All language subtitles for History Lessons (1972) {tmdb-205668}.en_2

From Bertolt Brecht's novel fragment,
The Business Affairs of Mr. Julius Caesar

History Lessons

Mummlius Spicer.
Banker.

At that time he wasn't doing anything
anymore, far as I know.

He'd tried to find a profession
and make money.

He'd tried being a lawyer
in two suits

for the Democratic Clubs against
high Senate officials,

for extortion and abuses
in the provinces.

The City paid young lawyers from
good families well for such suits.

It was the old fight between
the City and the Senate.

Since the dawn of time 300 families shared
all high offices in and outside Rome.

The Senate was their Exchange.

There they bargained who'd
sit on the Senate bench,

who the judge's chair,
who on the battle horse,

and who just on his estate.

They were great landowners who
treated other Roman citizens like

servants, and servants like serfs.

Merchants they treated like thieves,

inhabitants of conquered provinces like
enemies.

One of them was the old Cato,
great grandfather of our Cato,

who in my and C's time led
the Senate part.

He praised 2nd-century legislation,
whereby the thief had to pay back twice

and the money-lender four times.

A generation before mine they made
a law that no Senator could do business.

The law came too late,
it was got round at once.

One can do anything with laws
- except stop trade.

The law even led to extended
trading companies

in which each of 50 partners
owns a 50th of a ship,

so that he controls 50 ships
instead of just one,

but you can see where these
gentlemen were headed.

They were distinguished generals,
quite able to conquer provinces,

but they didn't know what to
do with them afterwards.

But as our commerce grew
out of infancy

and we began to export oil,
wool and wine in greater quantity,

and to import grain and other things,

and especially as we wanted to export
money and put it to work in provinces,

these gentlemen showed their highborn
inability to move with the times,

and the young City realised
we lacked rational leadership.

Understand, we felt no desire at all
to get on a battle horse,

or to squander our time,
which was money,

on unpleasant seats of office.

The gentlemen could peacefully
stay where they were -

but only under a solid leadership
of the City.

Take the Punic War for example.

We'd conducted it for the best reasons
there are:

namely, to beat down African
competition.

But what came of it?

Our military men took away from
Carthage not her products and taxes,

but her walls and warships.

They didn't fetch the corn,
they fetched the plough.

Our generals said proudly, "Where my
legions set foot, grass grows no more."

But what we'd wanted was
exactly that grass.

You know, from one of those grasses
bread is made.

What was conquered in the Punic War,
at immense cost, was wastelands.

These territories could well have fed
our entire peninsula.

But for the Triumph in Rome,
our generals took away from them

everything they needed to work for us
- their field tools, their field slaves.

And after such a conquest
came a similar administration.

The governors only write the figures
in their own household books.

You know no clothing has more pockets
than a general's coat.

But the governors' clothes
were nothing but pockets.

The gentlemen, when they set foot
again on home soil,

jangled with metal no less than
if they'd come in armor.

Cornelius Dolabella and Publius
Antonius, the figures young C sued,

had loaded half Macedonia
on to their ships.

In such a way, naturally one couldn't
set up any real commerce.

After every war there were failures and
suspension of payments in Rome.

Each victory for the troop
was a defeat for the City.

The triumphs of the generals
were triumphs over the people.

The cry of woe that arose after Zama,
the battle that ended the Punic war,

was bilngual.

It was the cry of woe of the Punic
and of the Roman banks.

The Senate slaughtered the milk cow.

The system was rotten
through and through.

All this was the talk of the town
in Rome.

They chattered in every barber's booth
about the moral rot of the Senate.

They even chattered in the Senate itself
about

"the necessity for a thorough
moral regeneration."

Cato, the Younger, saw a black
future for the 300 families.

He resolved to do something
for their good name,

and in the cities he governed in
Sardinia,

he went out on foot with just one
servant

who carried the coat and paten
behind him.

And when he returned from his Spanish
governorship,

he sold his battle horse beforehand,

because he didn't feel justified charging
its transport costs to the state.

Unfortunately his ship struck
a storm.

He was shipwrecked and lost his
account books,

and for the rest of his life lamented that
he couldn't prove to anyone

how decently he'd conducted
his affairs.

He knew his attitude was
unbelievable.

The City held for nothing "setting a
good example" and moral speeches.

It saw clearly what was lacking:
officials must be paid.

