Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Anglicized as Salllust), had,…

49 BCE

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Anglicized as Salllust), had, after an ill-spent youth, entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BCE.

He became a Tribune of the Plebs in 52 BCE, the year in which the followers of Milo killed Clodius in a street brawl.

Sallust then supported the prosecution of Milo.

He also had hostilities with the famous orator Cicero.

From the beginning of his public career, Sallust has operated as a decided partisan of Julius Caesar, to whom he owes such political advancement as he attains.

In 50 BCE, the censor Appius Claudius Pulcher had removed him from the Senate on the grounds of gross immorality (probably really because of his opposition to Milo and Cicero); in the following year, perhaps through Caesar's influence, he is reinstated.

On January 1, 49, the Senate receives from Caesar a proposal that he and Pompey should lay down their commands simultaneously.

Caesar's message is peremptory, and on January 7, the Senate resolves that Caesar shall be treated as a public enemy if he does not lay down his command “by a date to be fixed.” On January 10-11, 49, Caesar leads a single legion across the little river Rubicon, the boundary between his province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper.

He thus commits the first act of war.

This is not, however, the important aspect.

The actual question of substance is whether the misgovernment of the Greco-Roman world by the Roman nobility shall be allowed to continue or whether it shall be replaced by an autocratic regime.

Either alternative will result in a disastrous civil war.

(The subsequent partial recuperation of the Greco-Roman world under the principate suggests, however, that Caesarism was the lesser evil.)

The civil war is a tragedy, for war is not wanted either by Caesar or by Pompey or even by a considerable part of the nobility, while the bulk of the Roman citizen body ardently hopes for the preservation of peace.

By this time, however, the three parties that count politically are all entrapped.

Caesar's success in building up his political power has made the champions of the old regime so implacably hostile to him that he is now faced with a choice between putting himself at his enemies' mercy or seizing the monopoly of power at which he is accused of aiming.

He finds that he cannot extricate himself from this dilemma by reducing his demands (as he eventually will) to the absolute minimum required for his security.

As for Pompey, his growing jealousy of Caesar has led him so far toward the nobility that he cannot come to terms with Caesar again without loss of face.

Gnaeus Pompeius is the elder son of Pompey by his third wife, Mucia Tertia.

Both he and his younger brother Sextus Pompey have grown up in the shadow of their father, one of Rome's best generals and not originally a conservative politician who had drifted to the more traditional faction when Julius Caesar became a threat.

When Caesar crosses the Rubicon and ignites a civil war, Gnaeus follows his father in their escape to the south, as do most of the conservative senators.

Pompey, despite greatly outnumbering Caesar, who has with him only his Thirteenth Legion, does not intend to fight, having little confidence in his newly raised troops.

Caesar pursues Pompey, hoping to capture him before his legions can escape, but Pompey manages to elude him.