Rome Must Fall

In May, the Boii sent envoys to negotiate with Nix and demanded that he release all the Boii captives.

Maximus was willing to negotiate and release the Boii king, but refused to release other Boii captives because the Nix tribe had obtained a large piece of land and was in urgent need of labor.

Seeing that Maximus refused to agree and even refused to ask for his own king, the Boii envoy stopped the negotiations, left a harsh word, and returned to the north bank.

As the Nix fleet cruised on the Drao River day and night, Maximus was not worried about the safety of the southern bank territory. He led officials from various factions to govern the new territory...

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Faced with the massive rebellion launched by Catiline in the Etruria region north of Rome, most senators were panicked, especially when they learned that many Sulla veterans had joined the rebels. They were more and more worried about the recurrence of the Roman civil war, so some people proposed at the Senate meeting: recall Pompey, who was fighting in the East, to suppress Catiline's rebellion.

Cato was angry about this and announced that he would rather die than see Pompey appointed as the commander of the Italians.

Cicero also firmly opposed this proposal. When he was young, he regarded Pompey as a hero of Rome. Now he was in a high position in the political arena and was unwilling to see Pompey continue to achieve one glory after another on the battlefield and gain unparalleled prestige among the people, thus threatening the security of the Roman republic.

In the end, he persuaded the Senate not to recall Pompey, but to actively prepare for war.

Facts have proved that although Catiline was very violent in the northwest of Rome, his temporary army was complex and lacked training. Facing the well-organized and large Roman army, he was defeated in succession and was finally completely defeated in the Battle of Bistoli. He also died on the battlefield, causing almost no substantial danger to Rome, which was far from being comparable to the Spartacus rebels.

But even so, many Roman elders still felt panic and staged a farce of tactical retreat from Rome during the war.

For example, Hybridas, who had just stepped down as consul, should have been one of the commanders to suppress the rebellion, but he pretended to be sick and did not go to the battlefield. Later, he hurried to Macedonia to take office, focusing on making money and keeping a low profile on everything else.

Most senators kept a low profile, except Caesar, who was always the most high-profile one in the Senate.

In 62 BC, he officially took office as a legal officer, and as soon as he took office, he began to attack Catullus in retaliation for him almost framing him in the Catiline incident.

The Temple of Jupiter in Rome was destroyed by fire ten years ago. Catullus was ordered to repair the temple during his tenure as consul, but it has not been completely completed yet. So the legal officer Caesar summoned Catullus to a citizen assembly in the Roman Forum, accusing him of embezzling the project funds allocated by the Senate and demanding an explanation.

He forced Catullus not to go on the podium, but to speak and explain on the ground at a lower level to humiliate the chief senator.

He even proposed to give the task of repairing the temple to someone else, but in the end, he failed because many supporters of Catullus rushed to the venue.

However, winning was not Caesar's main purpose. He valued showing his face in public and showing his concern for the public affairs of Rome.

Caesar was also one of the elders who actively requested to recall Pompey to quell the rebellion, but he still failed. However, his fanfare to support this great hero won the hearts of the people and the favor of Pompey.

Caesar not only praised and supported Pompey in public to increase his reputation, but also shared his wife Muzia with Pompey during Pompey's overseas expedition.

But he didn't expect revenge to come so quickly. At the end of the year, he was involved in a scandal of adultery, and this time he was the innocent party.

Caesar's high priest's residence was chosen as the festival venue for the Good Goddess Festival this year. Since the ceremony was performed entirely by women, according to custom, all men were not allowed to be present.

However, the next quaestor, the handsome Claudius, disguised himself as a woman, sneaked into the meeting place, and had a tryst with Caesar's wife Pompeia, but was discovered, causing an uproar.

As a legal officer, Caesar could have charged Claudius with "blasphemy", but he did not want to make a big deal out of it, nor did he want to offend Claudius, who had a wide network of contacts, so he gave up testifying in court, allowing Claudius to pass smoothly.

In turn, he divorced Pompeia on the grounds that "Caesar's wife should not be suspected."

In fact, Caesar and Pompeia were never as close as they were with Cornelia (Caesar's first wife). After marriage, Caesar spent too much time with Servilia and other mistresses, Pompeia failed to conceive a boy or a girl, and the family was dominated by her mother-in-law Aurelia. It is completely understandable that Pompeia was resentful and cheated.

