Opposition was instantaneous and implacable. The two candidates were taken aback. Having postponed the elections in order to fill the city with Caesar’s veterans, they now began to panic that they might still not win. Midnight visits were paid to the homes of rival candidates. Muscles were flexed, arms twisted. Only Domitius refused to stand down. By now it was January. For the first weeks of 55 there had been no consuls at all, and elections could no longer be postponed. Hours before the voting pens opened, in the dead of night, Domitius and Cato attempted to stake a place on the Campus Martius. There they were surprised by armed thugs who killed their torchbearer, wounded Cato, and put their men to flight. The next day Pompey and Crassus duly secured their second joint consulship. Even now they had not finished with their election rigging. When Cato won a praetorship Pompey had the result declared void. The aedileships were shamelessly parcelled out to supporters; so much so, in fact, that the Campus erupted into fresh violence. This time Pompey was caught in the thick of it and his toga splashed with blood.
The sodden garment was taken back to his home, where his pregnant wife was waiting anxiously for news. When Julia saw the blood-caked toga she fainted with shock and her baby was lost. No one could be surprised that the sight of Pompey the Great spattered with the gore of his fellow citizens should have resulted in his wife’s miscarriage. By such signs did the gods make their judgements known. The Republic itself was being aborted. Cicero, writing in confidence to Atticus, joked miserably that the triumvirs’ notebooks were no doubt filled with ‘lists of future election results’.4 To their peers, the criminality of Pompey and Crassus was so naked as to appear sacrilegious. Whereas before, in 59, they had employed Caesar as their proxy, now it was they who were staining the sacred office of the consulship. And to what end? Surely they had already both won glory enough? Why, merely to secure the consulship for a second time, had they resorted to such violent and illegal extremes?
The answer was not long in coming, and even Pompey and Crassus had the grace to be embarrassed by it. When a tame tribune came forward with a bill that would give the consuls five-year commands in Syria and Spain the two men affected innocent surprise, but no one was fooled. The more closely the terms of the bill were inspected, the more dismaying they appeared. The two proconsuls were to have the right to levy troops, and declare war and peace, without reference to the Senate or the people. A separate bill awarded identical privileges to Caesar, confirming him in his command and extending it for a further five years. Between them, the three members of the syndicate would now have direct control of twenty legions and Rome’s most critical provinces. The city had often echoed to cries of ‘tyranny’ – but never, surely, with such justification as now.
From its earliest days the nightmare that its own ideals might turn against it had haunted the Republic. ‘It is disturbing’, Cicero reflected, ‘that it tends to be men of genius and brilliance who are consumed by the desire for endless magistracies and military commands, and by the lust for power and glory.’5 An ancient insight. The Romans had always appreciated that everything they found most splendid in a citizen might also be a source of danger. This explained why, over the centuries, so many limits upon the free play of ambition had evolved. Laws and customs, precedents and myths, these formed the fabric of the Republic. No citizen could afford to behave as though they did not exist. To do so was to risk downfall and eternal shame. Pompey and Crassus, true Romans, understood this in their blood. It was why Pompey could conquer by land and sea, and yet yearn for the respect of a man like Cato. It was why Crassus could be the most feared man in Rome, and yet choose to veil his power behind shadows. Now, however, their scruples were no longer sufficient to restrain them. After all, in order to win his second consulship, Pompey had almost had Cato killed. And Crassus, during the debate on his proconsular command, grew so heated that he punched a senator in the face.
Indeed, it was generally observed, in that summer of 55, just how excitable this formerly discreet man had become. Crassus had turned voluble and boastful. When he won the governorship of Syria by lot he could not stop talking about it. Even had he not been in his sixties such behaviour would have been regarded as unseemly. Suddenly, people were laughing at him behind his back. This had never happened before. The more that Crassus stepped into the full glare of unpopularity, the more his sinister mystique began to fade. He found himself being jostled by mobs, and even, on occasions, having to turn tail and beg Pompey for protection. With such humiliations did the Roman people punish Crassus for his betrayal of the Republic. When the time finally came for him to depart for his province no celebrations accompanied him, no cheering crowds. ‘What a villain he is!’6 Cicero exclaimed, gloating over the shabbiness of Crassus’ departure. But the lack of a rousing send-off was not the worst. As the proconsul clattered out through the city gates on to the Appian Way he found a tribune waiting for him by the side of the road. Earlier, the same man had attempted to arrest Crassus, a stunt contemptuously brushed aside. Now he was standing by a brazier. Clouds of incense rose from it, drifting across the tombs of ancient heroes, perfuming the winter breeze. Gazing at Crassus, the tribune began to chant. The words were archaic, barely comprehensible, but their portent was perfectly clear: Crassus was being cursed.
To such an accompaniment, then, did he set out from Rome on his Eastern command. Nothing could better have reminded him of the high price he had paid to secure it. What had previously been dearest to Crassus, his prestige, was shot to pieces. No wonder, during his consulship, that he had betrayed signs of nerves. Yet these were not, as his enemies hinted, evidence of senility or a loosening grip. In the ledger of Crassus’ mind, costs and benefits were still being balanced as cynically as ever. Only a prize beyond compare could have persuaded him to sacrifice his credit in the Republic. Syria on its own would hardly serve as recompense. In exchange for his good name Crassus wanted nothing less than the riches of the world.
In the past he had mocked such fantasies. His bitter rival, during his third and most grandiloquent triumph, had been followed by a giant float representing the globe. Yet Pompey the Great had been too nervous of the role of Alexander to indulge in it wholeheartedly, too respectful of the traditions of his city. Crassus, understanding this, and confirmed in his contempt for Pompey’s braggadocio, had originally felt no need to play the world conqueror himself. But then Caesar had taken up the role. In the space of two short years he had won himself wealth to rival Pompey’s. Crassus, chill and calculating, had not been slow to recognise the implications of this. Travelling to Ravenna, reaching his compact with Pompey and Caesar, mounting his brutal election campaign, he had been prompted by a mingling of greed and fear, of rampant avarice, and of a dread of being left behind. More clearly perhaps than either of his partners in crime, he had glimpsed an unsettling new order. In it a few high-achievers – maybe two, but Crassus hoped three – would wield a degree of power so disproportionate to that of their fellow citizens that Rome herself would be placed in their shadow. After all, if the Republic were the mistress of the world, then for men who dared seize control of it, and marshal its resources as they pleased, what limits could there be? The sky, perhaps – but nothing lower.