A Noise of War: Caesar, Pompey, Octavian and the Struggle for Rome

A Noise of War: Caesar, Pompey, Octavian, and the Struggle for Rome, AJ Langguth (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994)

Mr. Langguth introduces his book with a quote from Plutarch concerning Gaius Marius:

Marius was once rebuked for granting Roman citizenship illegally to 1,000 men of Camerinum who had fought for him in a recent battle. Marius answered that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.

What follows is an examination of 51 years in the history of Rome, from 81 BC to 30 BC, covering the rise of Pompey, Cicero and Caesar, and how they eventually came into conflict and war, and how the Republic perished as a result.

The author begins with a confrontation between Lucius Cornelius Sulla and a 19-year-old Gaius Julius Caesar. Sulla is demanding Caesar divorce his wife, Cornelia, and take a different wife. Caesar refuses, and gives us an insight to his character: he doesn't back down. This confrontation with Sulla could have been fatal: Sulla already showed his easy use of proscriptions against his political enemies. Caesar escaped, and set his foot on a path that would take him eventually to sole control of Rome.

Along with Caesar, we are introduced to Cicero and Pompey, and we see how the careers of these three men, as well as others, intertwined to shape the destiny of Rome. A lot of what Rome was lay sacrificed on the battlefields of Gaul and Macedonia, as great men struggled to fulfill their ambition.

Mr. Langguth divides his book into year-by-year chapters, and we are able to see how events shaped themselves to lead to the seemingly inevitable result of civil war and the fall of the Republic. We are given interesting character portraits of the great men of Rome that are more or less unflinching. While Caesar comes off the most sympathetically, we do see that he is moved by personal ambition and belief in destiny, Pompey as a man who desires to be loved more than to rule, and Cicero is seen as a man who desires to preserve the Republic, but sometimes lacks the moral courage necessary. If any one figure is seen unsympathetically, it would be Cato the Younger, whom the author portrays as unbending and blindly attached to tradition, rather than a figure standing up for the mos maiorum.

If there is anything to be learned from the history of the fall of the Republic, it is that when two groups are so opposed to each other as to become entrenched in their hatred for each other, they lose the ability to compromise, and achieve a settlement. Political compromise was one of the proudest legacies of the early Republic, it was a precious part of the mos maiorum, and it is ironic that, while all parties fought to "preserve" the Republic and its traditions, it sacrificed such a central element to the traditions of their elders.

This book is a good survey of the fall of the Republic, although it does become a bit rushed with the advent of Octavian. We see the characters of this history, and have a clearer picture why things may have happened as they did. The noise of war, mentioned by Gaius Marius, finally engulfed Rome as Republic, and gave birth to Rome as Empire.

Caesar' s Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome

Caesar' s Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome
by Stephen Dando-Collins
New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2002

Few individual military units achieve immortality. The 442nd Regiment from WWII, the Rough Riders from the Spanish American War, the Coldstream Guards, the Old Guard, and of course, the Legio X Fretensis, the storied Tenth Legion, Caesar's Own. Mr. Dando-Collins offers in this book a review of the battle history of the Tenth, from Gaul to Spain and beyond. It also serves as an introduction to the history of Rome's expansion from Republic to Empire.

The Tenth first served Gaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, and achieved its greatest glory there, becoming the most dependable legion in Caesar's army. Indeed, based on his experiences in Gaul, Caesar as a habit would position the 10th on his right, the position of honor. From Gaul, Caesar led his legions south into Italy, against the Senate and Pompey. The civil war would take him to Dyrrachium and Pharsalus, and his defeat of Pompey. The Tenth would follow him to Egypt and Africa, and eventually Spain, and the ultimate victory over Pompey's forces.

The relationship between the Tenth and Caesar could sometimes be stormy. When the civil war was over, the veterans of the Tenth converged on the Campus Martius, demanding the of gold Caesar promised them at the outset of the war. To win them over, Caesar addressed them as "citizens", and the incipient mutiny was quashed. These soldiers, used to hearing Caesar curse them, call them sons of whores, and worse, could not abide being called "citizens". They begged to be returned to Caesar's good graces.

After the death of Caesar, the Tenth saw a variety of duties, eventually ending up in garrison duty in Palestine.

Mr. Dando-Collins has done an effective job in outlining the deeds that have made the Tenth immortal, especially its role in the Gallic and Civil Wars with Julius Caesar. Occasionally he expands the scope of his book to take in other units that saw more action during particular battles where the Tenth actually did little.

His battle accounts are gripping and detailed, introducing individuals who distinguished themselves in the fight, telling their stories and placing them in the larger context of the battle as well as the story of the Tenth itself. Reading this book brings a greater sense of what it was to be a legionary, a chosen man (from legere, "to choose), and what went into a unit that played such a key role in one of the more crucial turning points in history.

Cicero: Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

Cicero: Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
by Anthony Everitt New York: Random House, 2001

If Cicero is a weak fool in need of public adoration in Rubicon, he is treated with a great deal more love and respect in Cicero: Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician (the title is a dead giveaway). Mr. Everitt gives us a wonderful picture of the type of life a young man from the provinces would have in the days of the Republic, and he explains what would have been a fairly typical upbringing for young men of the time, including their education, as well as their political aspirations, and the career they had to follow to achieve the summit of political life: the consulship.

