Cæsarea

“ Two routes lead from Angora to Cæsarea. One crosses the Halys near the village of Kara Keni, from whence it ascends the river along its right bank to the little town of Mandjour, where its two principal affluents unite. Then crossing the eastern affluent, between the villages of Tchalik and Ambar, the route leads to the foot of Mount Argea towards Cæsarea. The other road borders the eastern plateau of Asia Minor; and ascending the Halys along its right bank, passes the eastern affluent of this river above Mandjour; from here the route goes to Cæsarea, across a vast plain destitute of trees. ”

“ The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall, flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses, streets, and court-yards. Cæsarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed its prosperity principally to Herod. ”

“ From the gate, which is still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west, and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of Cæsarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to eighteen feet in height. ”

“ They should reach thee a little later than this messenger. However, it is Cæsar's pain to inform thee that the Greek Amaryllis as well as the actress Salome were not to be found. Julian of Ephesus, who named the woman for us, is here at Cæsarea, but being a Roman citizen, is not a captive. However it shall be seen to that his liberty is sufficiently curtailed for the welfare of the public. Also, I send herewith a shittim-wood casket found with John of Gischala when he was captured in a cavern under Jerusalem. ”

“ The Cæsarean system, whenever it obtains [614] sway, gives glory, and grandeur, and brilliancy to society, but also leads to anarchy and incurable weakness.
Roman civilization was overthrown by pastoral nations: in the East, by the Arabs and Turks; in the West, by the Germans. Cæsarean France easily obtained the ascendancy over Italy, Austria, and Spain, because, already initiated into Cæsarism by Roman law, they offered but slight resistance. ”

“ THE GOVERNMENT OF CAESAR.—Caesar made the Senate an advisory body. He increased the number of senators, bringing in provincials as well as Roman citizens. He gave full citizenship to all the Transpadane Gauls, and to numerous communities in Transalpine Gaul, in Spain, and elsewhere. He established a wide-spread colonization, thus planting his veterans in different places abroad, and lessening the number of proletarians in Italy. He rebuilt Carthage and Corinth. He re-organized the army, and the civil administration in the provinces. ”

“ Here and there, too, stood great Cæsar, never to be forgotten for his godlike clemency in snatching the sculptors from terrible death.
As the second century of the exile dawned upon the little Roman Kingdom, far away beneath the Southern skies, at the very moment when the colony was waxing strong and vigorous a strange and mysterious thing happened to the dwellers in this island home of sweet content.
No more male children were born! ”

“ Cæsar it was who provided their daily food, Cæsar who provided their pleasures and relaxations. He chartered the fleets which brought grain to the Tiber—he bespoke the Sardinian granaries whilst yet unformed—and the harvests of the Nile whilst yet unsown. Not the connection between a mother and her unborn infant is more intimate and vital, than that which subsisted between the mighty populace of the Roman capital and their paternal emperor. ”

“ Detained until the end of summer on the Morini shore, Cæsar set sail one night about the third watch, and by the fourth hour of day had sight of the Island. The Britons awaited him on the beach. But neither their arrows of hard wood nor their scythed chariots, nor their long-haired horses trained to swim in the sea among the shoals, nor their countenances made terrible with paint gave check to the Romans. The Eagle surrounded by legionaries touched the soil of the barbarians' Island. The Britons fled beneath a shower of stone and lead hurled from machines which they believed to be monsters. ”

“ THIRD BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.—CÆSAR SUBDUES THE WESTERN TRIBES OF GAUL.—B.C. 56. In the first few lines of the third book we learn that Cæsar had an eye not only for conquest, but for the advantages of conquest also. When he went into Italy at the end of the last campaign, he sent one Galba, whose descendant became emperor after Nero, with the twelfth legion, to take up his winter quarters in the upper valley of the Rhone, in order that an easier traffic might be opened to traders passing over the Alps in and out of Northern Italy. ”

“ This land was Britain. When the Saxon boats touched its coast the island was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In the fifty-fifth year before Christ a descent of Julius Cæsar revealed it to the Roman world; and a century after Cæsar's landing the Emperor Claudius undertook its conquest. The work was swiftly carried out. Before thirty years were over the bulk of the island had passed beneath the Roman sway and the Roman frontier had been carried to the Firths of Forth and of Clyde. The work of civilization followed fast on the work of the sword. ”

“ The Career of Cæsar ONE
Gaius Julius Cæsar was born in 100 B. C. of old patrician stock. In youth he received from Greek masters the elements of their culture, including astronomy, philosophy, and rhetoric. To complete his oratorical studies he sailed for Rhodes, but on the way was taken captive by pirates and held for ransom. This mishap would have subjected him to ridicule, had he not, on his release, manned a ship and punished his captors. Returning to Rome, he entered politics, the most ambitious career open to fashionable young men. ”

“ So placed, he had all the world at his back to feed him. Not only could he get at that wealth of stores which he had amassed at Dyrrachium, and which were safe from Cæsar, but the coasts of Greece, and Asia, and Egypt were open to his ships. Two things only were wanting to him,—sufficient grass for his horses, and water. But all things were wanting to Cæsar,—except grass and water. The Illyrian country at his back was one so unproductive, being rough and mountainous, that the inhabitants themselves were in ordinary times fed upon imported corn. ”

“ Cæsar's were—the remainder of Spain, the neighborhood of Tarraco and Lusitania, all Gauls (the Narbonensian and the Lugdunensian, the Aquitani and the Belgæ) , both themselves and the aliens among them. Some of the Celtae whom we call Germani had occupied all the Belgic territory near the Rhine and caused it to be called Germania, the upper part extending to the sources of the river and the lower part reaching to the Ocean of Britain. These provinces, then, and the so-called Hollow Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia, Cyprus and the Egyptians, fell at that time to Cæsar's share. ”

