Words for Board: Crassus, Cicero, Caesar, Gaul, Julia, Cleopatra

Crassus was the general against Spartacus. He was the richest man in the world. He had the greatest private fortune in the ancient world. He was a personal friend of Sulla's (which is how he kept his fortune and his life). He got to add his enemies to the Proscription List and after they were gone he would buy up their territory at a cheap price. He also owned the only fire station in Rome. A fire station in those days amounts to a gang of slaves with leather buckets that would run to the fires and set up lines from the nearest water to the fire and pass the bucket!! Crassus made money on the fires. He would go to the fires of rich people's homes and have his crew wait around the corner. While the fire was going on, he would console the rich person: "What a shame–tell you what. I'll make you a deal for your burning house." He'd offer much less than it was worth. The rich would probably refuse and Crassus would just stand and watch until the rich person took his offer and then he'd call his fire crew to come and put out the fire.

Cicero was the big orator of the day. He started out in law and then went on to politics. He was in the Senate. He thought the Senate should continue controlling the state cuz they gave good advice. Actually, he was making money on the Senate being in control and, with his gift of gab, he tried to make sure they stayed in control.

There was a piracy problem on the Mediterranean Sea. Pirates are in business cuz it's more fun to steal than buy. (If you've noticed that too, you may be heading for trouble–you aren't floating on a boat that sails away when you get caught!!) Whoever was the major naval power of the day had always taken care of the pirates in their own self interest. Athens, Carthage, etc. had done it when they were big so they wouldn't have their stuff swiped. But now that Rome controls the world, there is no naval power in the world. Rome only functions well on land. The pirates were out there floating around and nobody was doing anything about it. But the pirates got bold and started picking on the Roman grain ships coming from Egypt and the East. All of a sudden, the Romans noticed there were pirates out on the ocean!! What a surprise!! They decided they needed a general to clean up the pirates. Have they got a good general to lead they navy? Why, of course, they have Pompey the Great! They gave him a navy and expected him to get it done within 3 years. What he did was close down the pirates' harbors. They have to get in off the sea sometime and so they were put out of business. Pompey cleaned them up in 3 months. Boy, was he great!! Actually, Rome had never paid any attention to pirates and were greatly overestimating the problem. Any idiot could have done it in a short time. It just adds to Pompey's (lucked-into) glory.

Meanwhile, over in the East, there was someone causing trouble again. You guessed it–Mithridates! (What, again?) Every Roman general had beaten him but they'd never finished him off and he was still around to cause a hassle. The people of Rome wanted a general to knock over Mithridates for once and for all. Do they have one? Yup!! Good ole Pompey the Great!! He took over extra manpower and whipped Mithridates bad. Mithridates finally got discouraged and committed suicide. In 64 BC, Rome had all of Asia Minor. Pompey couldn't just turn around and come home cuz somebody else would have risen up. So, he stayed in the East for 5 years and reorganized all of Eastern Asia. He had a little trouble on the Eastern edge of the Med. Sea. Syria and Palestine (remember them?) Are over there causing trouble. They were a wild, lawless bunch. So, in 64 BC, Pompey took Syria, Palestine, and Jerusalem. He set up kings but Rome was controlling them. In 62 BC, Pompey came back to Rome. The people were waiting to see if Pompey was anything like Sulla and was going to take over the government with his army. The most worried one was Crassus who had always quarreled with Pompey over who should get the credit for whipping up on the Gladiators. But Pompey disbanded his army as soon as he got home. All he wanted from the Senate was 2 things: 1. He wanted them to rubberstamp all the policy changes he had made in the East in the last 5 years and 2. He wanted to reward his old soldiers with a farm in the newly conquered Far East. The Senate saw him with no army and said they wouldn't do either. That made Pompey mad. Had the Senate done that, they'd have made a friend of Pompey for life. Instead, they drove Pompey away and he started thinking that the government could stand some changes.

That sets up the rise of Julius Caesar. He was one of the poorer Patricians. He was a great orator and was rising slowly in Rome. But it was expensive to run for offices and jobs didn't pay anything. He ran out of money on his way up. He was in a desperate condition when he met Crassus. They worked out a little deal. Crassus had a weak voice and couldn't speak in front of the Senate to get things he wanted done. He gave Caesar $ to be his mouthpiece. As a payoff, Crassus got Caesar the governorship of Farther Spain. While Caesar was governor, he got enough money from bribes to be out of debt and independent of Crassus. He also got the reputation as being an honest governor. (Huh? An honest governor who takes bribes?) Actually, he took less money than his predecessors and so appeared more honest. (He was up to his elbow in the till, not up to his shoulder as he could have been.)

