Climate and the Collapse of the Roman Empire: Part 3b1: The Civil Wars
Abuse rarely damages only those directly hurt by the abuser. It corrodes the character of the abuser, it passes onto the kids as acceptable behavior. Each successive generation of abuse compounds the damage of the first punch. Abuse reshapes the psychological definition of what is acceptable to do to others, and have done unto you. Children who grow up in that environment have a different definition of acceptable treatment than those who don’t. This is why a history of abuse is a strong predictor for a future for abuse.
The trick to understanding abuse is to know that it is not deviation from normal. Normal doesn’t exist unless you make it with your moral sense of right and wrong. Instead, abuse generates behaviors for survival that differ from the ones you would have had otherwise. We are shaped by our circumstances. They are good or bad depending on our collective effort to construct something better, or not. In psychology, this concept is known as transgenerational trauma. But this can be generalized to an anonymous proverb shared among the Greeks for centuries
A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they will never sit in
Consider not the moral message — the good you enjoy is dependent on the efforts of others — but the broader point — the details of your life are dictated by the choices of others in a different world. Our political systems are not unlike people in this regard. Each abuse of power breeds more abuse. Each politician coming of age has a new definition of what is possible, of what is allowable. Each partisan round of punches lays the groundwork for greater degradation of the system. And each time, the party felt justified. Tiberius Gracchus felt justified in escalating a fight for land reforms, and the Senate felt justified in turning to violence to stop his abuse of power. The whirlpool of blame would ultimately drown both sides.
In Rome, it was known by the names of Marius, Sulla, and Caesar. If the Grachhi brothers were the first generation, Marius & Sulla represented the second. The third generation would represent the final crackup of the Republic, so much so that it’s main instigator, Julius Caesar, would be immortalized by becoming the definition of autocrat in Russian (Czar) and German (Kaiser).
The Third Generation
The Roman calendar was predicated on the date that Romulus and Remus had founded the city, about 735 B.C in ours. At least according to their conception of time, Rome was built in a day. But its political transformations, from kingdom to republic, and then republic to empire, took generations to complete. In the last chapter, we saw a rising, yet destabilized, republic encounter the existential threat of large numbers of climate refugees, the Cimbri and Teutones. The military reforms created to address that threat, while effective, quickly caused civil war within the republic, leading to a breakdown in democratic institutions and the creation of an empire.
While Sulla would retire from his dictatorship 81 B.C., ostensibly to return the Roman Republic to its earlier state, the lessons of his actions could not be unlearned. First, that armies were loyal to their commanders, not the state. Second, that those commanders could get what they wanted by marching armies on Rome. A young Julius Caesar came of age (16) the year the civil war began. While an opponent of the Sullan camp, Caesar would recognize that haste combined with violence was the key to political success in Rome. Following Sulla’s retirement, Julius Caesar would return to Rome from exile. As he crossed the Aegean sea, he was captured by pirates, who held him for ransom. Caesar was offended when he heard this; he felt the price they were asking — 20 talents — was much too low. The pirates, relented, and asked for 50 talents. Caesar got along well with the pirates, but told them that provided the opportunity, he would raise a fleet and crucify them all. The pirates took this as a joke, and were surprised after his release to see him again, this time at the head of a fleet to capture and, yes, crucify them.
In his anti-pirate crusade, Caesar found himself in the company of an older Sullan loyalist, Gnaeus Pompeius. As a youth, Pompeius had volunteered for Sulla’s forces when they returned from the first Mithridatic War; he later played a key role in helping Sulla take Rome itself. Now a leading man of Rome, he had become somewhat of an heir to the figures of Sulla and Marius, being charged with difficult tasks for the Roman Republic. The campaign agains the pirates was one of them, the third (and ultimately successful) third Mithridatic war. Pompey had also stabilized — to some degree — conflicts in the middle east, namely in Syria and Judea where the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire was threatening security on the Roman Empire’s borders. Pompey raided the Second Temple of Jerusalem, taking its contents for himself. Pompey returned to Rome to a third triumph, and both the fear and admiration of his colleagues. Pompey was very much in the mold of the new Roman archetype: foreign adventurer. This rubbed some of his colleagues the wrong way, namely Crassus who lacked any great victories to his name. The closest was the successful put down of a large slave revolt — but even that Pompey claimed credit.

