The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

for all that in this and other passages, where Dr. Mommsen appears incidentally to express views of religion or philosophy with which I can scarcely be supposed to agree, I have not thought it right—as is, I believe, sometimes done in similar cases—to omit or modify any portion of what he has written. The reader must judge for himself as to the truth or value of such assertions as those given in the text.—Tr.]

35. V. IX. Passive Resistance of Caesar

36. V. X. The Armies at Pharsalus

37. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius

38. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed

39. V. IV. Aggregate Results

40. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects

41. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed

42. The loss of the lighthouse-island must have fallen out, where there is now a chasm (B. A. 12), for the island was in fact at first in Caesar's power (B. C. iii. 12; B. A. 8). The mole, must have been constantly in the power of the enemy, for Caesar held intercourse with the island only by ships.

43. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs

44. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs

45. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed

46. V. VIII. And in the Courts

47. Much obscurity rests on the shape assumed by the states in northwestern Africa during this period. After the Jugurthine war Bocchus king of Mauretania ruled probably from the western sea to the port of Saldae, in what is now Morocco and Algiers (IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia); the princes of Tingis (Tangiers)—probably from the outset different from the Mauretanian sovereigns—who occur even earlier (Plut. Serf. 9), and to whom it may be conjectured that Sallust's Leptasta (Hist. ii. 31 Kritz) and Cicero's Mastanesosus (In Vat. 5, 12) belong, may have been independent within certain limits or may have held from him as feudatories; just as Syphax already ruled over many chieftains of tribes (Appian, Pun. 10), and about this time in the neighbouring Numidia Cirta was possessed, probably however under Juba's supremacy, by the prince Massinissa (Appian, B. C. iv. 54). About 672 we find in Bocchus' stead a king called Bocut or Bogud (iv. 92; Orosius, v. 21, 14), the son of Bocchus. From 705 the kingdom appears divided between king Bogud who possesses the western, and king Bocchus who possesses the eastern half, and to this the later partition of Mauretania into Bogud's kingdom or the state of Tingis and Bocchus' kingdom or the state of Iol (Caesarea) refers (Plin. H. N. v. 2, 19; comp. Bell. Afric. 23).

48. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

49. V. V. Resumption of the Conspiracy

50. V. X. Reorganization of the Coalition In Africa

51. IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia

52. The inscriptions of the region referred to preserve numerous traces of this colonization. The name of the Sittii is there unusually frequent; the African township Milev bears as Roman the name -colonia Sarnensis-(C. I. L. viii. p. 1094) evidently from the Nucerian river-god Sarnus (Sueton. Rhet. 4).

Notes for Chapter XI

1. V. X. Insurrection in Alexandria

2. The affair with Laberius, told in the well-known prologue, has been quoted as an instance of Caesar's tyrannical caprices, but those who have done so have thoroughly misunderstood the irony of the situation as well as of the poet; to say nothing of the -naivete- of lamenting as a martyr the poet who readily pockets his honorarium.

3. The triumph after the battle of Munda subsequently to be mentioned probably had reference only to the Lusitanians who served in great numbers in the conquered army.

4. Any one who desires to compare the old and new hardships of authors will find opportunity of doing so in the letter of Caecina (Cicero, Aa. Fam. vi. 7).

5. V. VI. Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar

6. When this was written—in the year 1857—no one could foresee how soon the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet recorded in human annals would save the United States from this fearful trial, and secure the future existence of an absolute self-governing freedom not to be permanently kept in check by any local Caesarism.

7. V. IX. Preparation for Attacks on Caesar

8. On the 26th January 710 Caesar is still called dictator IIII (triumphal table); on the 18th February of this year he was already -dictator perpetuus- (Cicero, Philip, ii. 34, 87). Comp. Staatsrecht, ii. 3 716.

9. IV. X. Executions

10. The formulation of that dictatorship appears to have expressly brought into prominence among other things the "improvement of morals"; but Caesar did not hold on his own part an office of this sort (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 705).

11. Caesar bears the designation of -imperator- always without any number indicative of iteration, and always in the first place after his name (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 767, note 1).

12. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius

13. During the republican period the name Imperator, which denotes the victorious general, was laid aside with the end of the campaign; as a permanent title it first appears in the case of Caesar.

14. That in Caesar's lifetime the -imperium- as well as the supreme pontificate was rendered by a formal legislative act hereditary for his agnate descendants—of his own body or through the medium of adoption—was asserted by Caesar the Younger as his legal title to rule. As our traditional accounts stand, the existence of such a law or resolution of the senate must be decidedly called in question; but doubtless it remains possible that Caesar intended the issue of such a decree. (Comp, Staatsrecht, ii. 3 787, 1106.)