For the gentlemen performed their
office for honor's sake;

to take money for it seemed
insulting to them.

With such high ideals there was
naturally nothing left to them

but to steal. And they stole

from corn tributes, road building,
water from state aqueducts.

The City, as I was said,
was not unreasonable.

It contacted merchants in
conquered provinces

and encouraged them to
institute lawsuits.

Thus there were lawsuits.

Cicero himself, the City's great trumpet,
conducted a few for Sicilian firms.

But with time our Senate gentlemen got
use to lawsuits,

as one gets used to rain:
one puts a coat on.

From then on they no longer
stole a lot from a few,

but a little from many.

And when suits threatened,
they stole everything.

To conduct lawsuits, money is needed.

So from those they plundered, they also
stole the costs of possible suits.

Then rich Democratic Clubs in Rome
started financing suits

against the Senatorial robbers,
against the most shameless of them

- those who hindered the business of
even Roman merchants in the provinces.

These suits did bring a little discredit,
and, perhaps more importantly,

young lawyers could work themselves
in on the subject.

For here it wasn't enough to make
some witty speeches:

the lawyer had to get and coach
witnesses,

and to distribute money skillfully, so
that judicial mechanism was well oiled.

We even got young lawyers
from Senatorial families.

In no other way could they study
the administrative machinery better.

One has to have bribed once to be able
to let oneself be bribed properly.

C lost both lawsuits.

Some think because he
was inefficient.

I think because he was
too efficient.

The latter is suggested by
his having to leave afterwards,

in order, he himself told me,
to get out of the way of

the hostile atmosphere stirred
up against him.

He went to Rhodes, supposedly to
perfect himself in the art of speaking.

Since this motivation for hasty
departure

doesn't sound exactly glorious
for a young lawyer,

one presumes there were other motives for
going that'd have sounded less glorious.

True, a lawyer sometimes can earn
more losing a suit than winning it.

But one shouldn't do this already with
the very first suit one obtains.

It was a weakness in this young man
that he did nothing by halves.

Presumably he wanted right from
the start to be a real lawyer.

He did just the same thing later
with military leadership.

I got white hair through it.

But he was considered rather early on
as a coming man in the Democratic Party?

Yes, he was considered
a coming man.

He came for money.

They were keen on names.

His family was one of the 15 or 16
oldest Patrician families of the city.

You can't deny it speaks for
a Democratic disposition

that he totally rejected Sulla's
demand that he divorce his first wife,

Cornelia, because she was Cinna's
daughter.

Do you mean he wasn't serious
about that either?

Why shouldn't he have been serious?
Cinna had made a pretty fortune in Spain.

That was confiscated.

Not from C.

When that threatened, he went with it
and with Cornelia to Asia.

So you think his refusal to part with
Cornelia

had nothing to do with
political convictions.

And no doubt love had nothing
to do with it either?

No doubt he couldn't love
at all, in your view?

Why should I think that?

It was just then that he was in love.

A Syrian freedman.
I forget his name.

Cornelia, if people are to be believed,
was rather irritated about it.

Already on the ship it came
to unpleasant scenes,

and the Syrian insisted that
C divorce.

Like Sulla.

But C didn't give way to
him either.

He didn't, even if it disappoints you,
let his heart rule his head.

And the burial he prepared for
her and his aunt?

That was political.

In the funeral procession, he had wax
masks of Marius and Cinna carried.

He got 200,000 sestertii from
the Democratic Party for it

His family, above all his mother,

whom I've told you about
- a very sensible woman -

blamed him for it for a long time.

200,000 sestertii, that was no more
than one paid for two good cooks.

But the Clubs thought the
payment sufficient,

because there was no longer any
danger attached to such demonstration:

the Praetor by then was
already a Democrat.

He always needed money.

He even tried the slave trade once.

You've no doubt heard the
story about the pirates?

Would you mind repeating
what you know of it?

Young Caesar was captured by pirates
near the island of Pharmacusa.

They maintained considerable fleets
and covered the sea with many vessels.

At first he scoffed at the pirates because
they asked for only 20 talents ransom.

Didn't they know whom they'd caught?

He spontaneously offered
to pay them 50.

And at once he sent companions to
various towns to raise the money.

With his physician, his cook and two
manservants, he remained behind

with the murder-hungry Asians.

He continued to treat them so
contemptuously

that whenever he lay down to sleep,
he ordered them to keep quiet.