During Pompey’s golden years, at the age of 37 in 63 B.C., Caesar attained the office of Pontifex Maximus — while today that office is Latin term for Pope, it was originally the highest pagan religious office one could receive in Rome. He was young to have it, and there were many allegations of bribery given the status of the men he had beat for the role. Following a one year term, he moved to be praetor of Hispania Ulterior, relying heavily on Crassus to help him handle debts. In 60 B.C., he would be elected Consul in a divisive election, and required more money for his plans. He turned to Pompey to help cover some of the expenses, which was difficult given his client relationship with Crassus. He pulled the three together and in so doing created the first triumvirate, an uneasy power-sharing agreement between the most powerful men in Rome. It is worth noting that when Caesar did this, he was very much the junior partner. But he thought much further ahead than the others. His first act as consul was — surprise — to propose redistributing land to the poor. To prevent the Senate from interfering, Pompey filled the city with soldiers. Caesar had his fellow consul, Marcus Biblius, forcibly removed from the forum. The Senate was incensed, but Caesar made sure he left the consulship with a governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, Illyricum, and later Transalpine Gaul — a move which de-facto gave him 5 years immunity from criminal prosecution.
With four legions available to him through his governorships, Caesar set upon a course no other Roman governor had yet taken — the wholesale conquest of barbarian territory. This was not his stated intention, ostensibly he was driven to war in 58 B.C. due to the migrations of the Helvetii through the land of the allied Sequani.

“It-is again told Caesar that the Helvetii intend to march through the country of the Sequani and the Aedui into the territories of the Santones, which are not far distant from those boundaries of the Tolosates, which [viz. Tolosa, Toulouse] is a state in the Province. If this took place, he saw that it would be attended with great danger to the Province to have warlike men, enemies of the Roman people, bordering upon an open and very fertile tract of country.” — Caesar, De Bella Gallum X
One will note that, once again, the movement of tribes prompted a Roman response, but this time it was the inverse; rather than Rome defending its land from migration, it was essentially making offensive maneuvers against migration in other people’s territory. Nonetheless, Caesar defeated the Helvetii in two battles, then turned his attention to the migrating Suebi tribe, defeating them in turn. The following year, Caesar marched against the Belgae in modern-day Belgium, there almost suffering defeat in a surprise attack by the Nervii. While the Nervii were excellent at ambushes, they were little match for the Romans in direct conflict, and didn’t last the year. Their defeat marked the furthest north Rome’s borders had yet reached.
In the wake of this Roman expansion, Celtic tribes began to coalesce to resist the Romans to the southwest of Belgia. This provided pretense for Caesar to continue his now-open wars of conquest, where he crossed the Rhine and defeated them. The following year, 55 B.C., Caesar crossed the English Channel and launched an ultimately failed attempt to take Britania. He returned in 54 B.C. and completed the conquest. This rapid growth of territory dramatically impressed Romans, but earned the ire of his peers in the Senate.
That winter, the Gauls began to organize in Celtica, led by Vercingetorix (82–46 B.C.). Caesar’s successes so far had been because of divisions amongst the Gauls — the reason migrating groups were early targets of Caeser’s ire is that any tribe in their way had a pretext to ask for Roman support. The next year the revolt began, with Vercingetorix destryoing farms and towns to prevent the Romans from easily marching to meet them. This strategy proved effective, and left the Romans weaker and more desperate to conclude the conflict. They became considerably cueler to the Gauls — they slaughtered the town of Avaricum, a town of 40,000, in return for 25 days of near-famine conditions. Vercingetorix met them following this event, and dealt a serious defeat to the Romans under Caesar at Gergovia. However, he pursued the Romans after this battle, a costly mistake which would see a reversal in Gallic fortunes.
Vercingetorix fortified himself in Alesia. Alesia was a very defensible hill fortress, the kind the Celts had relied upon for centuries. Caesar fortified himself in turn, preparing for a long siege to starve the Gauls out. However, Gallic reinforcements began to camp outside Alesia, sandwiching Caesar between enemy forces. While this looked disastrous for Caesar, Vercingetorix had failed to properly supply Alesia for a prolonged siege. With 80,000 soldiers in addition to the normal population of the fortress, he had to get rid of people. Caesar refused to take captives, and this pushed the Gauls to act. These attacks highlighted the capability of those who served under Caesar, namely Marcus Antonius (83–30 B.C.) and Marcus Junius Brutus (85–42 B.C.). They repelled attacks, letting Caesar hold his position on two fronts as the Gallic center weakened. The Romans pressed the advantage and dispersed the Gallic reinforcements pressing them from the outside, eliminating any chance of success for Vercingetorix in Alesia. The Gauls surrendered their general to Caesar — and the remainder of their independent territory.

