Florus

“ Antony, enraged that Octavius was preferred before him, raised a desperate war to set aside the adoption of the spirited young man. Seeing that he was but a tender youth, under eighteen years of age, and therefore a fit and proper subject, as he thought, for any ill-usage, while he himself was of high dignity from his long service with Caesar, he proceeded to dismember his inheritance by clandestine acts of injustice, to attack him personally with opprobrious language, and to hinder, by all imaginable artifices, his co-optation into the Julian family. ”

“ In the consulship of Mark Antony and Publius Dolabella, when Fortune was proceeding to transfer the empire to the Caesars, there arose various and manifold convulsions in the state; and, as it happens in the annual revolution of the heavens, that the constellations by their motions occasion thunder, and make known their change of place by change of weather, so, in the change of condition in the Roman government, that is, of the whole human race, the body of the empire was shaken throughout, and distracted with all kinds of perils, and civil wars both by land and sea. ”

“ Ocriculum and Grumentum, Fesulae and Carseoli, Reate, Nuceria, and Picentia, were laid waste with slaughter, fire, and sword. The forces of Rutilius, the forces of Caepio, were alike defeated. Julius Caesar himself, having lost his army, and being brought back to Rome covered with blood, passed through the city a wretched corpse. But the great good fortune of the Roman people, always more remarkable in adversity than prosperity, rose again in all its might. ”

“ Marius then returned from Africa, the greater for his misfortunes; for the report of his imprisonment, chains, flight, and exile, had surrounded his dignity with a certain awe. At the name of so great a man people flocked together from all parts; slaves, (a disgraceful proceeding,) and persons condemned to the prisons, were armed in his cause; and the unhappy general easily found an army. Claiming by force, therefore, a restoration to his country from which he had by force been expelled, he might seem to have acted with justice, had he not stained his cause with cruelty. ”

“ He was, besides, called Father of his country, and Perpetual Dictator; and at last, whether with his own consent is doubtful, the ensigns of royalty were offered him on the Rostra by the consul Antony.
But all these honours were but as decorations laid on a victim doomed to die. The envy of others overcame the clemency of the ruler, and his very power of conferring benefits was insupportable to the free. Nor was long delay granted him, before Brutus and Cassius, and others of the nobility, conspired to put him to death. How great is the power of fate! ”

“ In Egypt, indeed, a war arose against Caesar without the influence of Roman faction. Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, having committed the crowning atrocity of the civil war, and assured himself of the friendship of Caesar by means of Pompey's head, but Fortune, at the same time, demanding vengeance for the manes of so great a man, an opportunity for her purpose was not long wanting. Cleopatra, the king's sister, falling at the feet of Caesar, intreated that a part of the kingdom might be restored to her. ”

“ Whether I should call it a war with foreign enemies, or a civil war, I do not know, as it was one which Lusitanians and Celtiberians carried on under the conduct of a Roman. Sertorius, a man of great but unsuccessful ability, becoming an exile and fugitive from that fatal proscription, disturned sea and land in consequence of his ill-treatment; and, trying his fortune, at one time in Africa, and at another in the Balearic isles, and being driven over the Ocean, [23] went as far as the fortunate Islands, and at length armed Spain. A brave man easily unites himself with brave men ”

“ At a subsequent period, when the forces of the empire were engaged in different parts of the world, who would believe that Sicily was much more cruelly devastated by a war with slaves than in that with the Carthaginians? This country, fruitful in corn, and, in a manner, a suburban province, was covered with large estates of many Roman citizens; and the numerous slave-houses, and fettered tillers of the ground, supplied enough force for a war. ”

“ In Spain, a doubtful, varied, and bloody contest awaited Caesar with Petreius and Afranius, the generals of Pompey, whom, when they were lying encamped at Ilerda, near the river Sicoris, he attempted to besiege, and to cut them off from the town. In the mean time, by an overflow of the river in the spring, he himself was prevented from getting provisions. Thus his camp was assailed by famine, and the besieger was himself in a manner besieged. But when the river subsided, it left the plains free for devastation and contest. ”