38 days he spent in such a way

that the pirates seemed to be his
bodyguard, rather than he their captive.

Without the least fear
he joked and played with them.

Now and then he even composed
poems and speeches

and read them to them.

Those who didn't admire them he called
blockheads and barbarians,

and often laughingly threatened
he would have them hanged.

The pirates had fun with him and took
his speeches as charming jokes.

But as soon as the ransom came from
Miletus and he was set free,

he manned vessels in Miletus with
armed men

and put to sea against the pirates.

He found them still at anchor off the
island and overpowered them.

Their riches he regarded as
legitimate booty,

but them themselves he handed over to
the prison of Pergamos

and then went to Junius, Governor of
Asia, to procure from him punishment

of his prisoners.

But as Junius thought only about what
had been taken from the pirates,

which certainly came to an
imposing sum,

and so answered indecisively
that at the moment

he'd no time to worry about
the prisoners.

Caesar, without further word to him,
went back to Pergamos

and on his own authority had all the
pirates nailed to the cross,

as he'd so often jestingly
predicted to them on the island.

Almost everything in his life
already looks like that.

I'll tell you what it was.
It was the slave trade.

The little affair falls in the period when C
used the burial of his first wife and aunt

as a demonstration for Democracy,

immediately after which he'd started
suits against the Senators' infractions

in the provinces.

It had to do with his trip to Rhodes,

where he wanted to learn
speechmaking from a Greek.

Our young lawyer liked to do
several things at the same time.

And as mentioned,
he needed money.

So he took with him a shipload
of slaves:

as I remember, skilled Gallic
leatherworkers

that one could get rid of down
there with profit.

Naturally, it was smuggling.

The big slave traders of Asia Minor
had old contracts with our harbors,

as well as with the Greek and
Syrian ones,

which ensured them a monopoly of
slave transport in both directions.

The slave trade, you see, was a
well-organized business branch

backed with much capital,
Roman too.

On the slave market in Delos,

up to ten thousand head were
sometimes sold in a single day.

The slave traders' links with the capital
traders were close and well-organized.

Only later, when the City set up
its own slave trade,

was there friction with the
export trust of Asia Minor.

Our tax farmers, under the protection of
the Roman eagle and in deepest peacetime,

arranged regular slave hunts in
the Provinces of Asia Minor.

The Cilician and Syrian firms resisted
the competition,

which they thought unfair,
as best they could.

The struggle for slave monopoly soon
led to a quite beautiful sea war.

Transport ships were captured and
slave cargoes confiscated in all directions.

Roman firms insulted Asia Minor ones,
and Asia Minor pirates Roman ones.

C went in winter, when storms made
one safer from the Asia Minor corsairs.

But they still captured him.

They took his cargo
and put him in custody.

As you know from history books,
he was treated with utmost delicacy.

They left him his doctor and
manservants,

and even listened patiently
to his poems.

The good people of Asia Minor even put up
with this brutality and remained polite.

He only had to pay the damages, which
were calculated by cargo size.

It was 20 talents.

The rest I'm telling you I have from
Proconsul Junius,

who then officiated down there and
whom I got to know as an old man.

He investigated the affair,
because a big scandal blew up.

C then turned, through messengers, to
the towns of Asia Minor for the money.

He hid that it was damages for
slave trading,

and claimed it was ransom
extorted by pirates.

And he asked not for 20 talents,
but for 50.

They were raised.
He never paid them back.

Freed, he journeyed to Miletus,
manned a couple of ships

with gladiator slaves, and took back
from the Asians

the "ransom" as well as
his slave cargo.

Moreover, he dragged to Pergamos
not only the Asian corsair crew,

but also slave traders who'd sent it out,
as well as all stocks of slaves there.

Summoned by Junius to explain,
he demanded the Asians all be treated
as pirates.

And when Junius refused and inquired
too persistently for further details,

he journeyed under cover of darkness
to Pergamos and by forged orders

had the Asians nailed to the cross so that
they could testify nothing against him.

In addition, because he'd pulled a
fast one over the terrible "pirates,"

by jokingly threatening them with
crucifixion and then doing so,

he acquired a reputation for humor with
the historians,

Totally unwarranted.

He didn't have a grain of humor.
But he had initiative.

I don't understand how by then
he already had the power for all that.

He has as much power as any puppy
from a Senatorial family.

They did what they wanted.

You shouldn't forget that C had
merchants hanged here,

if you want to measure what difficulties
Junius had as a result.

