Appian - The Civil Wars - Book 1: Introduction and Book 2: Selections

Appian - The Civil Wars

Book 1: Introduction

• The plebeians and Senate of Rome often clashed over laws, debts, land division, and magistrate election.
• Disputes were resolved through mutual concessions and respect for the law.
• Plebeians withdrew to the Sacred Mount during a campaign due to a controversy.
• They created the Tribune of the Plebs to check the power of the Senate-chosen consuls.
• This led to greater animosity between magistrates, with the Senate and plebeians taking sides.
• Marcius Coriolanus, unjustly banished, sought refuge with the Volsci and waged war against Rome.
• This was the only case of armed conflict in ancient seditions, caused by an exile.
• Civil butchery began with Tiberius Gracchus' death, along with many others at the Capitol.
• Parties repeatedly clashed, often with daggers, resulting in the deaths of tribunes, praetors, consuls, and candidates.
• Open insurrections and warlike expeditions against Rome were undertaken by exiles, criminals, and those vying for office.
• Faction leaders frequently emerged, seeking supreme power and hiring forces without public authority.
• Seizing the city led to wars against the country, with massacres, proscriptions, confiscations, and tortures.
• About fifty years after Gracchus' death, Cornelius Sulla made himself sole master of the state, becoming dictator for life by force.
• Sulla voluntarily laid down his power and offered to render an account of his actions.
• Factions ceased briefly while Sulla lived, but troubles resumed after his death.
• Gaius Caesar, commanding in Gaul, refused to lay down his command when ordered by the Senate, citing Pompey's scheme to depose him.
• Caesar proposed that both he and Pompey retain their armies or that both dismiss them.
• After refusal, Caesar marched against Pompey, entered Rome, pursued him to Thessaly, won a battle, and followed him to Egypt.
• Pompey was slain in Egypt, and Caesar settled Egyptian affairs before returning to Rome.
• Caesar, having defeated Pompey, ruled openly and was chosen dictator for life after Sulla.
• Civil dissensions ceased until Brutus and Cassius assassinated Caesar in the Senate-house.
• The people mourned Caesar, pursued his murderers, built a temple on his funeral pyre, and offered sacrifices to him as a god.
• Civil discord erupted again, with massacres, banishments, and proscriptions of senators and knights.
• The Roman empire was partitioned by Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius (later Caesar Augustus).
• Octavius, with superior understanding and skill, deprived Lepidus of Africa and took Antony's provinces after the battle of Actium.
• Octavius sailed to Egypt, completing the Roman empire, and was regarded as 'Augustus'.
• Augustus assumed authority like Caesar's, but without needing election or authorization.
• His government was lasting and masterful, establishing a lineage of supreme power.
• The Roman state transitioned from civil commotions to harmony and monarchy.
• This narrative details the ambition, lust for power, perseverance, and evils of men.
• It serves as a prelude to Egyptian history, as Egypt was seized during the last civil commotion, with Cleopatra joining Antony.
• The work is divided into events from Sempronius Gracchus to Cornelius Sulla, then to Caesar's death.
• The remaining books cover wars by the triumvirs against each other and the Roman people, culminating in the battle of Actium and beginning Egyptian history.