“ Cæsar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to Africa, which the friends of the old republic had made their last chief rallying-place. At the great battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) they were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to out-live the republic, took his own life.
Cæsar's Triumph.—Cæsar was now virtually lord of the Roman world. Although he refrained from assuming the title of king, no Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, or surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. ”

“ But there comes to his help a barbarian ally,—a certain Mithridates of Pergamus, a putative son of the great Mithridates of Pontus. Mithridates brings an army to Cæsar's rescue, and does rescue him. A great battle is fought on the Nile,—a battle which would have been impossible to Cæsar had not Mithridates come to his aid,—and the Egyptians are utterly dispersed. Young Ptolemy is drowned; Cleopatra is settled on her throne; and Egypt becomes subject to Cæsar. Then Cæsar hurries into Asia, finding it necessary to quell the arrogance of a barbarian who had dared to defeat a Roman general. ”

“ Surely no man was ever so worked; for the doctrine of the division of labour did not prevail then in great affairs as it does now. Cæsar was not only a general; he was also an engineer, an astronomer, an orator, a poet, a high priest—to whom, as such, though himself, as we are told, a disbeliever in the gods of Olympus, the intricate and complicated system of Roman worship was a necessary knowledge. ”

“ Not even Julius Cæsar, the greatest man in Roman history, has a place in maritime records; unless, when crossing the Adriatic in a fishing-boat during a storm, his memorable words of encouragement to the fisherman, "Fear nothing! you carry Cæsar and his fortunes!" are sufficient to connect him [93] with the sea. Neither Pompey, nor Sylla, nor Augustus, nor Nero, nor Titus, nor Constantine, nor Theodosius, nor Attila, can claim part or lot in the dominion of man over the ocean. And so we glide rapidly over five centuries. ”

“ Laura presented Cæsar and the Abbé Preciozi to the Countess Brenda and to a lady who had just arrived from Malta.
“Did you know Rome before?” the Countess asked Cæsar in French.
“No.”
“And how does it strike you?”
“My opinion is of no value,” said Cæsar. “I am not an artist. Imagine; my specialty is financial questions. Up to the present what has given me the greatest shock is to find that Rome has walls.” ”

“ Me, whom Cæsar holds most dear, and Sicily and Africa without which he cannot hold Rome and Italy, Cæsar has intrusted to your honour. There are some who advise you to desert me,—for what can be more desirable to such men than that they at the same time should circumvent me, and fasten upon you a foul crime?... But you,—have you not heard of the things done by Cæsar in Spain,—two armies beaten, two generals conquered, two provinces gained, and all this done in forty days from that on which Cæsar first saw his enemy? ”

“ Men who are in such a position are urged on to act by a very sad necessity, from which they cannot escape, and such was the position of Cæsar at Rome.
In our European States, men have wide and extensive spheres in which they can act and move. The much-decried system of centralization has indeed many disadvantages; but it has this advantage for the ruler, that he can exert an activity which shows its influence far and wide. But what could Cæsar do, in the centre of nearly the whole of the known world? He could not hope to effect any material improvements either in Italy or in the provinces. ”

“ Cæsar, after the affair in Africa, goes to Rome; and the historian begins his chronicle by telling us that he is detained there "muneribus dandis,"—by the distribution of rewards,—keeping his promise, no doubt, to those veterans whom he won back to their military obedience by calling them "Quirites," or Roman citizens. [1] The sons of Pompey, Cnæus and Sextus, have collected together a great number of men to support their worn-out cause, and we are told that in the battle of Munda more than 30,000 men perished. ”

“ After his murder a quarrel arose between rival candidates for the command of the troops—Cæsar's troops, as the assassins found to their sorrow. Antony, [11] his master of horse, finally took one half of them with him to the East, to finish Cæsar's projected campaign against the Parthians, to live in Alexandria at the feet of Cleopatra, Cæsar's royal mistress—who was not only an able and unscrupulous woman, but also the heir of a bad political tradition—to bring Egypt into the Roman Empire by annexing the Roman Empire to the Egyptian crown. ”

“ During what the barbarians deemed an armistice, Cæsar, by a rapid and unexpected march, fell upon them, and utterly destroyed the tribes, men, women, and children, whose number himself states at four hundred and thirty thousand souls. A few thousands escaped across the river. So indignant were even many of the citizens of Rome,—his political opponents, to be sure,—that Cato openly proposed to send Cæsar’s head to the few survivors in expiation. It is impossible to overlook, in Cæsar’s military character, these acts of unnecessary extermination. ”

“ When Cæsar learned that the Helvetii were preparing to pass through the lands of the Sequani and the Ædui on their way to the Santones, he resolved to oppose them, unwilling to suffer the establishment of warlike and hostile men in a fertile and open country, neighbouring upon that of the Tolosates, which made part of the Roman province. ”

“ In reality it is the hinge upon which turned the future destiny of the whole earth, and having therefore a common relation to all modern nations whatsoever, should naturally have been cultivated with the zeal which belongs to a personal concern. In general, the anecdotes which express most vividly the splendid character of the first Cæsar, are those which illustrate his defiance of danger in extremity,—the prodigious energy and rapidity of his decisions and motions in the field ”

“ Cæsar, wishing to pass the winter in Gaul, where he feared a rebellion against his authority, granted the request, and after imposing an annual tribute upon Britain, and exacting hostages from the inhabitants, took his departure for the continent.
Cæsar cannot be said to have conquered the island. It is true that, wherever he encountered the natives in battle his armies were victorious; but he made no permanent settlement: and when the state of Britain is considered, the desperate courage of the people, the absence of roads and means of communication, the reasons will appear plain. ”