It wasn't yet the case that the Asia Minor
firms could officially be called pirates.

Now they're called pirates
in the history books.

Since they're written by us, naturally
we bring our own view of things.

But even then a moral campaign against
the Asians had been started in Rome

with a heap of money.

It was claimed they were procuring
their wares in an unlawful way.

Indeed, some even reproached them for
inhuman treatment of their wares.

At the same time it was clear that the
wares seized by governors in campaigns

suffered far more in
transportation.

To the military it was all the same
how many head arrived.

The traders, on the other hand, lost
money with each man,

and thus provided sanitary
freighting.

But only years after the little incident
we're discussing

did Roman firms succeed in making
their cause Rome's cause.

They helped the mood in the Forum
a bit

by having a few Roman grain ships
opportunely captured

by some sort of Greek freebooters.

Only then could they scream
for state help

and demand application of the
pirate law.

But the City didn't get the Roman war fleet
for its struggle against Asian competition

without a struggle.

In this too, morever, C played a role,
even if a discreet one.

When in the year 87 the People's
Tribune Gabinus

demanded from the Senate
on behalf of the City

that the Roman war fleet be given to
Pompey to fight the "pirates,"

he was nearly lynched by milords
the landowners.

They hand long-term contracts
with the Asians,

and could tolerate no interruption or
reduction of slave imports:

their giant estates were not
manageable without slaves.

They had no wish to give the City
a monopoly in slave imports.

They feared monopoly prices.

The City called upon the people.

The Democratic Clubs went
into action.

Naturally it didn't happen without
a little demagogy.

To the people one must speak
in popular style.

They emphasized ( C, too, was one of
the orators ) the cheap slave prices

of the Asia Minor firms, through which
Roman artisans were deprived of bread.

Among small farmers bitterness at the
Senate's opposition was quite universal.

Use of slaves by large estates weighed
horribly on the small peasant holdings.

They hoped to be able to throttle not
only the slave traders of Asia Minor,

but also the whole slave trade.

In Etruria, the Senate had to send in
the army against raging peasants.

The municipal proletariate, too, suffered
from the fact

that entrepreneurs were ruining
artisans' wages with cheap slave labor.

However scales were turned against
them,

when slave import firms,
young and strong in capital,

contrived a small rise in wheat prices
and spread the rumor

that pirates were obstructing
import of wheat.

And naturally money was poured out
on all sides.

Pompey, like the other lictors, was always
preceded by men with sealed envelopes.

So at the people's assembly,
people only laughed

when old Catulus of the Senate, after a
flowery enumeration of Pompey's merits,

beseeched that such a man not be
exposed to the dangers of a war.

And when he cried in despair, "Whom
will you have left if you lose this one?"

they shouted, grinning,
"You!"

And when another speaker warned of
handing over such power to a single man,

they raised such a shriek that a raven
which was flying over the market

fell stunned by it into the assembly.

It was probably on its way to fetch its
share of the public money.

Yet the whole fuss would have been
of no use

if they'd not pressed into a dozen
Senators' hands

a heap of sahres in the
slave import firms.

Only now did the affair become
a national affair

and Pompey get the war fleet
for the City.

The price of wheat fell by half,

in three months the sea was cleaned
of Asian competition,

and immediately thereupon Pompey,
through a mere amendment, so to speak,

got the supreme command
in Asia.

He fetched the slaves.

You understand, the little man voted
twice in succession for the same man.

But he didn't do the same thing twice.

His naval war could pass as a blow
against the slave trade,

but his land war meant slave trade
on the largest scale.

Half a year later the slave market
in Rome was flooded out,

this time by Roman firms.

Moreover, Cicero made his
maiden speech at this time.

He spoke for conferring the supreme
command on Pompey.

Where he got his honorarium
you can work out for yourself

I saw him only twice in ten years.
What do you want to know about him?

Were you in Gaul with him?

Yes, sir, we were with him.
Three legions, sir.

Did you see him from close up?

500 paces once,
1,000 paces the other time.

Once, if you want to know exactly,
at a parade in Lucus,

which meant four hours extra drill.

The other time at the
embarcation for Britannia.

He was much loved?

He was thought smart.

But the simple man had confidence
in him?

Provisions weren't bad.
He say to that, so they said.

Were you in the Civil War?

O yes. On Pomey's side.

How so?

I belonged to the legion he'd
squeezed out of Pompey.

