Julius Caesar | Page 7

with the apprehension of being criminated, that, to
deprecate the consul's resentment, he fell on his knees. And upon
Cicero's lamenting in some trial the miserable condition of the times, he
the very same day, by nine o'clock, transferred his enemy, Publius
Clodius, from a patrician to a plebeian family; a change which he had
long solicited in vain [46]. At last, effectually to intimidate all those of
the opposite party, he by great rewards prevailed upon Vettius to
declare, that he had been solicited by certain persons to assassinate
Pompey; and when he was brought before the rostra to name those who
had been concerted between them, after naming one or two to no
purpose, not without great suspicion of subornation, Caesar, despairing
of success in this rash stratagem, is supposed to have taken off his
informer by poison.
XXI. About the same time he married Calpurnia, the daughter of
Lucius Piso, who was to succeed him in the consulship, and gave his
own daughter Julia to Cneius Pompey; rejecting Servilius Caepio, to

whom she had been contracted, and by whose means chiefly he had but
a little before baffled Bibulus. After this new alliance, he began, upon
any debates in the senate, to ask Pompey's opinion first, whereas he
used before to give that distinction to Marcus Crassus; and it was (15)
the usual practice for the consul to observe throughout the year the
method of consulting the senate which he had adopted on the calends
(the first) of January.
XXII. Being, therefore, now supported by the interest of his father-in-
law and son-in-law, of all the provinces he made choice of Gaul, as
most likely to furnish him with matter and occasion for triumphs. At
first indeed he received only Cisalpine-Gaul, with the addition of
Illyricum, by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people; but soon
afterwards obtained from the senate Gallia-Comata [47] also, the
senators being apprehensive, that if they should refuse it him, that
province, also, would be granted him by the people. Elated now with
his success, he could not refrain from boasting, a few days afterwards,
in a full senate- house, that he had, in spite of his enemies, and to their
great mortification, obtained all he desired, and that for the future he
would make them, to their shame, submissive to his pleasure. One of
the senators observing, sarcastically: "That will not be very easy for a
woman [48] to do," he jocosely replied, "Semiramis formerly reigned
in Assyria, and the Amazons possessed great part of Asia."
XXIII. When the term of his consulship had expired, upon a motion
being made in the senate by Caius Memmius and Lucius Domitius, the
praetors, respecting the transactions of the year past, he offered to refer
himself to the house; but (16) they declining the business, after three
days spent in vain altercation, he set out for his province. Immediately,
however, his quaestor was charged with several misdemeanors, for the
purpose of implicating Caesar himself. Indeed, an accusation was soon
after preferred against him by Lucius Antistius, tribune of the people;
but by making an appeal to the tribune's colleagues, he succeeded in
having the prosecution suspended during his absence in the service of
the state. To secure himself, therefore, for the time to come, he was
particularly careful to secure the good-will of the magistrates at the
annual elections, assisting none of the candidates with his interest, nor

suffering any persons to be advanced to any office, who would not
positively undertake to defend him in his absence for which purpose he
made no scruple to require of some of them an oath, and even a written
obligation.
XXIV. But when Lucius Domitius became a candidate for the
consulship, and openly threatened that, upon his being elected consul,
he would effect that which he could not accomplish when he was
praetor, and divest him of the command of the armies, he sent for
Crassus and Pompey to Lucca, a city in his province, and pressed them,
for the purpose of disappointing Domitius, to sue again for the
consulship, and to continue him in his command for five years longer;
with both which requisitions they complied. Presumptuous now from
his success, he added, at his own private charge, more legions to those
which he had received from the republic; among the former of which
was one levied in Transalpine Gaul, and called by a Gallic name,
Alauda [49], which he trained and armed in the Roman fashion, and
afterwards conferred on it the freedom of the city. From this period he
declined no occasion of war, however unjust and dangerous; attacking,
without any provocation, as well the allies of Rome as the barbarous
nations which were its enemies: insomuch, that the senate passed a
decree for