Book II: Selections

• Caesar's African war ended, and he celebrated four triumphs: Gallic, Pontic, African, and Egyptian.
• $60,500$ silver talents and $2,822$ gold crowns (weighing $20,414$ pounds) were displayed.
• Caesar distributed wealth to the army, giving each soldier $5,000$ Attic drachmas, centurions double, and infantry tribunes and cavalry prefects fourfold that sum.
• Each plebeian citizen received an Attic mina.
• Spectacles included horse and music performances, foot-soldier combats (1,000 on each side), cavalry fights (200 on each side), and horse and foot combats together.
• Elephant combat: twenty against twenty, and a naval engagement of $4,000$ oarsmen where $1,000$ fighting men contended on each side.
• Caesar erected a temple to Venus, his ancestress, as vowed before the battle of Pharsalus.
• He created a forum for public business, not buying and selling, like Persian public squares.
• The temple included a beautiful image of Cleopatra.
• The population census revealed a decrease to half the number before the war.
• Caesar returned to Rome, honored and feared, with divine honors, sacrifices, games, and statues.
• He was depicted in different characters, crowned with oak as the savior of his country.
• Proclaimed Father of his Country, dictator for life, and consul for ten years, with his person declared sacred and inviolable.
• He was to transact business on an ivory and gold throne and sacrifice in triumphal costume.
• Annual celebrations of his victories were decreed, and priests and Vestal virgins were to offer public prayers every five years.
• Magistrates were to swear not to oppose his decrees upon inauguration.
• The month Quintilis was renamed July in his honor.
• Many temples were decreed to him as a god, including one jointly with Clemency.
• He forbade the title of king, considering it inauspicious due to ancestral curses.
• Caesar dismissed the praetorian cohorts and used only a civil escort.
• He extended his hand to the Senate but did not rise, fueling accusations of desiring to be greeted as king.
• He accepted all honors except the ten-year consulship.
• He designated himself and Antony as consuls for the following year and appointed Lepidus as master of horse in place of Antony.
• Caesar recalled exiles, except those banished for grave offenses, and pardoned enemies, adding them to magistracies and army commands.
• The people hoped he would restore the republic like Sulla.
• A crown of laurel was placed on his statue, prompting tribunes Marullus and Caesetius to imprison the culprit.
• Caesar said, "I am not King, I am Caesar," when greeted as king at the city gates.
• Caesar accused Marullus' faction of casting the odium of royalty upon him.
• He deprived them of their office and expelled them from the Senate, increasing public indignation.
• Caesar repented this arbitrary act and sought protection from friends.
• He declined bringing back Spanish cohorts, saying, "There is nothing more unlucky than perpetual watching; that is the part of one who is always afraid."
• Antony placed a diadem on Caesar's head during the Lupercal games, which Caesar rejected, causing mixed reactions from the crowd.
• Caesar planned campaigns against the Getae and Parthians, possibly to avoid the kingship issue or cure his epilepsy.
• $16$ legions of foot soldiers and $10,000$ horsemen were sent across the Adriatic.
• Rumors spread that the Sibylline books predicted the Parthians would only submit to a king-led Roman army.
• Caesar rejected the title of king of the nations subject to Rome and focused on leaving the city.
• Four days before his planned departure, Caesar was slain in the senate-house.
• Motives: jealousy of his power or desire to restore the republic.
• Conspirators feared he would become indisputably king after conquering the Parthians.
• Chief conspirators: Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, former Pompey supporters, and Decimus Brutus Albinus, a close friend.
• Caesar had honored and trusted them, giving them army commands.
• Cassius questioned Brutus about their course of action during the Senate meeting with regards to making Caesar king.
• Brutus stated that he would defend his country to the death.
• Conspirators: Caecilius, Bucolianus, Rubrius Ruga, Quintus Ligarius, Marcus Spurius, Servilius Galba, Sextius Naso, Pontius Aquila, Decimus Brutus, Gaius Casca, Trebonius, Tillius Cimber, and Minucius Basilius.
• The conspirators pledged each other without oaths or sacrifices.
• They chose the Senate as the location as Caesar was to depart on his campaign in 4 days, and a soldier bodyguard would surround him.
• Some wanted to kill Antony, but Brutus argued that killing Caesar alone would be seen as tyrannicide.
• Caesar expressed his preference for a sudden death at a dinner with Lepidus and Decimus Brutus.
• Calpurnia had a dream of Caesar streaming with blood and tried to stop him from going out.
• Unfavorable omens occurred during the sacrifice.
• Decimus persuaded Caesar to go to the Senate to dismiss it himself.
• One of Caesar's intimates, having learned of the conspiracy, tried to warn him but only found Calpurnia.
• The first sacrificial victim lacked a heart, which the soothsayer interpreted as a sign of death.
• Caesar disregarded the omens and went to the Senate.
• Trebonius engaged Antony in conversation at the door, while the other conspirators surrounded Caesar.
• Tillius Cimber petitioned Caesar for his brother's recall, then pulled away Caesar's robe to expose his neck.
• Casca wounded Caesar in the breast, Caesar fought back, and others stabbed him.
• After being wounded by Brutus, Caesar veiled himself and fell at the foot of Pompey's statue, receiving twenty-three wounds.
• The murderers fled, causing chaos and deaths throughout the city.
• Caesar's body was carried home by three slaves.
• The murderers ran to the Capitol, crying out that they had slain a king and tyrant, and bearing a cap on a spear as a symbol of freedom.
• As the people did not flock to them they were disconcerted and alarmed.
• The senators had confidence in the Senate but were suspicious of the plebeians and of Caesar's soldiers.
• They feared Lepidus and Antony.
• They hoped some praise would ring true from a love of liberty and longing for the republic.
• The assassins had fears of Lepidus, too, and of the army under him in the city, and also of Antony in his character as consul, lest he should consult the people alone, instead of the Senate, and bring some fearful punishment upon them.
• The Roman people were mixed with foreign blood with freedmen being citizens and slaves dressed in similar fashion.
• Corn Distribution attracted the lazy, beggars and vagrants of Italy.
• Discharged soldiers were encamped in temples and sacred enclosures, ready to be bought for any purpose.