He gave it back before
the Civil War broke out.

I see.

Tough luck. I lost my indemnity.
And he paid very decent indemnities.

But I could not choose.

Why did you become a soldier?

Long ago, sir.

Don't you know anymore?

You're a stubborn one.

I went into the army because
I was recruited.

My home is in the region of Setia,
if that means anything to you.

A Latin. If I hadn't been a
Roman citizen,

they wouldn't have been able
to recruit me.

Would you have rather stayed
where your home is?

That, no. We were already four boys.

That was too many for the
couple of hides of land.

Nor could we hire ourselves out
to one of the large estates,

because they preferred to take
freedmen, who couldn't be recruited.

And besides, they had their slaves.

Are your brothers still on the farm?

How should I know?
Hardly likely, sir. With the wheat prices.

You have Sicilian wheat in Italy,
you see, that's so much cheaper.

Already in my day, even the troops
were fed only with Sicilian wheat.

And you yourself have looked for
land again only now?

Yes, with my years one is not
a soldier any more.

Yes, the land question was not solved,
and it will never be solved. Impossible.

Your business isn't very great now
either, is it?

We little men can't keep up.
For that one needs slaves.

Did you hear anything about the
Democratic Clubs in your youth?

I think so. When I was in the capital,
I voted once.

But if it was for the Democratic Praetor,
I don't know any more.

I got 50 sestertii - a lot of money.

I think the Democrats were for settling
the land question?

Really? Weren't they for giving free
grain to the unemployed?

That too.

But that's precisely what ruined
the price of grain.

But it one was in the town, as you were
then, it was still good to get cheap bread?

Yes, in the town it was necessary.
There one was unemployed.

But for your people in Latium you think
it was a bad thing?

There the low price of wheat
ruined everything?

Yes. That and the many slaves.
We were bringing them in now.

From Gaul, etc.
Difficult, eh? politics!

What did Caesar look like then?

Worn out.

Jurist Afranius Carbo.
It's a rotten habit of you young people

to laugh when the subject of the ideals
trade has brought the world comes up.

You're just imitating the sneers
of a few high-born idlers.

Is heroism seen only in war?
If yes, is commerce not war?

Words like "peaceful trading" may
inspire ambitious young merchants:

they have no place in history.
Trade is never peaceful.

Boundaries which commodities can't
cross are crossed by troops.

Among the woolspinner's tools is not
only the loom, but also the catapult.

And in addition, commerce still
has its own war.

An unbloody war, yes, but nevertheless
a deadly one, I think.

Hunger for bread kills those who
have it, and those who don't.

And not only does hunger for bread kill,
appetite for oysters kills too.

In spite of this, it's true trade brought
a humane touch to human relations.

It must have been in a businessman's brain
that the first peaceful thought arose

- the idea of the utility
of mild action.

You understand, the idea that in an
unbloody war

one could secure greater advantages
than in a bloody war.

In fact, sentence of death by starvation
is somewhat milder than by sword.

Just as a milk cow's lot is pleasanter
than a fattened swine's.

A trader must have hit on the idea that
one can get more out of a man
than just his entrails.

But don't forget in all this that "Live and
let live," the great humane maxim,

surely still means "live" for the milk
drinker, "let live" for the cow.

And when you consider history,
what conclusion do you reach?

If ideals can only be taken seriously
if blood has flowed for them,

then ours, those of Democracy,
must be taken very seriously.

A lot of blood flowed for them.

Tiberius Gracchus was slain for them by
Senators' sons with chair legs,

and 300 of ours with him.

None of the dead showed traces
of iron weapons.

Their corpses were thrown
into the Tiber.

The Senatorial general Manius Aquillius
had offered a whole Province of Asia Minor

for sale to the kings of
Pontus and Bythinia.

The Pontine king offered more,
and the Senate ratified the sale.

"There are three tendencies in the
Senate," said Gracchus.

"The first is for the sale;
it is bribed by the King of Pontus.

"The second is against the sale;
it is bribed by the King of Bythinia.

"The third is silent;
it is bribed by both kings."

The Senate answered him
with the chair legs.

That was in 620,
so more than a century ago.

Thirteen years later Gaius Gracchus
insisted

that the grain requisitioned in the
Spanish Provinces be paid for,

that peasants be sent as colonisers
to conquered Africa,

that Italians be accepted as citizens,

that taxes instead of tributes be
imposed in the Provinces,

that the State income be controlled
by businessmen.