“ It was carried on, if I may use the expression, under three constellations, [15] the first movement being light and moderate, an affray rather than a war, for the violence prevailed only between the leaders themselves; in the next rising, the victory spread with greater cruelty and bloodshed, through the very bowels of the whole senate; the third conflict exceeded not merely animosity between citizens, but that between enemies, the fury of the war being supported by the strength of all Italy, and rancour raging till none remained to be killed. ”

“ Vengeance for Caesar was thus delayed rather than smothered. The government being regulated, therefore, rather as it was possible than as it was requisite, by the Triumviri, and Lepidus being left to guard the city, Caesar, accompanied by Antony, prepared for a war against Cassius and Brutus, who, having collected a vast force, had taken post on the same ground that had been fatal to Cnaeus Pompey. But evident omens of destined calamity were observed on this occasion. Birds, accustomed to feed on dead bodies, flew around the camp as if it were already their own. ”

“ But now the power of Caesar was an object of jealousy to Pompey, and the eminence of Pompey was offensive to Caesar. The one could not bear an equal nor the other a superior. Sad to relate, they struggled for mastery, as if the resources of so great an empire would not suffice for two. Accordingly, in the consulship of Lentulus and Marcellus, their first bond of union being broken, the senate, that is, Pompey, began to think of a successor to Caesar in the consulate ”

“ His countrymen, therefore, being not ungrateful, all kinds of honours were conferred on him as the sole governor of the state; as statues in the temples, a radiant crown to wear in the theatre, a raised seat in the senate-house, a cupola on his own house, and a month in the heavens. ”

“ For what was more just, than that the commons should have their full rights from the senate, that a people who had conquered all other nations, and was master of the world, might not live without altars and hearths of their own? ”

“ But Domnes, pursued on all sides by the incensed army, made some atonement to Caesar while he still survived, not only by his sword, but a burning pyre, on which, when wounded, he cast himself.
33 In the west, almost all Spain was subdued, except that part which the Hither Ocean [86] washes, and which lies close upon the rocks at the extremity of the Pyrenees. Here two very powerful nations, the Catabrians and Asturians, lay exempt from the dominion of the Romans. The spirit of the Cantabrians was the more mischievous, more haughty, and more obstinate in raising war ”

“ The complexion of the men [90] showed that they came from another climate. The Parthians, also, as if they repented of their victory, brought back, of their own accord, the standards which they had taken on the overthrow of Crassus.
Thus there was everywhere, throughout the whole world, uniform and uninterrupted [91] peace or agreement; [92] and Caesar Augustus, in the seven hundredth year from the foundation of the city, ventured to shut the temple of double-faced Janus, which had been shut twice before, in the reign of Numa, and when Carthage was first conquered. ”

“ But the war raised by the efforts of Spartacus I know not what name to call, for the soldiers in it were slaves, and the commanders gladiators; the former being persons of the meanest condition, and the latter men of the worst character, and adding to the calamity of their profession by its contempibleness. ”

“ But as if there had hitherto been no fighting war, and the party of Pompey, arose again; and Spain exceeded Africa in the struggle as much as Africa had exceeded Thessaly. What now attracted great regard to the party, was, that the two generals were brothers, and that two Pompeys had appeared instead of one. Never, therefore, were there fiercer encounters, or with such dubious success. First of all, Varus and Didius, the lieutenant-generals, engaged at the very mouth of the Ocean. [45] But their vessels had a harder contest with the sea, than with one another. ”

“ The Roman state could not withstand so powerful an enemy as Sertorius by means of one general only. To Metellus was joined Cnaeus Pompey: and these two wasted his forces for a long time, though always with doubtful success; nor was he at last subdued in the field, until he was betrayed by the villainy and treachery of those about him. Having pursued his forces through almost all Spain, they were long in reducing them, the contests being always such that victory was dubious. The first battles were fought under the command of the lieutenant-generals ”

