XVII. End as of 4/17/95
a) Elected P.M. in 63, Julii's perennial claims of divine ancestry
b) Praetorship, propraetorship in Spain, some money, fighting
c) Request for triumph and permission to run for consulship in 60 outside of the city, explain
1. Cicero offered a chance to get in, refused with great joke: "Cerberus"
A. A permanent conspiracy (same term used to describe Bolsheviks
1. Pompey, like Marius, marries a Julia, gets land for soldiers, ratification of acta
2. Crassus's buddies the tax gatherers get out of their too-high bids for Asia
3. Caesar gets the consulship and the obligation to deliver all this
a) 60 B.C. "the consulship of Julius and Caesar"
b) Emptying the chamber--pot, on Bibulus
c) Disbanding the Senate with the Red Flag routine or religious scruples
d) Governorship of Cisalpine, Transalpine Gaul for following year
e) Election of P. Clodius Pulcher as Tribune:
(1) Organized mobs interrupt other political meetings
(2) Cicero exiled, Cato sent off to Cyprus
(3) Caesar gets his programs looked after in Rome, actions as governor ratified
f) Senatorial counters
(1) Bibulus takes the auspices
(2) Milo's mob to counter Clodius's
(3) Legal prosecution waiting for Caesar the moment he returned
B. Caesar in Gaul, 59-50
1. Commentaries coming back to Rome in installments to keep people informed on how Caesar was doing with Rome's traditional foes
2. The Gauls
a) United only by language and common La Tène culture
b) Semi-civilized
(1) Avanced metallurgy and commerce,
(2) Some Greek writing and coinage
(3) Human sacrifice
c) Hillforts, oppida, a problem
(1) Gergovia, 52 army defeated
(2) Alesia, 51, Gallic army trapped and Vercingetorix taken
d) Ariovistus and the Germans in 55: "Amicus Romae sum!" and Cato's reaction
e) Invasions
(1) Germany, tactically justifiable, physically useless
(2) Britain, 55 and 54, ditto.
f) Luca Conference in 56,, all is well with the Triumvirate BUT
(1) Julia dies in 54
(2) Crassus wants to go to Parthia, and doesn't come back after Carrhae, 53
(a) legions, 20,000 dead
(b) "Parthian shot," arrow train
(c) The Chinese turtle and Crassus's theatrical debut
(3) Milo kills Clodius in 52; two elections suspended due to public violence, Senate house burned
(4) Pompey sole consul for restoring order, succeeds
3. Caesar's ultimate policy in the north: kill Gauls, kill Gauls, and keep killing Gauls
a) Estimated 1,000,000 die
b) Caesar's celeritas and superlative army
c) Return in 49, prevented election to the consulship in 48
C. "They would have it so:" Starr's shortsightedness vs. the preservation of the Mos Maiorum
1. Senate plans to prosecute Caesar
a) Dignitas vs. several dozen violations of laws
b) The Marcelli try to get him called back and prosecuted, Caesar bought Curio
c) Curio's proposal: Let's all disarm! Caesar would win either way
2. Senate passes S.C.U. and deputizes Pompey, Caesar crosses the Rubicon in 49.
a) Pompey's Fall Back Strategy, War of Attrition
(1) Fight Caesar in Italy
(2) Fight Caesar in Spain
(3) Fight Caesar in Greece
(4) Fight Caesar in the East and Africa
(5) Caesar DID end up having to fight in every one of those areas
(6) Advantages of fighting on the defensive: Robert E. Lee vs. U.S. Grant
b) vs. Caesar's Celeritas: Rule 101 yet again
(1) Into Italy before Pompey can rouse his own reserves, recruits
(2) Into Spain for Ilerda campaign, 49, destroys Massilia,
(3) Cripples rather than crippling main Pompeiian Army, Ludendorf tactics
(4) Pompey lost Italy, but time to prepare...
(5) Caesar crosses to Greece, finds Pompey dug into trenches you couldn't blast open with artillery (ruins found)
(6) Caesar starves, loses fleet, but
(7) Antony's breakout
(8) Coponius's blunder forfeits Rhodian alliance
(9) Senate pressures Pompey into disastrous battle at Pharsalus, 7/48
(10)Pompey tries to enlist Egyptian support, oops.