That was the sight set on by Marcus Tullius Cicero. His father was a magistrate in a province nearby to Rome, and his sons, Marcus and Quintus, were taught the classic curriculum of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, as well as the history of the Republic. This filled them with a taste for politics. For the ancient Roman, participation in politics was expected, to some degree, from all citizens. Voting was considered a sacred right of the Roman citizen, regardless of class. Even the lowliest pleb had a say in the functioning of the res publica (literally, "public matters"). For young men of the patrician class, it was expected that they would take their seats in the Senate and follow the cursus honororum, the "course of honors", which led a young man from quaestor to praetor to consul.

Cicero was well aware of the expectations on him when he entered Rome. The challenge to him was greater than that of a scion of an old patrician family, for example, C. Julius Caesar. Cicero had to establish himself in the public eye. To do this, a usual route was to achieve great military feats, as the Romans had a great love for soldiers, and valor on the battlefield. Cicero instead turned to his strength, public speaking. He took up several contraversal cases early in his career, and through spectacular successes, made a name for himself in the Forum. Through this, instead of military service, he was able to eventually ascend to the consulship. He was, as the Romans called it, a novus homo, a new man, one whose family was graced with no consuls past, one whose family had no illustrious history.

Cicero sought to use his power and influence to preserve the Republic against its internal enemies. He saw that the Republic was in danger of being torn apart by two great factions, the populares (those in the Senate that wanted to give more power to the people, and thus increase their own power, through the institution of clientela), and the optimates (those in the Senate that wanted to preserve the power and the prestige of the Senate and the Patrician class). Cicero sought to "coordinate" the different classes of the Republic, to have them working in harmony for the good of the State, as an orchestra works together to produce music. Cicero was no democrat, he believed in the right of the Patrician class to run things, but he also knew that the Plebeans were a necessary component to a harmonious state. And he sought to bring balance and peace between these groups.

As each group struggled for power, there arose three new players: M. Licinius Crassus, Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and C. Julius Caesar, the members of the First Triumverate. Mr. Everett does a creditable job showing how these three men, using the Senate, and using Cicero, achieved their objectives, and he shows how desperately Cicero fought to preserve the Republic while the Senate, led by Cato the Younger, and Julius Caesar, struggled in a political battle that would find its way to armed Civil War.

In the end, the Republic fell, brought down by the knives of the assassins, who, thinking they had saved it, ran to Cicero for approval. The years of the Second Triumverate are seen also through Cicero's eyes, and we see how he desired to mold young Octavian into the type of leader he thought Rome needed. Even to the end, Cicero sought to create that harmonious Republic that may never have existed.

This is an excellent portrayal of a powerful figure in the final days of the Republic. Mr. Everett does not seek to simply lionize his subject, he shows his weaknesses as well as his strengths, and we are left with a better sense why Cicero's name has lasted to the present.

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
by Tom Holland
New York: Doubleday, 2003
The author makes the point in his introduction that it is dangerous to draw parallels that are too broad between the Roman Republic and our own. It is tempting, however. People being what they are, they fall into patterns, and one of those unfortunately is the desire for power, the desire for wealth, and plain old vainglory. These, according to Mr. Holland, were the precipitating factors in the fall of the Roman Republic. He draws the roots of the fall to the Third Punic War, and the fall of Carthage. This was the first time that Rome went to war proactively: not because they were attacked, but that they might be attacked in the future. This signalled a change from a Republic that took reluctantly to the world stage, to one that actively expanded its borders.

Ongoing war allows for greater glory for soldiers, who then seek higher office, and further glory. Unfortunately, Rome feared kings almost pathalogically, and the threat of a new king was enough to upset the traditions Roman civilization. Added to this was the influence of the Roman mob the mobile vulgus, the moveable crowd, swayed this way and that by a powerful figure freely dispensing charity, building up a long list of clients. So it was when the Gracchi brothers decided to carry out land reform, and provide small holdings to the poor in the city of Rome.

This would have made the Gracchi almost invincible political foes, and thus the Optimates, the senatorial party, struck them down, literally. Violence had taken the place of debate and compromise in the political process, and the tool taken up is difficult to put down. Fearing kings, fearing the mob, the Roman senate needed strong men to preserve order, but did not trust them. Thus enters Gnaius Pompeius Magnus, Caius Iulius Caesar, Marcius Porcius Cato, and Marcus Tullius Cicero. These would be the major figures to shape the Republic, and eventually bring it to its downfall.

The author does not focus on the history, but also explains the culture of Rome, and how it served to shape the events that led up to the fall of the Republic. We meet the major players, and learn how their failings led to the downfall of the first Republic seen in the Western world.

Caesar and Cato are treated most sympathetically. Caesar is seen as a man pushed to the decision to attack Rome by a combination of cultural forces and the unbending principle of the Senate. Caesar, it is argued, loved Rome, and actually sought to reform it, to fix the problems. Cato is the example of Roman severitas, severity and adherence to principle. If anyone can be blamed for Caesar's decision besides Caesar, it would be Cato. Had he held less firmly to Roman tradition, Caesar may not have felt threatened. Of course, if Cato had held less firmly, he would not have been Cato.

Pompeius Magnus and Cicero come off less sympathetically. Pompey is seen as a man who wanted to be loved, wanted to be wooed by the Senate, so that he could come to the rescue of Rome. Cicero comes off as that one person who can't move on from past glory, always returning to it and boring his audience with the story of how he saved the Republic without a civil war "The shield must yield to the toga" he would declare, somewhat pompously, telling all that the time of soldiers was past, now was the time of politicians.

These men from the past come alive, and the forces and currents that moved Rome to civil war and empire are seen clearly, and perhaps can give us some insight into the dangers that fac e us as a nation, as we engage in a proactive war. This book is quite good, and well worth a reading.