Why Caesar crossed the Rubicon

Before I start, I should clarify I don't aim to give a full explanation just why Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But I hope to give one example that doesn't convince. So here we are looking at the method of justification rather than explaining the event itself.

I’ve always enjoyed reading T P Wiseman’s reviews in the TLS, as they always provide clear and well-substantiated argument either supporting or (as here) critiquing a book he is reviewing.

In this case the book isn’t so important, but the method of argument is revealing. The review is of a book about Caesar (TLS June 10 2016), looking at one of the moments in Roman history moment we all know about. Wiseman quotes Edward Freeman, writing in 1859: “Men look to this period of Roman history for arguments for or against monarch, aristocracy, or democracy”. It is, of course, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, taking his army into Italy, leading to civil war and the end of the Roman republic.

Wiseman explains this moment with reference to a passage by Cicero: his contrast of “optimates” and “populares”.

There have always been two groups of men in this state who have been eager to be involved in the affairs of state and to play a pre-eminent part in them; of these groups one wanted themselves to be considered populares, the other optimates. Those who wanted what they did and what they said to be pleasing to the crowd (populus) were considered populares, while those who acted in such a way that their policies found favour with the best people (optimi) were considered optimates. Who, then, are all these best people? Optimates are all those who are not guilty of crime, who are not evil by nature, who are not raving mad, who are not encumbered in their domestic affairs.

Cicero, pro Sestio 96-97

A reasonable interpretation of this is that it is sensible people (like you and me) are optimates, while simply pleasing the crowd is wrong. But on the basis of this passage alone it’s difficult to know if Cicero is siding with one party or the other – or even if such groups exist.

Wiseman then quotes Sallust  to gloss who these optimates are. How about this for an argument?

Sallust did not use the term optimates. For him, Cicero’s “best people” were “the powerful few”  or “the arrogant aristocracy”, and blamed the troubles of the time on their greed and ruthlessness … Sallust saw … the interests of the few in conflict with those of the many as far back as the beginning of the republic”.

Now, if you interpret Rome around the period of Caesar as being the interests of the many v the interests of the few, with Caesar siding with the people to curb the excesses of the elite, then the argument is clear; we know where we are. Caesar, as Wiseman states, “was the greatest popularis of the time. When Cicero refers to “those who want their words and deeds to be welcome to the multitude”, he must have had in mind Caesar’s consulship three years earlier”.

There’s just one problem with Wiseman’s argument – the quote Wiseman uses to explain the term misses one key word. Surely if Sallust didn’t use the term “optimates”, how can this quote be used to back up Cicero’s presumed distinction? In our understandable wish to follow the author’s thread, we take Wiseman’s word for it, until in retrospect we realise the quotes as they stand don’t in themselves cohere. The crossing of the Rubicon, on this evidence, will remain a mystery to me.