15. The widely-spread opinion, which sees in the imperial office of Imperator nothing but the dignity of general of the empire tenable for life, is not warranted either by the signification of the word or by the view taken by the old authorities. -Imperium- is the power of command, -Imperator- is the possessor of that power; in these words as in the corresponding Greek terms —kratos—, —autokrator— so little is there implied a specific military reference, that it is on the contrary the very characteristic of the Roman official power, where it appears purely and completely, to embrace in it war and process—that is, the military and the civil power of command—as one inseparable whole. Dio says quite correctly (liii. 17; comp, xliii. 44; lii. 41) that the name Imperator was assumed by the emperors "to indicate their full power instead of the title of king and dictator (—pros deilosin teis autotelous sphon exousias, anti teis basileos tou te diktatoros epikleiseos—); for these other older titles disappeared in name, but in reality the title of Imperator gives the same prerogatives (—to de dei ergon auton tei tou autokratoros proseigoria bebaiountai—), for instance the right of levying soldiers, imposing taxes, declaring war and concluding peace, exercising the supreme authority over burgess and non-burgess in and out of the city and punishing any one at any place capitally or otherwise, and in general of assuming the prerogatives connected in the earliest times with the supreme imperium." It could not well be said in plainer terms, that Imperator is nothing at all but a synonym for rex, just as imperare coincides with regere.

16. When Augustus in constituting the principate resumed the Caesarian imperium, this was done with the restriction that it should be limited as to space and in a certain sense also as to time; the proconsular power of the emperors, which was nothing but just this imperium, was not to come into application as regards Rome and Italy (Staatsrecht, ii. 8 854). On this element rests the essential distinction between the Caesarian imperium and the Augustan principate, just as on the other hand the real equality of the two institutions rests on the imperfection with which even in principle and still more in practice that limit was realized.

17. II. I. Collegiate Arrangements

18. On this question there may be difference of opinion, whereas the hypothesis that it was Caesar's intention to rule the Romans as Imperator, the non-Romans as Rex, must be simply dismissed. It is based solely on the story that in the sitting of the senate in which Caesar was assassinated a Sibylline utterance was brought forward by one of the priests in charge of the oracles, Lucius Cotta, to the effect that the Parthians could only be vanquished by a "king," and in consequence of this the resolution was adopted to commit to Caesar regal power over the Roman provinces. This story was certainly in circulation immediately after Caesar's death. But not only does it nowhere find any sort of even indirect confirmation, but it is even expressly pronounced false by the contemporary Cicero (De Div. ii. 54, 119) and reported by the later historians, especially by Suetonius (79) and Dio (xliv. 15) merely as a rumour which they are far from wishing to guarantee; and it is under such circumstances no better accredited by the fact of Plutarch (Caes. 60, 64; Brut. 10) and Appian (B. C. ii. 110) repeating it after their wont, the former by way of anecdote, the latter by way of causal explanation. But the story is not merely unattested; it is also intrinsically impossible. Even leaving out of account that Caesar had too much intellect and too much political tact to decide important questions of state after the oligarchic fashion by a stroke of the oracle-machinery, he could never think of thus formally and legally splitting up the state which he wished to reduce to a level.

19. II. III. Union of the Plebeians

20. II. I. The New Community

21. IV. X. Abolition of the Censorial Supervision of the Senate

22. According to the probable calculation formerly assumed (iv. 113), this would yield an average aggregate number of from 1000 to 1200 senators.

23. This certainly had reference merely to the elections for the years 711 and 712 (Staatsrecht, ii. a 730); but the arrangement was doubtless meant to become permanent.

24. I. V. The Senate as State-Council, II. I. Senate

25. V. X. Pacification of Alexandria

26. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies and the Jury-System

27. I. V. The King

28. Hence accordingly the cautious turns of expression on the mention of these magistracies in Caesar's laws; -cum censor aliusve quis magistratus Romae populi censum aget (L. Jul. mun. l. 144); praetor isve quei Romae iure deicundo praerit (L. Rubr. often); quaestor urbanus queive aerario praerit- (L. Jul. mun. l. 37 et al.).

29. V. III. New Arrangement as to Jurymen

30. V. VIII. And in the Courts

31. -Plura enim multo-, says Cicero in his treatise De Oratore (ii. 42, 178), primarily with reference to criminal trials, -homines iudicant odio aut amore aut cupiditate aut iracundia aut dolore aut laetitia aut spe aut timore aut errore aut aliqua permotione mentis, quam veritate aut praescripto aut iuris norma aliqua aut iudicii formula aut legibus-. On this accordingly are founded the further instructions which he gives for advocates entering, on their profession.

32. V. VIII. And in the Courts

33. V. VII. Macedonia ff.

34. V. VII. The Gallic Plan of War

35. V. III. Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius

36. With the nomination of a part of the military tribunes by the burgesses (III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia) Caesar— in this also a democrat—did not meddle.

37. V. VII. The New Dacian Kingdom

38. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform

39. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform

40. V. V. Total Defeat of the Democratic Party

41. Varro attests the discontinuance of the Sicilian -decumae- in a treatise published after Cicero's death (De R. R. 2 praef.) where he names—as the corn—provinces whence Rome derives her subsistence—only Africa and Sardinia, no longer Sicily. The -Latinitas-, which Sicily obtained, must thus doubtless have included this immunity (comp. Staatsrecht, iii. 684).

42. V. X. Field of Caesar's Power

43. III. XI. Italian Subjects

44. V. VIII. Clodius

45. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

46. In Sicily, the country of production, the -modius- was sold within a few years at two and at twenty sesterces; from this we may guess what must have been the fluctuations of price in Rome, which subsisted on transmarine