PREVIEW： Epochs #195 ｜ Pompey and Caesar Part XX
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Summary
After the fall of the Roman Republic in the first century CE, Julius Caesar went on to become one of the most famous Roman leaders of all time. He was a man of many talents, but his greatest strength lay in his ruthlessness and ruthlessness, and in his desire to rule over the empire as an absolute dictator.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Epochs, where I shall be once again continuing my narrative of the
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decline and fall of the Roman Republic, focusing now solely on Caesar, because last time, if you
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remember, Pompey had been killed. So there can be only one. Caesar couldn't really suffer anyone
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being above him in the Roman state. So it's now a case of Caesar trying to mop up, and there's still
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a few years to go yet before his own early untimely death. So the story of what happens to Caesar in
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the remainder, the short remainder of his life. So let's pick up the story with Plutarch's life of
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Caesar, where he's in Egypt. So Plutarch tells us this, quote, he arrived at Alexandria just after
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Pompey's death. When Theodotus came to him with Pompey's head, Caesar refused to look at him, but
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he took Pompey's signet ring and shed tears as he did so. He offered help and his own friendship to
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all who had been friends and companions of Pompey, and who, without anywhere to go, had been arrested
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by the king of Egypt. And he wrote to his friends in Rome to say that, of all the results of his
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victory, what gave him the most pleasure was that he was so often able to save the lives of fellow
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citizens who had fought against him. As I've said before, Caesar's clemency is a bit of a double-edged
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sword. He's sort of ruthless with his clemency, if you like. It doesn't leave the people pardoned
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unscathed. It's often still a complete humiliation. Although most people, but not all, would say
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they'd prefer that to death. But there you go. Plutarch goes on. As for the war in Egypt, some say
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that it need never have taken place, and that it was brought on by Caesar's passion for Cleopatra,
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and that it did him little credit while involving him in great danger. Others blame the king's party
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for it, and particularly the eunuch Pothinus, who was the most influential person at the court.
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He had recently killed Pompey, had driven out Cleopatra, and was now secretly plotting against
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Caesar. Because of this, they say, Caesar now began to sit up for whole nights on end at drinking
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parties, in order to be sure that he was properly guarded. Even openly, Pothinus made himself
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intolerable, belittling and insulting Caesar, both in his words and in his actions. For instance,
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the soldiers were given rations of the oldest and worst possible grain, and Pothinus told them
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that they must put up with it and learn to like it, since they were eating food that did not belong
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to them. And at official dinners, he gave orders that wooden and earthenware dishes should be used,
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on the pretext that Caesar had taken all the gold and silver in payment of a debt. The father of the
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present king did in fact owe Caesar 17 and a half million drachmas, and though Caesar had previously
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remitted part of this debt to the king's children, he now demanded 10 million for the support of his
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army. Pothinus suggested that for the time being, he should go away and attend to more important
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matters, promising that later on they would be delighted to pay the money. But Caesar told him
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that Egyptians were the last people he would choose for his advisors, and secretly he sent for
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Cleopatra from the country. Cleopatra, taking only one of her friends with her, Apollyodorus the
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Sicilian, embarked in a small boat and landed at the palace when it was already getting dark. Since
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there seemed to be no other way of getting in unobserved, she stretched herself out at full
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length inside a sleeping bag, and Apollyodorus, after tying up the bag, carried it indoors to Caesar.
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Some say it was a rug, but this translation says a sleeping bag. Anyway, this little trick of
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Cleopatra's, which showed her provocative impudence, is said to have been the first thing about her
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which captivated Caesar, and as he grew to know her better, he was overcome by her charm, and arranged
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that she and her brother should be reconciled, and should share the throne of Egypt together.