Of course, Claudius's seductiveness cannot be ignored. He is smart, handsome, and very seductive. Like Caesar, he likes to seduce other people's wives and is a playboy.

In short, this matter has become a hot topic among the Roman people after dinner.     Caesar, who was in the midst of the storm, could only resign as a judge in a hurry and rush to Spain.

According to Roman law, a judge who resigned could take office as a provincial governor, and the province designated by the Senate for Caesar was Spain.

Caesar had worked in Spain for a year as a quaestor, and his first appointment as provincial governor was in Spain, which he was familiar with. Was it such a coincidence?

Of course not. Caesar was now very influential in the Senate and had the ability to choose where he wanted to go.

However, he almost failed to go because some creditors stopped him from leaving and asked him to pay back the money first.

Caesar asked Crassus for help.

Although Crassus was also a creditor, he had a close relationship with Caesar and did not hesitate to take out 830 talents as a deposit, allowing Caesar to go to Spain smoothly to take office.

In 61 BC (the twelfth year of the establishment of the Nix tribe), Caesar began to perform his duties as provincial governor.

For the elders, the Spanish province was not a good place to go. There were too many barbarians there, and looting and robbery were their way of life. In addition, the war to suppress Sertorius in previous years had left the area scarred, which led to the rampant bandits here.

Some senators were happy to see Caesar take office as the governor of Spain, and they were looking forward to his big fall there, because they felt that Caesar was good at stirring up trouble in Rome, but he was good at fooling around with women and might show his true colors when facing vicious barbarians.

But as soon as Caesar arrived in Spain, he immediately recruited ten new battalions, increased the existing garrison by half, and then began to conquer those Celtic tribes that refused to submit to Rome, and won many battles. His military talents were initially displayed, and he was praised by the people of the province as a "triumphant general".

However, his success in Spain did not cause a big wave in Rome, because all the Romans' attention was attracted by another major event-Pompey's return.

Lucullus was right, he had already crushed the power of the Kingdom of Pontus, and Pompey was just a scavenger bird who came to pick up the ready-made bargain.

Indeed, when Pompey succeeded Lucullus' command and crushed Mithridates' power once and for all with a larger army, and easily subdued Tigranes, he could not be satisfied with just this achievement.

In the next few years, he seized every opportunity to command his army to expedition to places that no Roman army had ever set foot in before: he went north to the Caucasus, south to Syria, and besieged Jerusalem... Except for the powerful Parthian Kingdom and the desert area, the entire Eastern Mediterranean power was brought under the control of Rome.

He also spent a lot of time establishing provincial management in these newly occupied areas and formulated many laws to ensure peace in this vast Eastern region.

So when he returned to Rome in the summer of 61 BC, the whole city of Rome was shocked.

In his third triumphal procession, Pompey, who was several years older, no longer had the absurd idea of ​​riding an elephant chariot, but his vain character remained unchanged. Therefore, he specially asked people to hold a large sign in the parade, which clearly read: He defeated and captured tens of millions of enemies, captured and sank nearly a thousand warships, and accepted the surrender of thousands of towns or strongholds...

In his parade, there were hundreds of captured princes and nobles from the East, countless gold and silver jewelry, and hundreds of floats marked with each kingdom or race he defeated...And he himself rode in a chariot decorated with gems, wearing a cloak that was said to have been worn by Alexander the Great.

Yes, Pompey's brilliant achievements eclipsed the achievements of Rome's previous great generals, and could be compared with Alexander the Great, who conquered the East at a young age.

The first thing Pompey did when he returned to Rome was to divorce his promiscuous wife Muzia, and then find Cato, expressing his hope to marry his niece, the daughter of Caesar's mistress Servilia, and also propose to Servilia's other daughter on behalf of his son.

This was Pompey's way of expressing goodwill to the conservatives in the Senate and trying to ease the relationship with them, because he knew that these people had been quite resentful of him during the years of war.

Why did he propose to Cato? Because the elderly Catullus had passed away, the young, aggressive, uncompromising, and well-born Cato became the banner of the conservatives.

Cato resolutely rejected Pompey's proposal, which increased his reputation and made the conservative senators see that Cato valued morality more than political benefits, which made them rely on him more.

Pompey's proposal failed, and he suffered setbacks in the political arena.