In a period of about 6 years, Caesar had delivered the territories of modern-day France, England, and Belgium to Rome, extending its rule across fertile territory and eliminating the Celts as a threat. This had more than just practical benefits, but also psychological and political. The only time Rome had fallen to external enemies had been the Gallic sack of Rome, purportedly in 390 B.C. It was memories of this sack that had, a generation earlier, underlined the fears of the Cimbrian and Teutones invasion. Now, Caesar had not only defeated that ancient enemy, but made their heartland Roman territory.
Caesar was an unabashed hero of Rome, but he wasn’t the only one. During his Gallic wars his fellow triumvirs had also used the alliance to buttress their military reputations. Or, in the case of Crassus, attempt to. While Caesar had chosen the northern provinces, Crassus had opted instead to assume the governorship of Syria. There, he planned an attack on the Parthian Empire — a cultural mix of Persian and Greek influences that currently ruled across much of the Middle East. He received early support from the king of Armenia, who offered thousands of troops and siege equipment if Crassus used his territory to stage the attack. Crassus refused, and instead marched through Anatolia with 7 legions to attack in 53 B.C. The Parthians had accomplished this by sleight of hand — they paid off one of Crassus’ guides, Ariamnes, who had pushed Crassus to strike quickly. Crassus’ march took him through the desert, where his troops met the Parthians while in deep need of water. As such, Crassus chose a defensive formation that would protect their access to a stream. The Parthians struck first with horse archers, taking advantage of the reduced Roman mobility. Crassus sent his son against the support lines of the Parthians. Crassus received no word of the success of that mission until he saw his son’s head on spearpoint. Heartbroken and demoralized, Crassus retreated to the town of Carrhae. This rapid retreat left wounded Romans to be easily picked off by the Parthians. The Parthians sued for peace, and Crassus was forced to meet with their generals by his near-mutinous troops. This meeting resulted in violence, with the surviving generals killed and, allegedly, with Crassus killed by being forced to drink molten gold.
The catastrophe at Carrhae had an unexpected, but ultimately fatal consequence — it destroyed the power-sharing agreement between the triumvirs. Pompey and Caesar had made a particularly strong effort to bind ties, with Pompey marrying Caesar’s sister Julia. While politically expedient, the relationship does appear to be one of true affection. However, in 54 B.C., Julia died in childbirth, the child passing away a few days later. The first triumvirate evaporated in a year, and Pompey was caught between his fading ties to Caesar and a deeply concerned Senate. Things came a head in 51 B.C., when one of the consuls for that year, Marcus Cladius Marcellus, suggested that Caesar be relieved of his Gallic command. Things grew worse for Caesar when the consuls elected in 50 B.C. both were aligned against him. Though opposition to Caesar could also arguably be opposition to both outsized personalities of Rome — Pompey offered to resign his governorship if Caesar would do the same. While this did not come to pass, both Pompey pledged troops to reinforce Syria against a potential attack by the emboldened Parthians.
The looming crises for Caesar was that his governorship was set to expire at the end of 50 B.C. And with it, his legal immunity from prosecution. Caesar’s early land bill had earned many enemies, and his conquests in the north had hardly eased the worries of his enemies in Rome. There was a simple solution — Caesar could be elected consul, and that would forestall any criminal prosecutions. But his failure to disband his legions and return to Rome had itself become a scandal. And as the heat rose, so too did the actions of the consuls, it was voted upon that Caesar should disband his army.
The moment this happened, Caesar was in Ravenna with one legion — the majority of his troops were far to the north. To any rational person, Caesar was in an absolute bind — there was no way to take on the might of Rome with one legion. But, Rome had no legion — it was just a city filled with Pompey and angry Senators. As Caesar had learned in the Gallic campaigns, moving an army fast can count even more than outnumbering the enemy. He moved his troops across the Rubicon, taking cities along the way.

Recognizing that Caesar was serious, Pompey and anti-Caesarian Senators fled Rome hastily, moving south. Pompey, in turn, left Italy for Hispania. Upon reaching Rome, Caesar quickly pivoted his troops to march to Spain, where they would defeat Pompey’s gathering force within the month. Speed, once again, was Caesar’s ally. Following this, Caesar would chase Pompey to the Adriatic, where he fortified himself in Dyrachium. Caesar attempted to drive Pompey out by thirst, while Pompey hoped to starve Caesar into submission. In the end Caesar broke first, and retreated from battle. But Caesar’s haste in attacking was matched by Pompey’s hesitation to take advantage of a victory — he let the opportunity to deal a crushing blow slide.