And a horde of Senators chased him
down the slope to the bank of the Tiber.

He sprained a foot, and had himself
stabbed by his slave in a suburban park

so as not to fall into their hands.

His head was cut off and
paid for by a Senator.

21 years passed, in which the Italian
peasant and the Roman artisan

beat the slave bands of Sicily,
Jugurtha's Numidian troops,

the Cimbrians and the Teutons.

And one December day in 654

the Democrats were driven together
into the Market,

and then up to the Capitol, where their
water was cut off so they had to surrender.

They were cooped up in the town hall,
young noblemen clambered onto the roof,

took off the tiles, and smashed
the prisoners' heads with them.

Then the Italian peasant and the Roman
artisan conquered

conquered half Asia and Egypt as well,
and it was time for a new blood-letting.

Sulla undertook it, and this time
the work was thorough:

4000 of ours, counting modestly
- that is, counting only the wealthy,

only those who belonged
to the City.

I'm not speaking of butcheries like after
the battle at Porta Collina,

where 3000 prisoners were led to the
farmhouse in the Campus Martius

and slaughtered to the last man,
so that in the nearby Temple of Bellona,

where Sulla was just then holding a
sitting of the Senate,

the clanking of weapons and groans of
the dying could be heard clearly.

And the affair was not at an end,
neither the agitation nor its throttling.

Just eight years before Catilina's
rebellion,

the Democratic general Sertorius was
cut down by Senators as he was eating.

Two held his arms, and one
struck his sword through his throat.

All that had passed, but none of it
forgotten,

when Caius Julius again raised
the Democratic banners.

Every paving stone of Rome was
drenched with the blood of the people.

My father could still show me the place
where they'd chased Caius Gracchus.

Two cypresses stood there.
I can still see them in front of me.

We've forgotten we're plebians.
You are, Spicer is, and I am.

Don't say it doesn't matter
any more today.

Precisely that is what was achieved:
that it doesn't matter any more today.

That's Caesar for you.

Compared to that, what are the couple
of old-style battles,

the couple of shaky contracts with a couple
of native tribes he may have made!

The City was a creation of the Gracchi.

It was they who handed over to trade
the taxes and tolls of the two Asias.

It was the ideas of the Gracchi that
Caius Julius took up.

Their fruit was: Imperium.

Vastius Alder, writer.
Yet that's how everything was done.

At the appropriate time,

when investigations of embezzled
money threatened,

one always repeated the threat of the
foul air from below,

mumbled something about revolution,
made a vague gesture in the direction
of the suburbs.

The police understood
and became more tactful.

A passing reference to the hungry
masses (in terse military prose )

and the Senate cheered again.

One was naturally against this
stinking tide oneself.

One wiped off with disgust the dirt
splashed on one's toga.

One knew they'd use their "liberation"

to get their crippled bastards
on the Vestal Virgins' laps,

to grow radishes instead of
chrysanthemums in the greenhouses,

to seal the holes in their barracks with
priceless Greek canvases,

to shit on grammar

- always excused by a couple of literati
due to neglected education.

One knew all that -
one had Greek culture.

One knew, but had to make politics.

One made politics till finally one got the
tidal wave into the curia,

or at least its foam -

No hungry peasants, of course,
just their tormentors, the usurers.

No bankrupt artisans of course,
just the mortgage-holders.

No, the gentleman didn't forget
"misery,"

the great Democrat remembered
"the despair of the pauperized."

What else could he have blackmailed
the pauperized with?

The Senate was too small.
It had to be enlarged.

The privilged robbers were too few.
They had to be supplemented by
unprivileged robbers.

Under the dictator's threatening eye,

those their police brought the stolen
goods to shook hands with those
who'd stolen them.

What of the leprosy one had promised
to suppress, exclude, decimate,

for so many sealed envelopes?

Now, wasn't it somewhat decimated
when it streamed into the curia?

Wasn't it just a small part of
all the leprosy?

It was surely only the part of the
leprosy that could jingle with money.

A very small part.

But strong. And loud.

One must shout if one wants to bargain.

Look at the Senate:
a market hall.

The Catlina affair put C on top.

It's true it brought the Democrat
"Party" to the dogs,

but equally it brought him
on top in the Party.

The defeat was huge,

but if they still wanted something from
the defeated, they had to go to him.

He even took the kicks.