In 59 BC, Caesar was back in Rome with money of his own. He found out that Crassus hadn't done well without him. Crassus wanted more money and a political faction behind him to get through his ideas. (All rich want more money and he had to buy his votes every time.) Pompey wanted his Eastern policy put into effect and farms for his soldiers. Caesar put together the FIRST Triumvirate. It was a political alliance of the big 3–Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. Each added something to the group. Crassus added his money, Pompey added his reputation of a great general (and therefore an army), and Caesar added his oratorical skill. Caesar had the most pull cuz none of the others could move the masses of people like he could. But he had as his partners the 2 men who were probably the worst enemies in Rome and he had to keep going between the 2 of them and smoothing things over.

Caesar wanted a military reputation so he could compete with Pompey. To get that, he had to have an army, which were only stationed at military provinces near barbarian territory. So to get in control of things, Caesar ran for Consul and won. The Senate backed the other Consul so that he would vote against Caesar and block everything the Triumvirate wanted. Both had to agree before anything could happen. So Pompey mentioned he was unhappy with the other Consul and some of his old army veterans beat the other Consul up so he wouldn't go to the Senate sessions. He quit showing up all together. There was a standing joke about him. Before business could be conducted at Senate meetings, one of the Consuls had to take the Auspices, a religious ceremony where they watch a sacred chicken eat some colored corn to see if there was a favorable pattern for carrying on with the business. The joke would start when one of the Senators would ask where Consul #2 was. Another would answer: "Oh, didn't you hear? He took the Auspices at home to see if conditions were favorable for attending the meeting today and they weren't, so he stayed home." Chuckle. (Nobody said it was funny!!)

Since Caesar was the only one in power, he pushed through what the Triumvirate wanted: reforms for Crassus, eastern settlement and farms for Pompey. And, for himself, he took the governorship of Gaul. In 58 BC, Caesar left Rome for Gaul. It was going to be tricky cuz he was going to be out of town for 5 years. Who would do the leading while he was gone? His enemies were the Senate and its leaders, especially the orators. He got Cicero (the biggie) and another orator bounced out of the Roman territory so nobody could stir up the masses. Pompey was really flaky and couldn't be trusted no to side with the Senate. Caesar arranged a marriage for his daughter, Julia and Pompey. It was rather a May/December marriage (like 22 to 52 years of age). But it worked out really well. They got along. Julia could write to her father in Gaul and tell him what Pompey was doing and he would write back telling her little suggestions to offer Pompey, which Pompey listened to, coming from Julia.

While Caesar was in Gaul, he conquered the rest of it by defending its borders and extending them. The Gauls were strong but they were in tribes which weren't banded together under any leadership. Caesar picked them put them up one at a time. He wrote his own press releases of how things were going in Gaul and sent them home. He kind of fudged a little and he wrote them in the simplest Latin so when they were posted, everybody could read them and understand. The bottom people were really impressed. Caesar got so far that in 55-54 BC, he crossed the Channel to Britain. It was the equivalent of a moon shot today. He didn't conquer over there but the folks back home were impressed anyway. In the meantime, the Triumvirate was falling apart without him. He asked/commanded Pompey and Crassus to visit him in Gaul. Crassus was unhappy cuz he had no military reputation. He wanted a province with an army all his own. So, he got made governor of Syria which was next to a big enemy–the old Seleucid Empire under the new management of the Parthians. They were new, strong, Eastern and very big.

The Parthians and Romans hadn't run into each other yet cuz they were too strong and too far from each other to meet. They kind of piddled with Syria a little. Crassus went over to Syria and immediately attacked the Parthians. He didn't realize their size and had nowhere near the manpower to take them on. Besides they fought differently. They used horse archers with little bows and arrows. The arrows didn't hurt cuz they didn't get through Roman shields. But what the Parthians did was surround the Roman army with their archers who would start riding around them and pinging the arrows in (kind of like Indians and covered wagons in a circle). The Romans can't fight cuz if they move their shields away from the turtle-like position they were in, they'd catch the arrows. They just stood there waiting for the Parthians to run out of arrows. What they didn't know was that the Parthians didn't run out of arrows. Along with the riders were camels stationed out in the corner and if the Parthians ran out of arrows while riding, he'd just go to his nearest refueling station and keep on going. Crassus got tired of that and offered to make a truce. The Parthians accepted and said come on over. He crossed over to their camp. What he didn't know was the Parthians don't play like the Romans. There was no such thing as honor to them. If the other commander wanted to be stupid enough to enter their camp, they'd take care of him. But they were neat about it. They'd heard of Crassus and how he was the richest man in the world. So they killed him by pouring molten gold down his throat. (Maybe he should have used his Scope.)