“ Saxa, Antony's lieutenant-general, owed it to his sword that he did not fall into their hands. At length, Syria being taken from us, the evil extended itself more widely, as the enemy, under pretence of aiding others, were conquering for themselves, and would have continue to conquer, had not Ventidius, also a lieutenant-general of Antony, overthrown, with incredible good fortune, not only the forces of Labienus, but Pacorus himself, and all the Parthian cavalry, along the whole plain betwen the Orontes and Euphrates. ”

“ But Lutatius Catulus and Cnaeus Pompey, the captains and ringleaders under Sylla's tyranny, had previously occupied the Milvian bridge, and the Janiculan hill, with another army. Being repulsed by these generals in the first encounter, and afterwards declared an enemy by the senate, he fled back, without loss, to Etruria, and thence retired to Sardinia, where he died of disease and sorrow of mind. The conquerors, which was scarcely ever the case in the civil wars, were content with re-establishing peace. ”

“ Fortune, however, in Illyricum and Africa, made some attempt against him in his absence, as if on purpose that his successed might be made more striking by something unfavourable. For when Dolabella and Antony, who were ordered to secure the entrance to the Adriatic, had pitched their camps, the former on the Illyrian, the latter on the Curictian shore, [34] at a time when Pompey was master of a vast extent of sea, Octavius Libo, Pompey's lieutenant-general, suddenly surrounded both of them with a large force from the fleet. Famine forced Antony to surrender. ”

“ Juba, habing betaken himself to his palace, and having banqueted sumptuously on the following day with Petreius the companion of his flight, offered himself, at table, in the midst of their cups, to be killed by his hand. Petreius slew both Juba and himself, and the half-consumed meats, and funeral dishes, [44] were mixed with the blood of a king and a Roman. Cato was not at the battle, but, having pitched his camp on the Bagrada, guarded Utica, as a second barrier of Africa. As a second barrier of Afrca] Velut altera Africae claustra. ”

“ Caesar, desiring that Cleopatra should be reinstated in power, was immediately beset in the palace by the same persons that had assassinated Pompey; but with wonderful bravery, though only with a small body of troops, he withstood the efforts of a numerous army. ”

“ But because he knew that Caesar, his father, had twice made bridges over the Rhine to prosecute the war against the country, he was desirous, in honour of him, to make it a province, and it would have been made so effectually, if the barbarians could have endured our vices as well as our government. ”

“ Nevertheless, the allies did not, on that account, cease to demand, by force of arms, the performance of Drusus's promise from the Roman people.
6 CHAP. XVIII. THE WAR WITH THE ALLIES. Though this war be called a war with the allies, to extenuate the odium of it, it was, if we acknowledge the truth, a civil war. For as the people of Rome united in itself the Etrurians, the Latins, and the Sabines, and derives one blood from them all, it formed one body of those several members, and is one people composed of them all. ”

“ Under the term sons-in-law Florus comprehends Pompey and Faustus Sylla. Caesar had learned from Pompey to dread a son-in-law, and he now dreaded Faustus Sylla, who, as florus appears to think, was his grandson-in-law, by having married Pompey's daughter. But on this point Florus, as Graevius remarks, is in error, for Julia, Caesar's daughter, died childless; and Faustus Sylla's marriage with a daughter of Pompey by another wife did not at all connect him with Caesar. To the word patruelibus no critic has professed to give a satisfactory sense ”

“ Pompey being driven off and put to flight, Caesar thought it better to regulate the provinces before proceedings to pursue him. Sicily and Sardinia, to be assured of corn, he secured by means of his lieutenant-generals. In Gaul there were no remains of hostility; for he himelf had established peace in it. But Marseilles, when he wished to pass through it on his way to the Spanish armies of Pompey, ventured to shut her gates against him. The unhappy city, desirous of peace, fell into a war through fear of war. ”