The Democratic cause had really gone
to the dogs.

The Senate had accepted that repression
of the City would cost something:

wheat for the unemployed ate up an
eighth of the state's budget each year,

25 million sestertii.

But the money wasn't thrown away,
not to mention it wasn't its own.

Increase in state income from Asiatic
conquests more than doubled it.

The City's share had considerably
decreased.

And "great" Pompey now had to
consider

if he could really ask the Senate
for more than a triumph.

The Democratic organizations, on which
he could have depended in autumn,

were in ruins.

The City had betrayed the little man

according to all the rules of the art,
except the rule that prescribes

that the victim shall not notice
anything.

After brutal, definitive extermination
of the Catilinians,

a change of mood had occurred
in the broad masses.

The victors of Pistoria told of the
bravery of the desperate insurgents,

in whose packs not a crust of
bread had been found.

They told it in run-down, fungus-ridden
tenement houses,

and to people who were in the hands of
the banks

or else possessed nothing at all.

And the insurrection had beenopposed
by the Democrat Cicero,

and for this honor had "great" Pompey
contended with him.

Pompey had become unpopular.

But the Senate had the power.
The capital's police were doubled;

its files were loaded with
compromising documents.

The street clubs were completely
dissolved,

even the gladiators' teams
were dissolved.

Everywhere in Italy the Senate could
muster fresh, trustworthy legions

from the peasantry, whenever it
seemed necessary.

The peasants had no interest in a
solution to the land question

which entailed dumping the town's
unemployed on their necks as competition.

As if the insane slave imports of this
Pompey hadn't been enough already!

And the City was as bankrupt
as it could be.

The City longed more than ever
for Pompey.

It urgently needed a "strong man."

It expected real energy from him.

The forum resounded with his fame.

His genius is proven, said the bankers,
he showed it in Asia.

If he put an end to Mithridates,
why shouldn't he end our Cato?

The man has a reputation to lose.

Naturally C was waiting for Pompey.

If Pompey came with legions,

there'd be police inquiries into the
January events,

which would have to start at once,

if he resigned his office with the police,
in the autumn.

The moment he'd cease to be the judge,
he'd be the criminal.

So he was watching out for the
dictator Pompey.

But the great Pompey shrouded
himself in silence.

He was winding up his Asian affairs,
and seemed to have no thought of politics.

He was still making contracts with the
City for taxes and toll farming.

Of course, they required sanction
from the Senate, but

he would certainly come
with his legions

and contracts which victorious legions
desired couldn't be bad.

The City displayed a cheerful,
trusting air.

But prices for Asiatic stocks were
remarkably low.

If you want to know the City's true
views on war reports,

you have to read its
stockmarket reports.

Pompey came not with his legions,
but without them.

At the start of year 92, no one would
have thought this possible

of the great conqueror of the two Asias.

Crassus, in mortal dispute with Pompey
since their joint consulate,

had already fled before him to
Macedonia in summer.

Even the Senate expected all sorts of
comings and goings from Pompey,

who had landed at Brindisium
with a giant fleet,

when Crassus reappeared
on the Forum.

When C saw him, he knew Pompey
would come without troops.

Crassus had his connections.

C sent for that same afternoon.

He was standing by a statue of Minerva,

and was giving a dozen slaves
orders to pack.

He said,

"Pompey will come back as a private
individual. Crassus is back again.

"I'm thinking of travelling off
to my Province."

C left Rome in such haste that he didn't
even seek the Senate's instructions

about his troops' strength,
equipment or pay.

I believe the fame of his "magically fast
journey" was spread by his many creditors.

But he didn't leave Rome without seeking
the instructions of the Pulcher group.

It was in charge of the settlement

of the Etrurian iron mines' war supplies
business with Pompey's army.

These mines, Italy's largest,
were pretty much exhausted.

C's administration of Spain was in fact
the first to succeed

according to reasonable - that is,
businesslike - points of view.

From the historians you can't readily
apprehend that.

For certain reasons, mainly so that
C could celebrate a triumph,

he had to present the whole
thing as a war.

They spoke of a war against mountain
people who carried out

thieving raids in the valleys.

There was talk of a population that left
its towns to flee into the mountains

and which had to be
brought back.

That's the usual style of governors'
reports.

C's procedure was far more
interesting.

The main point, the really new thing,

was that he treated Spanish
businessmen not only as Spaniards,

but also as businessmen.