His death affected the Triumvirate. 3-man governments work out ok cuz they're stable. If one gets out of line, the other two gang up and keep a balance. But 2-man governments are the pits. Eventually, they become 1-man governments. To make things worse, Julia died so there was no longer any family ties between Caesar and Pompey. The Senate tried to get Pompey back and he passed some anti-Caesar laws. Caesar is not supposed to come back to Rome with his army but he had to use it to get control. Should he gather a big Gaul army which would give Pompey time to know he was coming? Or should he attack fast with one Legion which could march quickly? That was what he did. While he was crossing the border, eh was automatically declaring war. On the way, he supposedly said, "The die is cast." Stockmyer thought it was die as in dice and that Caesar was gambling on taking Rome. Actually, it was die as in Greek voting die and Caesar had cast his vote for war.

Caesar got to Rome with 6000 men. Pompey was surprised and had no men. They were out in the world and would have come but Pompey didn't know he was going to need them. Pompey escaped to Greece. Caesar had control of Gaul and Italy–Pompey had the rest of the world. In 48 BC, there was a big battle between them in Macedonia–the Battle of Pharsalus. On one side of the battlefield, there was a ravine which meant nobody could come around and get your troops from behind on that side. Caesar knew Pompey very well and knew how his mind would work. He knew Pompey would try to push his cavalry which was made of Greeks around to get Caesar from the back. Each side put their cavalries on the non-ravine side. Caesar had his men drop back and surround Pompey's cavalry. Then he put his cavalry up behind Pompey's back and beat him. Pompey escaped and has to find more troops. They're out there in the world somewhere but he has to get to them. Caesar decided to try and catch Pompey before he could get to the Mediterranean to cross it to reach his troops. People heard of the battle and Pompey's loss and nobody could would help him with ships so he could escape. He made it to Alexandria in Egypt. Egypt was supposed to be independent but it had been propped up by Rome. Egypt was still under the influence of the Ptolemies. On the throne as the present pharaoh was an 11-year-old kid, Ptolemy XII, who co-ruled with his sister/wife Cleopatra who was in her 20s. They had just had a big fight and she was in hiding when Pompey arrived. What should the Egyptians do with Pompey??? If he was really the great general of the world and his recent loss had just been a fluke, and they don't give him troops and he beats Caesar they're afraid he'll come back and get them later. On the other hand, if he's not so great and they help him and Caesar whips him, they're afraid that Caesar will come back and get them later. Fortunately, there are some problems that have an easy solution. They invited Pompey in and killed him. That way, they figured to ingratiate themselves with Caesar for killing his enemy and this prevented Pompey from rising up to get them later. (They pickled his head to show Caesar when he got there.) Caesar was supposed to have wept at Pompey's death. But every third tear was probably one of sorrow. The other 2 were of joy. Pompey was similar to a national monument back home. Had Caesar eventually killed him, he'd had always have had to face Pompey's followers. Now it was out of his hands and he didn't get the bad reputation. He had only taken a small band of troops to follow Pompey and should have gone home. But he got a surprise.

Cleopatra had been temporarily out of town. She heard Caesar was controlling things and unhappy with her brother/husband. She rolled herself up naked in a rug and got it presented to Caesar. Then she unrolled, jumped out and yelled SURPRISE!! She was 22 and Caesar was considerably older (50s). Men in that age period seem to like much younger women. Caesar put her back on the throne and bounced young Ptolemy out. There was a big civil war that broke out at that time against the Ptolemies ruling from the lower class Egyptians. Caesar was in big trouble cuz he had no troops. Caesar was stuck with Cleopatra in the royal enclosure fighting for their lives. But he was lucky. There was a mercenary army in Syria that heard that Caesar was in trouble and the mercenary took his army over to bail them out. Caesar went back to Rome and knocked over Pompey's troops there. By 45 BC, Caesar was the sole master of the Roman Republic.