Julius Caesar Murdered – 2

But although Caesar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic was reduced to a mere form and appearance.

Continuing Julius Caesar Murdered,
with a selection by Barthold Georg Niebuhr.

Previously in Julius Caesar Murdered.

Time: 44 BC
Place: Rome

The tribes seem to have retained their rights of election uncurtailed and the last tribunes must have been elected by the people. But although Caesar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic was reduced to a mere form and appearance. Caesar made various new laws and regulations; for example, to lighten the burdens of debtors and the like; but the changes he introduced in the form of the constitution were of little importance. He increased the number of praetors, which Sulla had raised to eight, successively to ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen and the number of quaestors was increased to forty. Hence the number of persons from whom the senate was to be filled up became greater than that of the vacancies and Caesar accordingly increased the number of senators, though it is uncertain what number he fixed upon and raised a great many of his friends to the dignity of senators. In this, as in many other cases, he acted very arbitrarily; for he elected into the senate whomsoever he pleased and conferred the franchise in a manner equally arbitrary. These things did not fail to create much discontent. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding his mode of filling up the senate, not even the majority of senators were attached to his cause after his death.

If we consider the changes and regulations which Caesar introduced, it must strike us as a singular circumstance that among all his measures there is no trace of any indicating that he thought of modifying the constitution for the purpose of putting an end to the anarchy, for all his changes are in reality not essential or of great importance. Sulla felt the necessity of remodelling the constitution but he did not attain his end; and the manner, too, in which he set about it was that of a short-sighted man; but he was at least intelligent enough to see that the constitution as it then was could not continue to exist. In the regulations of Caesar we see no trace of such a conviction; and I think that he despaired of the possibility of effecting any real good by constitutional reforms. Hence, among all his laws there is not one that had any relation to the constitution. The fact of his increasing the number of patrician families had no reference to the constitution; so far in fact were the patricians from having any advantages over the plebeians that the office of the two oediles Cereales, which Caesar instituted, was confined to the plebeians — a regulation which was opposed to the very nature of the patriciate.

His raising persons to the rank of patricians was neither more nor less than the modern practice of raising a family to the rank of nobility; he picked out an individual and gave him the rank of patrician for himself and his descendants but did not elevate a whole gens. The distinction itself was merely a nominal one and conferred no privilege upon a person except that of holding certain priestly offices, which could be filled by none but patricians and for which their number was scarcely sufficient. If Caesar had died quietly the republic would have been in the same, nay, in a much worse, state of dissolution than if he had not existed at all. I consider it a proof of the wisdom and good sense of Caesar that he did not, like Sulla, think an improvement in the state of public affairs so near at hand or a matter of so little difficulty. The cure of the disease lay yet at a very great distance and the first condition on which it could be undertaken was the sovereignty of Caesar, a condition which would have been quite unbearable even to many of his followers, who as rebels did not scruple to go along with him. But Rome could no longer exist as a republic.

It is curious to see in Cicero’s work, de Republica, the consciousness running through it that Rome, as it then stood, required the strong hand of a king. Cicero had surely often owned this to himself; but he saw no one who would have entered into such an idea. The title of king had a great fascination for Caesar, as it had for Cromwell — a surprising phenomenon in a practical mind like that of Caesar. Everyone knows the fact that while Caesar was sitting on the suggestum, during the celebration of the Lupercalia, Antony presented to him the diadem, to try how the people would take it. Caesar saw the great alarm which the act created and declined the diadem for the sake of appearance; but had the people been silent, Caesar would unquestionably have accepted it. His refusal was accompanied by loud shouts of acclamation, which for the present rendered all further attempts impossible. Antony then had a statue of Caesar adorned with the diadem; but two tribunes of the people, L. Caesetius Flavus and Epidius Marullus, took it away: and here Caesar showed the real state of his feelings, for he treated the conduct of the tribunes as a personal insult toward himself. He had lost his self-possession and his fate carried him irresistibly onward. He wished to have the tribunes imprisoned but was prevailed upon to be satisfied with their being stripped of their office and sent into exile.

This created a great sensation at Rome. Caesar had also been guilty of an act of thoughtlessness or perhaps merely of distraction, as might happen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate had made its last decrees, conferring upon Caesar unlimited powers, the senators, consuls and praetors or the whole senate, in festal attire, presented the decrees to him and Caesar at the moment forgot to show his respect for the senators; he did not rise from his sella curulis but received the decrees in an unceremonious manner. This want of politeness was never forgiven by the persons who had not scrupled to make him their master; for it had been expected that he would at least behave politely and be grateful for such decrees. * Caesar himself had no design in the act, which was merely the consequence of distraction or thoughtlessness; but it made the senate his irreconcilable enemies. The affair with the tribunes, moreover, had made a deep impression upon the people. We must, however, remember that the people under such circumstances are most sensible to anything affecting their honor, as we have seen at the beginning of the French Revolution.

[* I have known an instance of a man of rank and influence who could never forgive another man, who was by far his superior in every respect, for having forgotten to take off his hat during a visit.]

Continued.

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