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Julius Caesar and Pompey

GWEN HERAT

Caius Julius, now known as Julius Caesar was born in Italy one hundred years before Jesus Christ was born. His name has travelled down all succeeding ages in fame never to have been repeated by another leader of the past.

Julius Caesar was destined to lift Rome into the highest peak of her glory. Rome had greatly changed and plunged into disaster that forced farmers and peasants to abandon the country and live on doles in towns. This happened after the fall of Carthage.

The Senate had changed for the worse. The Senate was corrupt, dishonest and craven instead of old simplicity, the love for justice and sublime patriotism which had inspired Rome during its difficult days. The land was tilled by slaves and owned by the rich who lived in luxury in the towns. They had no mercy for the sweat and tears of their slaves who starved and worked round the clock to uplift their luxurious lives.

The population of Rome were divided into among the rich who were morally bad and the poor who lived as parasites on the State. Following this state of the nation came a struggle between the rich and the poor that resulted assassinations and murder. Suddenly Rome was threatened from the West. Came the Germans in hordes and marched into Italy. However, they were defeated.

Unfortunately victory over an alien enemy was followed by civil war. A mighty struggle began in Italy and continued for over three years.

Out of this struggle emerged the first rays of hope... the hope for new things such as political ambition on the part of Roman Generals who were ready to steer Rome into new glory and sanity. No longer did the army fight for Rome. It fought for its particular General and followed him to a political party. In this set-up, Julius Caesar was the most brilliant among the Generals and his supreme and astonishing victories brought him to power as he was in a position to make Rome the most powerful city in the West. During this time, Caesar had an enemy in the form of power-hungry Pompey. Their rivalry led to a fearful confront where Pompey suffered a humiliating defeat.

The great Caesar rose to the occasion and acted like a compassionate rule when his friends clamoured that there should be a massacre of the supporters of Pompey. Julius Caesar not only forebade such vengeance but threw the incriminating correspondence of Pompey into the fire and also restored Pompey's statue in Rome.

This magnificent gesture touched the hearts of all Romans and they also cheered and hailed Caesar's compassion when he expressed deep sorrow when another enemy, Cato committed suicide that deprived this great leader to forgive his enemy in an act of love. Such were the acts of this truly great man who inspired his nation.

One of the mighty epochs of the world was the resurrection of Rome when Caesar turned his attention to politics. During his dictatorship he worked marvels as he attacked the parasites who lived on the State doles.

He constituted a powerful police which put a stop to highway robbery, built roads, made canals, devised irrigation systems, improved drainage, raised many magnificent buildings. Caesar, next reformed finances of Rome that struck a blow at slavery and endeavoured to give the Senate a new sense of imperial responsibility. He built the first library in Rome and encouragement of science and of letters. There was nothing that escaped Caesar's eye that needed restoration after replacing the Roman lunar year and finally he set about doing that, the greatest achievement.

Caesar, the man of genius ever to have appeared on earth, set his hands on the tremendous task of unifying and codifying the Roman Law. Caesar was a man of letters and a lover of literature and science though professionally he was a democratic politician. He was not yet forty when he commanded the army and disobeyed the old rules of war. He fought under the inspiration of the emergency.

Caesar turned his attention to his energies and his spectacular genius no sooner he was freed from the shackles of war. First, it was the creative work of statesmanship. In five year he left behind a record which is one of the greatest memorials to the spirit of this great leader.

But as Caesar observed, it was easier to destroy than to build. He failed to create a moral and thrifty middle-class society. He was able to check the tyranny of the rich and protect and assist the poor but could not bring the middle-class between these two which used its money to create new wealth.

Caesar failed to change the Roman character. Luxury, war, parasitism, arrogance etc. they had utterly destroyed the simplicity and dignity as well as loyalty and the sober virtues of the first Romans and above all human slavery.

Many more things saddened Caesar such as arenas in which people watched slaves put to death by lions. From all parts of Rome ferocious animals were brought into arenas and let free to kill each other while the Romans of the day enjoyed as the beasts roared and devoured each other. These acts of boastful splendour would have appalled the old Romans.

What could Caesar do. Nothing much as the saner Romans looked on. Julius Caesar was only 56 when the daggers of assassins struck him down at the feet of Pompey's statue who was his conquered rival whom he forgave.

Time stood still as this great ruler heaved his last breath but not before the despised Colosseum appeared to bear witness to all that Caesar abhorred within its portals.

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