Pompey’s party were so elated with confidence and spirit at this success, that they thought no more of the method of conducting the war, but thought that they were already conquerors. They did not consider that the smallness of our numbers, and the disadvantage of the place and the confined nature of the ground occasioned by their having first possessed themselves of the camp, and the double danger both from within and without the fortifications, and the separation of the army into two parts, so that the one could not give relief to the other, were the cause of our defeat. They did not consider, in addition, that the contest was not decided by a vigorous attack, nor a regular battle; and that our men had suffered greater loss from their numbers and want of room, than they had sustained from the enemy. In fine, they did not reflect on the common casualties of war; how trifling causes, either from groundless suspicions, sudden affright, or religious scruples, have oftentimes been productive of considerable losses; how often an army has been unsuccessful either by the misconduct of the general, or the oversight of a tribune; but as if they had proved victorious by their valour, and as if no change could ever take place, they published the success of the day throughout the world by reports and letters. — Julius Caesar, De Gallum Civi LXXII
An emboldened Pompey met Caesar at Pharsalus in Greece, with 45,000 troops to Caesar’s 22,000. In addition, Caesar was deep in unfriendly territory, with few allies. The imbalance left Pompey and the Senators confident of a decisive victory to put an end to the civil war. They opted to force Caesar to march toward them, to give their troops a further edge by meeting exhausted rivals. Pompey sent his cavalry to attack Caesars, who feinted a retreat and led them into an ambush by a fourth line of infantry. The evaporation of Pompey’s cavalry during the surprise attack left the left flank of his army exposed, an advantage that Caesar quickly took advantage of with the third line of infantry. The Pompeian line broke, and Caesar’s army swept over the foe that outnumbered them 2:1.
Caesar had the opportunity to deliver a crushing blow and destroy the Senators who stood against him. Instead, Caesar choose clemency and forgave the vast majority of them. Caesar no longer considered Pompey a threat, and immediately set about the task of consolidating his victory.
Pompey fled Greece for Alexandria in Egypt, ceding the north coast of the Mediterranean. There, he was greeted by assassins — the Egyptian Pharaoh Ptolemy XII had heard of Caesar’s generous granting of clemency. The assassination of Pompey was witnessed by his young son Sextus from a raft bowing in the ocean. With some consequence, Sextus would from then on look to the sea for security.
If the young Pharaoh and his advisors had thought Pompey’s death would buy their way into Caesar’s good graces, they were gravely mistaken. Caesar was reportedly in tears when Pompey’s head was presented to him, and in that moment it was clear that the assassination had destabilized the relationship between Rome and Egypt. Egypt itself was not at ease — an ongoing dispute over the inheritance of the crown had enmity between Ptolemy XII and his sister, Cleopatra. The previous pharaoh had hoped for a power sharing agreement, neither of them agreed. Caesar interjected himself into the conflict on the side of Cleopatra and agains the pharaoh who had recently killed Pompey. This conflict flared into an open war, and Rome was a spectator from afar.

Following victory in Egypt, Caesar conclusively won a brief war against a successor to Mithridates, doing in months what took Pompey and Sulla years. He then turned to Africa, fighting the remaining resistance against his dictatorship. There, Cato the Younger, the implacable traditionalist, recognized that Caesar’s domination of Rome was now inevitable.
But when Butas had gone out, Cato drew his sword from its sheath and stabbed himself below the breast. His thrust, however, was somewhat feeble, owing to the inflammation in his hand, and so he did not at once dispatch himself, but in his death struggle fell from the couch and made a loud noise by overturning a geometrical abacusb that stood near. His servants heard the noise and cried out, and his son at once ran in, together with his friends. 6 They saw that he was smeared with blood, and that most of his bowels were protruding, but that he still had his eyes open and was alive; and they were terribly shocked. But the physician went to him and tried to replace his bowels, which remained uninjured, and to sew up the wound. Accordingly, when Cato recovered and became aware of this, he pushed the physician away, tore his bowels with his hands, rent the wound still more, and so died. — Plutarch: Cato the Younger, 70:5
Within a single lifetime, Caesar’s domination of Rome outstripped Sulla’s. Before, Sulla had been an anomaly in Roman history, one that Rome had not fully contended with. Following him, Rome was accustomed to individuals welding outsized influence — Pompey and Crassus were both in a similar, but safer, mold of their predecessors. Caesar was different — he wanted to bend not only the citizens of Rome, but the institutions of Rome. And he presented the clearest danger to those institutions by pardoning, not proscribing, his enemies. Sulla’s proscriptions, while violent and chaotic, were consistent with past behavior in Rome. Marius and Cinna had behaved in a similar way, and indeed this behavior could be traced to the decision to murder Tiberius Gracchus over his land reforms. It was an escalation of exciting trends. Caesar’s clemency had a quite different effect — they sanctioned one-man rule in a way that violence did not. The Senate bestowed honors on him as he pardoned the men he faced on the battle field. And by taking the mantle of hero, not villain, Caesar presented a distinct, though not yet fully thought out, alternative to Republican virtue.

