Rome #2: Armies Loyal to Generals, not Rome

Refer to my previous blog for the backdrop to what follows, taken from Simon Baker’s Ancient Rome.

Pompey the Great was a general whose military brilliance was there to see during his campaigns. He appointed kings here, and struck peace treaties there. Upon his return to Rome, the Senate was terrified: would he and his army seize absolute power? But Pompey had no such ambition. He disbanded his army; but he asked the Senate to ratify the treaties he had signed; and that his soldiers be awarded plots of land. The Senate was in a quandary:

“To agree to these terms would be to acknowledge the preeminence of Pompey in the republic. It would confirm that he had won the personal loyalty both of the Roman army and of kings, potentates and peoples in the east.”

So they stalled and avoided making a decision. Pompey and his disbanded army were bitter. The decision to not make a decision would haunt the senators soon.

Julius Caesar, a high born senator, was a “suave and debonair populist politician”. During military campaigns, he proved himself a “fighter and general abroad”. Upon his return to Rome, Caesar stood for the post of consul. To get the money for his campaign, he struck a deal with Pompey the Great. This alliance between two of the most popular and powerful men in the empire terrified the Senate. The senators’ only hope was that the other consul would do his job of “act(ing) as a restraint on the other”. But Caesar simply ignored the other consul, ignored the Senate and got his populist legislations passed directly via the people’s assembly.

When Caesar’s one year tenure as consul ended, the senators decided to pack him off to some remote, quiet area. Caesar, however, used his connections to get himself posted to Gaul for 5 years. Gaul was not an area truly under Roman control. It was an uneasy area where the Romans ruled via proxies, who could not always be trusted. Over the next 8 years, Caesar single-mindedly pursued a series of wars to bring the whole of Gaul under Roman rule. Yes, Caesar eventually did rule all of Gaul, sad as it might make Asterix lovers!

With the conquest of Gaul came the inevitable riches of plundering, money that Caesar would use to further his image with the people of Rome, as well as buying supporters in powerful offices. And his victorious army was loyal to him, not Rome, because he was the one who got them the chance to loot and get rich.

The Senate was worried: would Caesar give up command when he returned to Rome? To complicate matters, Caesar knew that if he stepped down upon his return to Rome, he’d be prosecuted by the Senate for crimes from his tenure as consul. That made it extremely unlikely that the man riding on spectacular military success and a top politician to boot, would go down quietly…