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So, a few words then about Cleopatra. She's still very young, she's like 20, 21 years old at this
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point. Caesar's in his 50s. It's thought that possibly within hours of their meeting, her being
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unrolled in this rug, this carpet, or this sleeping bag, being unrolled before him. Classic scene,
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another classic image from ancient history. Perhaps within hours, within a day or so, they
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were lovers. They were sleeping together. Now, Caesar was a ladies' man, and some say, you know,
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may have even been bedded by the king of Bithynia. Needless to say, he's experienced sexually,
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and she isn't. She might even have been a virgin. So, you know, take from that what you will.
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She is said to have been very clever, very, very clever, very well read for her age,
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fluent in loads of languages, seven languages, more. She knew Egyptian, one of the very, very few
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Ptolemies, one of the very, very few Hellenistic Greek rulers of Egypt that ever learned Egyptian.
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She's supposed to have understood maths. And also, she was highly educated. And also, she was supposed
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to have been charming, a good conversationalist. So, sort of, quite a, well, if we believe it,
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very well-rounded person. And she knew who she was. She knew her power. She knew her position,
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her status, what it was worth, the value of her position. So, you know, what we might, in modern
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parlance, call a politician. She was a good politician. She had an acute mind for what was going on
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around her. She was no dummy. And though not, you know, Liz Taylor beautiful, apparently she had
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some sort of physical charm about her. She wasn't completely ugly or disgusting, although the coins
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of her don't look very attractive to me, anyway. But there's some question over, really, how pretty
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she really was. But needless to say, apparently, she was an impressive human, put it that way.
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And Caesar sees this. One of Caesar's many, many gifts is to be able to spot talent and utilise it.
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Okay, let's let Plutarch go on. So Caesar wants her and her brother to be reconciled.
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Everyone was invited to a banquet to celebrate the reconciliation. And while the banquet was in
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progress, a servant of Caesar, who acted as his barber, and who, because of his unexampled cowardice,
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was in the habit of looking into everything, listened to every scrap of gossip, and generally having
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something to do with everything that was going on, managed to find out that the general Achaeus and the
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eunuch Pothinus were plotting together against Caesar. Once Caesar had discovered this, he set
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a guard round the banqueting hall and had Pothinus killed. Achaeus, however, escaped to the camp and
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involved Caesar in a full-scale war, and one that was very difficult to fight, since he had a great
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city and a large army against him, and only a few troops with which to defend himself. So remember,
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Caesar only went to Egypt to chase Pompey, and he knew Pompey didn't have any sort of army with him.
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So Caesar, always wanting to do things as quickly as possible, always wanting to have the initiative
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and the momentum, went to Egypt with barely a legion, just a few Roman soldiers, really.
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And now he finds himself in Egypt, besieged inside the palace in Alexandria, which is a giant
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palace complex. It's sort of a big percentage of the whole city is the palace. And apparently it's
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something approaching impregnable. The walls were very, very, very sturdy. He could have stayed holed
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up in there almost indefinitely, but nonetheless, he's got a tiny number of men versus, well, the
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entire Egyptian army. In various ways, the entire Egyptian state ranged against him. So once again,
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Caesar finds himself in a very, very tight spot. Plutarch goes on.
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First of all, the enemy dammed up the canals, and he was in danger of being cut off from his
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water supply. Then they tried to intercept his communications by sea, and he was forced to deal
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with this danger by setting fire to the ships in the docks. This was the fire which, starting from
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the dockyards, destroyed the Great Library. People might know of the terrible tragedy of the Great
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Library of Alexandria burning down. There's actually a couple of different occasions. The big one,
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the main one, really, is much later, centuries after this, in a Christian riot, actually. But this
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is the first time that there was a fire at the Great Library of Alexandria, and, you know, who knows
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how much knowledge was lost in these fires. The Great Library was supposed to, every ship with
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scrolls that came to Alexandria, they were said to have copied them and kept a copy in this Great Library.