Caesar’s triumph in Rome was unlike any before. Vercingetorix, whom had been languishing in a cell for years, was brought out to be displayed as a trophy — he would die in prison not long after. Hundreds of lions and gladiator fights were presented for the crowds. Fake armies — complete with elephants, battled it out in the Circus Maximus. Even a fake naval battle, complete with ships, was fought in the Field of Mars.
Caesar set about an ambitious legislative agenda as well, with an eye to satisfying a populares agenda. He effectively canceled 25% of debts, and promoted policies to increase the birthrate following decades of civil wars. He completed the process of integrating the Latin allies into the Roman system, allowing their cities to collect their own taxes and extending citizen rights to all of them. He was able to accomplish this by being granted the powers of the Tribune, allowing him to veto the Senate. This rapid pace of institutional change was serving a broader goal, of taking the haphazard arrangement of Roman territories acquired by conquest and forming an Empire out of them.
It is likely that Caesar saw himself much as Sulla had seen himself during his dictatorship — as one man resetting the course of Rome after years of struggle. The difference was that Sulla declared victory after some time and retired. Caesar showed no indication of doing so — in 46 B.C. he was granted another ten years of dictatorship. Caesar’s policies were broadly popular, and were effective in stabilizing, if not solving, many of the problems that had kept the Republic reeling. The central problem remained, to traditionalists like Brutus and Cassius, was that these reforms were being done by one man. And as Caesar’s dictatorship stretched long after the original emergency that had prompted it (caused by Caesar himself), the sense of urgency grew.
On the Ides of March (15), they would act.
Well, then, Antony, who was a friend of Caesar’s and a robust man, was detained outside by Brutus Albinus, who purposely engaged him in a lengthy conversation; 5 but Caesar went in, and the senate rose in his honour. Some of the partisans of Brutus took their places round the back of Caesar’s chair, while others went to meet him, as though they would support the petition which Tullius Cimber presented to Caesar in behalf of his exiled brother, and they joined their entreaties to his and accompanied Caesar up to his chair. 6 But when, after taking his seat, Caesar continued to repulse their petitions, and, as they pressed upon him with greater importunity, began to show anger towards one and another of them, Tullius seized his toga with both hands and pulled it down from his neck. This was the signal for the assault. 7 It was Casca who gave him the first blow with his dagger, in the neck, not a mortal wound, nor even a deep one, for which he was too much confused, as was natural at the beginning of a deed of great daring; so that Caesar turned about, grasped the knife, and held it fast. At almost the same instant both cried out, the smitten man in Latin: “Accursed Casca, what does thou?” and the smiter, in Greek, to his brother: “Brother, help!”
So the affair began, and those who were not privy to the plot were filled with consternation and horror at what was going on; they dared not fly, nor go to Caesar’s help, nay, nor even utter a word. 10 But those who had prepared themselves for the murder bared each of them his dagger, and Caesar, hemmed in on all sides, whichever way he turned confronting blows of weapons aimed at his face and eyes, driven hither and thither like a wild beast, was entangled in the hands of all; 11 for all had to take part in the sacrifice and taste of the slaughter. Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin. 12 And it is said by some writers that although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank, either by chance or because pushed there by his murderers, against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood. 13 And the pedestal was drenched with his blood, so that one might have thought that Pompey himself was presiding over this vengeance upon his enemy, who now lay prostrate at his feet, quivering from a multitude of wounds. Plutarch Caesar 68.4–14

To the assassins, this was their heroic contribution to Rome — to deliver the Republic from a dictator. They fled the Senate, and later presented themselves to the Roman people, declaring that they had freed Rome from a tyrant. This was fitting, as Brutus’ legendary ancestor had slain his own son in the first years of the Republic to prevent a king from taking the newly independent city. But they were met with silence, not cheers. The chaos of the Republic was contrasted with the peace and prosperity of one-man rule, and the champions of tradition were not necessarily the champion of the people. As this icy silence persisted, people returned to their homes, all the while the corpse of Caesar lay where the man had fallen.
