caesar had defeated two small tribes. This earned him the right to a triumph. Instead, Caesar asked Crassus for help, meaning money, to run for Consul of Rome.

A Consulship was the executive position in the Republic, the equivalent of an American President. But Romans were so afraid of someone wanting to rule over them as a  king, that the term of office was just one year long, and there were two equal consuls elected each year. Each had the power of veto over any action by the other. This was a system designed to ensure deadlock.  As a result of the election of 60 B.C., Caesar (Crassus' man) was elected. But the other consul elected that year, Marcus Bibulus, was Pompey's man.  Every law Crassus backed, Bibulus vetoed, ever law Pompey pushed, Caesar vetoed. And it was Caesar’s political genius that he saw the way to use this deadlock to increase his own power.

In 59 B.C., Caesar pushed for a law Pompey had long supported, a land reform act that would give farms to Pompey's veterans. Bibulus, who was an aristocrat and a land owner, tried to veto Caesar’s bill, but thugs hired by Caesar drove Bibulus out of the forum, and even dumped a dung bucket on Bilbulus's head. Caesar’s bill passed. Then through flattery, Caesar convinced Pompey to endorse  the new law, and saw he got credit when it proved popular. That quickly everything in Rome was changed, from a deadlocked confrontation between two men, into a more balanced government ruled by three - The First Triumvirate. In exchange for his work bringing peace between Crassus and Pompey, Caesar was appointed Governor for ten years of Trans-alpine Gaul, what today is France.

Thus the Romans divided their known world between these three men. Caesar, the weakest, went west, to conquer and plunder Gaul with four legions. Pompey, who saw himself as a great general, stayed in Rome, without legions, to guard and plunder the Republic. And the financier Crassus had turned eastward, to conquer and plunder Parthia with seven legions. But in 53 B.C.E. Crassus had gotten himself killed, and the Roman Republic, carefully crafted over 400 years to exist as a balance between opposing forces, was abruptly reduced to a confrontation between two men. It was a contest which must result in the death of one of them.  In fact, it killed both.

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