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So, if that library had survived through late antiquity, the Dark Ages, the medieval period,
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into modernity, we would have so much more information. Among the greatest tragedies in the
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human story is the various fires that happened at that library of Alexandria. Anyway, this is one of
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And, thirdly, he was hard-pressed during the fighting that took place on Pharos. He had sprung
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down from the mole into a small boat and was trying to get the help of his men who were engaged in
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battle. But the Egyptians sailed up against him from all directions, and he was forced to throw
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himself into the sea and swim. So he's having to flee for his life. Lucky he could swim. The ability
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to swim was kind of rare in the pre-modern age. Nowadays, we're all little kids, aren't they? You'll learn to
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read and write, and do a little bit of maths, and you're taught to ride a bicycle, and you're taught
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to swim, right? Most people can swim. Well, that wasn't the case for most of human civilisation.
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It's almost something of a specialist skill. But luckily, Caesar could swim, and was obviously a
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strong enough swimmer as well to get away, just about get away by the skin of his teeth.
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Okay, so Caesar himself was forced into the sea to swim, only just managing to escape. This was the
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time when, according to the story, he was holding a number of papers in his hand and would not let them go,
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though he was being shot at from all sides, and was often underwater. Sounds like he'd very nearly
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drowned. Holding the papers above the surface with one hand, he swam with the other. His small boat
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had been sunk immediately. Finally, however, after the king had gone over to the side of the enemy,
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Caesar marched against him and defeated him in battle. Many fell in this battle, and the king
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himself was one of the missing. Caesar then set out for Syria. He left Cleopatra as queen of Egypt,
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and a little later, she had a son by him, whom the Alexandrians called Caesario, end quote. So, a bit more
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detail on that. At a certain point, the 13, 14-year-old king of Egypt, Pharaoh, Ptolemy,
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realises that Caesar has become a partisan of Cleopatra, or that he has essentially picked
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Cleopatra's side, that he's not going to act as a fair arbiter in this civil war. Ptolemy realises
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this, and probably, who knows exactly, but probably realises or knows, gets intelligence, that Caesar and
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Cleopatra have become lovers. So, he knows he's not going to get a fair shake from Caesar. So, he
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appeals to the people of Alexandria. Now, the people of Alexandria are famously volatile, shall we say.
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They will rise up and do a full-scale riot at the drop of a hat very often. So, they usually need very
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little encouragement to get rowdy, and that's an understatement. Ptolemy goes before them and says,
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look, Caesar's trying to usurp my power. Caesar's trying to pervert the Egyptian state who's with
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me. And, you know, the common folk of Alexandria are with him. They don't appreciate being the vassal
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in all but name to the Romans. They'll become a full Roman province in the next generation, but
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they've already had the complete mickey taken out of them by the Romans for a few generations already,
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and they don't like it. They don't take kindly to it. So, they rally to Ptolemy's side, and Ptolemy's
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got the army with him and everything. But, as we were told there, months go by. Actual months go by
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while Caesar is holed up in the palace at Alexandria, sort of unable to leave. Eventually,
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there is an actual engagement, and Caesar, against the odds, heavily outnumbered, as usual,
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wins. Ptolemy's forced to flee. Some accounts say that he was, well, he was, he was sort of forced
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one way or another to try and get across the river, the Nile, and his armour was too heavy. Perhaps it
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was golden armour, and it weighed him down, and he drowned. He either couldn't swim or wasn't a strong
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enough swimmer. I mean, even a very, very strong swimmer's going to struggle to swim in golden armour.
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Gold is really heavy, stupidly heavy. I'm not sure how a 13 or 14 year old could even wear
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golden armour and walk around in it. But anyway, there we go. Depends how much of it he was really
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wearing. But he sinks to the bottom and drowns, and that's, that's the end of him. He's dead.
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So, Cleopatra can rule, at least for a while, for an interim period. She's going to need to get
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remarried. She can't really be a full-blown, absolute queen in her own right. She has, she has to have
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a husband. But for a while, anyway, she could be sole ruler. But as, as Plutok told us there,
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she got pregnant by Caesar and had a son, Caesarion, who features in the story a bit. And if anyone
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doesn't know, that's Caesar's only child now. Before, he'd only ever had one other child, and
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that was Julia, who, you know, had grown up and been married and been pregnant herself, but had died.