He supported them, where he could,
even against their own countrymen.

In the first place, pacification of Spain
had to be accomplished.

To this end no means should be
shunned, not even the most powerful.

His most famous civilizing measure

consisted of resettlement of the Lusitanian
mountain population in the river valleys.

The Lusitanian merchants complained
bitterly

about the absolute lack of labor power
in the silver, copper and iron mines.

The mountain inhabitants preferred

contemplative pastoral life in the
highlands to work in the mines.

The industrialists pointed out quite
rightly

that on these inaccessible plateaus
they were very successfully

avoiding the clutches of
the tax officials.

For decades Roman governors had
taken no notice

of the complaints of domestic
commerce, and hadn't taken sides

in the struggle of the Lusitanian
bourgeoisie

with the stubborn pastoral
population.

The mountain people stood on a very
low rung of civilization.

There were scarcely any slaves.

One was not in a position, without
foreign help,

to exploit the important ore deposits,

partly because of primitive machinery,

partly because of lack of suitable
labor power.

However Roman troops invaded only
when, after C's arrival,

it became known that in these regions
even human sacrifices were offered.

Liquidation of such barbarous
conditions

called for speedy and merciless
intervention.

It may lead to loss of human life,
but will be worth it in the end.

Those Roman cohorts who, in the
absence of any roads,

thought they were following
a dried up river bed

and marched into an arm of the sea
and got washed away by rising tide

with all war equipment and baggage,
didn't lose their lives in vain.

On the same slopes stand today villas
of native and Roman merchants.

And the mountain valleys which once
were filled with

the noise of weapons and moans
of the wounded,

resound today again with peaceful
hammering in the ore quarries

and the merry cries of the slaves.

The short war did not pass
without blood,

and not all of C's operations
were fortunate.

But he was not unloved
by the soldiers.

The gratuities he handed out
were decent.

And he could with good conscience
demand a triumph in Rome,

and to make up the required 5000
enemy killed, he didn't,

like certain other generals, have to count
all the civilians who'd lost their lives.

Roman cohorts fought in this war
shoulder to shoulder with native ones.

A third of the troops were
Lusitanians.

Relations of the Roman tax farmers,
and thereby of the City,

with the native bourgeoisie were
the most cordial imaginable.

With help from the Pulcher group,
C succeeded in obtaining

tax rebates for his Province by proving
that the country had suffered

through his war operations.

Before the auction of the
tax concessions

he arranged a settlement between various
competitors and the Pulcher group,

so that the usual outbidding
was prevented.

He left the mines in the hands of
native businesses,

and obtained for the Lusitanians a
moratorium on their debts.

He found a bearable mode by which the
native industry

could continue working, and pay its
debts through full employment

of the country's labor power.

Two thirds of the output of the mines
currently went to the City.

The campaign in the mountains had
yielded a rich booty in slaves.

But naturally that didn't settle
the matter.

The former shepherds, used to the lazy
life in the highlands,

left the towns again and again,
and had to be brought back by force.

C did what he could.

His success was epoch-making,

and contributed more than anything
else to making the new system popular.

Despite lowered tax assessments, the
Empire's income was constantly increasing,

and the City had every reason
to be satisfied.

It got ore - as much
as it wanted.

Today it employs more than 40,000
slaves in the mines

and derives 45 million sestertii a year
from the silver mines.

But C's share from pacification of the
Province was also satisfactory.

The historians disagree about what
he actually earned.

Brandus believes he only took money at
all because he needed tangible proof

of the Spaniards' enthusiastic gratitute
for his unselfishness.

He emphasies that C accepted voluntary
donations exclusively.

Nepos believes people at the head of
troops are too proud to beg,

and assumed he ordered
the donations.

Some say he took money from his
enemies; others, from his allies.

Some, it consisted of tributes;
others, of shares in the silver mines.

Some, he was paid in Spain;
others, in Rome.

All of them are right.

As everyone knows, C could do
several things at once.

He made about 35 million
sestertii in a single year.

When he came back,
another man came back.

He'd shown what was
hidden inside him.

He'd also shown what was hidden
in a Province.

And his historic saying

that he'd rather be first in Spain than
second in Rome was justified.

My confidence in him had proved
well-founded.

Our small bank was
no small bank anymore.

Open your fiery pit, o Hell.

Wreck, ruin, engulf, shatter
with sudden force

the false betrayer,
the murderous blood!