3. Caesar finishes up the war
a) The Rhodians save him in Alexandria, 47, meets Cleo
b) Pharnaces (P.'s client) beaten in blitzkrieg
c) Beats Cato and Metellus Scipio (two of the large families) at Thapsus, Cato of Utica, 46
d) Munda: Pompey's Sons, 45
XVIII. Caesar Wins the Game: Now What? The 17 Months
A. The Reins of Power
1. Dictator rei publicae constituendae: Sulla's Book
2. Dictator for Life in 44: Caesar's Book!
3. Sacrosancticas: This is the key, folks--why buy a tribune when you can be your own (Uncle Marius)
4. Praefectura Morum: And be your own censor, too.
B. Clementia policy: Caesar didn't see the point in killing still more people because he'd won the war. BIG MISTAKE
C. Back to his aedileship: Public works
1. Ostia
2. New Amphitheatre and Naumachia
3. Banning tax-farmers
4. Expanding citizenship: Cicero's joke about the Senate House
5. Fixing the Calendar--we still owe him for that one
D. Vengeance on Parthia
1. Roman belief in precedent, finishing off beaten foe
2. Danger to other frontiers
3. National reunification
E. Brutus, however, also had a belief in precedent and set up
XIX. The Next Round and the Big Pattern
A. With interruptions, from 44 to 324 A.D. and beyond, what Tacitus called the dirty little secret of the Roman Empire came out: The strongest general would rule. Here's where you'll profit by reading about Galba and Otho in 68-69.
1. Uncle Marius had tried to pass his power onto his son, but Marius Jr., ALSO his adopted son, but Marius's lieutenant Sulla had beaten him and taken over himself in 82.
2. Caesar had adopted HIS own son, his sister's boy Octavius who soon found himself at odds with Caesar's lieutenants Marc Antony and M. Lepidus
3. They temporarily join forces in 44 to
a) Kill all their opponents, including Cicero who had briefly supported Octavian as better than Antony
b) "Avenge" their boss Caesar and finish off the Senators still under arms
(1) Perusine War of 41
(2) Sextus goes down after truce in 39 in 36 after nearly starving Italy
(3) Augustus 38 makes alliance with powerful Claudii and forms Julio-Claudian dynasty, which rules until 68 A.D.
(4) Lepidus "retires" in 36
4. Octavius and his own able lieutenant M. Vipsanius (Etruscan!) Agrippa end up with the whole pie.
a) Brutus and Cassius, with Senate support but just two more warlords
(1) Cassius wants to conquer Egypt because Caesar didn't do it but is willing to settle for Rhodes, which Demetrius couldn't take
(2) Brutus brutalizes Asia Minor and they both go down at Philippi in 43, with Maecenas's propaganda campaign
(3) still working (Dante).
b) Antony tries and blows Caesar's campaign in Parthia, 35-33 while Octavian's propaganda mill points out his dependence on Cleopatra (Horace & Vergil)
c) Actium in 31
(1) Antony had abandoned Italy
(2) Octavian's Secret Weapon: The Income Tax
(3) Agrippa knew Rule 101 and forced Antony into a battle he couldn't win
XX. Octavian "restores the Republic"--that is, establishes the Roman Empire
A. What Made a Roman Emperor: Imperator, a title awarded by his army
1. "Tribunician Power" can stop any legislation and shut down either Assembly or the Senate.
2. Imperial provinces: Huge private income for Emperor (until Caligula and Nero frittered it) to keep troops happy
3. Absolute control of the Army and Navy
4. Changing titles:
a) Proconsular Imperium at first for control of the army
b) Maius Imperium later
c) Consul at first to control senate, then "first among equals," and you thought Orwell invented doublespeak
5. Dynastic succession: The Senate voted Tiberius office after office BUT what really mattered was that Julius Caesar's army stayed loyal to someone named Caesar until 69 (Claudius, 54)
B. Marius's Army becomes a self-perpetuating institution
1. Staying on the frontiers, permanent camps, limes
2. Citizenship after 25 years, BUT
3. Eventually more loyalty to the general on the spot than even the CONCEPT of Rome, particularly at the end when Barbarian Kings and their tribes found themselves appointed Magristi Militum: game, set, match
C. Imperial Bureaucracy
1. Senate's Aerarium vs. Patrimonium vs. Provincial fisci
2. Imperial Freedmen from Claudius on
3. Imperial appointees: relatively incorruptible if the Emperor was
4. Provinces have it better, but the wealth stops flowing into Italy
D. Provincial Administration
1. Local officials appointed, local projects supported from Rome and, later, Constantinople (founded 324)
2. Then, tax levy, forced administration
3. Birth of feudalism: reliance on the large landowner for protection
E. The Church: Constantine give Christian Church, Pope, control of existing apparatus
1. The Catholic church STILL has the idea of central control at Rome
2. Monasteries scattered behind the frontiers and islands of civilization when everything collapsed around them.
3. Worship of the Emperor and resurrection of the idea of the King as God's Anointed
a) At least to Alexander c. 323
b) Divus Julius c. 43, Augustus divi filius
c) Byzantine Emperors God's anointed until 1453, Czars until 1918
XXI. ENDGAME: What, and Why, and Where,
XXII. Hand out evaluations
XXIII. Final in this Room, This Room, This Time 5/8