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So, now Caesar is childless. Well, he's late in life, got another, got a son now, the ill-fated
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Caesarion. Okay, let's let Plutarch continue the story, where Caesar goes from, from there, after
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he's able to actually leave Egypt, after having spent months and months there. The whole rest of
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the Mediterranean is still in the midst of this civil war, and Caesar's had his foot off the gas
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for a while. Well, he hasn't had any other option. He couldn't have left Egypt, or the royal
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palace in Alexandria, even if he'd wanted to. And it has given his enemies, from Spain to North
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Africa to Syria, a bit of a breathing space. So, now he's finally escaped from Egypt, it's all on
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again. So, Plutarch says this, quote, from Syria he went to Asia when he heard that Domitius had been
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defeated by Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, the king of Pontus, that is, and had fled from Pontus
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with the few troops that remained. He heard, too, that Pharnaces was making the fullest possible use of
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his victory. He was in control of Bithynia and Cappadocia, was aiming at taking over the country
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called Lesser Armenia, and was encouraging all the princes and tetrarchs there to revolt. So,
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Caesar's potentially got another Mithridates on his hands, i.e. a king of Pontus, who, above and
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beyond his means, really, is spreading his power and dominion far and wide. A real headache for any
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Roman dreams of dominance in the Near East. So, with three legions, he, Caesar, marched against him
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immediately. He fought him in a great battle near the city of Zella, drove him out of Pontus,
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and annihilated his army. No big deal, just Caesar doing what Caesar does. In describing the sharpness
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and rapidity of this battle, Caesar wrote to, in Latin, however, the words have the same inflexible
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ending, and this gives them a remarkable effect of brevity and concentration. We usually translate it
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as, I came, I saw, I conquered. Rex Warner, the translator of this Penguin edition of Plutarch,
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translates Plutarch's Greek simply as, came, saw, conquered. Okay, Plutarch goes on.
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After this, he crossed over to Italy and came to Rome. It was now a year since he had been chosen
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dictator for the second time, though previously this office had never been held for a whole year,
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and for the following year he was proclaimed consul. So, whenever Caesar goes to Rome, he just
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sort of, because there's no one to stop him, issues himself with more powers and titles and things.
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So, you know, no proper elections anymore, right? He can just say, more or less, I'm going to be
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consul next, and nothing can be done to stop that. There's no one left to prevent it or thwart that
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in any real way. You know, making himself dictator multiple times in a row. Each time Caesar returns
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to Rome, he cements his authority on paper legally. We all know it's sort of extra-legally, but, you know,
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on paper, he cements his authority every time he's there. Plutarch continues.
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People spoke badly of him because, after his soldiers had mutinied and killed two men of
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Praetorian rank, Galba and Cosconius, the only reprimand which he gave to them was to address
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them as citizens instead of fellow soldiers, after which he gave each man a thousand drachmas
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and a large allotment of land in Italy. So, Caesar's turning a blind eye, or even actually
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rewarding killers, people that are prepared, at least in a limited way, to murder his political
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opponents. Again, it's nothing like Sulla, is it? The odd political opponent being murdered,
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literally one or two here or there. It's about as bloodless as it could be. Not entirely bloodless,
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but nothing close to what Marius did or what Sulla did. Plutarch.
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Other things which were held against him were the irresponsible behaviour of Dolabella,
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the greed of Amantius, the drunkenness of Antony, and the conduct of Corphinius,
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who enlarged and refurbished Pompey's house, as though it was not grand enough for him.
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All these things caused much ill feeling at Rome. Caesar was quite aware of what was going on
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and disapproved of it. But, because of the general political situation, he was forced to make use
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of those who would do his will. If you would like to see the full version of this premium video,
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