Chapter 19: Reversal (I)

"Not a single Athenian died in vain because of the mistakes I made." - Pericles' last words, which he considered the greatest achievement of his life, and the rest was insignificant

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"Dear Cato, I have heard that your great-grandfather Cato the Elder left a whole set of instructions and rules for his family before he died, ranging from how to maintain his political direction in the Senate and how he wipes his mouth with a napkin at home. I envy your family style, even when you exchange wives with others (the laughter of the Senate). Caesar seemed to want to divert the conversation elsewhere.

Cato the Younger retorted, "The Romans exchanged wives in ancient times, and a man who admired the virtues of his friend could send her away, so that he might give birth to a child of the blood and glory of his friend, and magnify his own house, and I would not be ashamed of this in the slightest, but would only be satisfied with helping his friend." But you, Julius, I heard that you have recently married the daughter of the Pisso family, and this pimp business has made you a lot of money, at least you were in debt before you became consul, and now I actually heard that your assets are starting to run in surplus (the second wave of the Senate laughs). ”

In the laughter, Caesar did not look nervous or guilty, he also smiled and used gestures to dispel the discussion of the senators, and continued to say to little Cato: "Don't be nervous Cato, my words are not shameless and attacking. I'm just saying that there's one thing about old Cato's house rules that I think is lackluster, and that's that each entry only says 'what to do', and doesn't say anything about 'what' and 'how', and you grew up watching your great-grandfather's house rules. This leads to your excess of principles. However, it lacks a dialectical vision of the entire world. It's the same thingβ€”I'm sorry, but let's go back to the old subject, our dearest young Cato, who always thought that the world of the republic consisted of speaking to the gentry in the city, or reluctantly distributing food to the poor, but as I said before, the republic was not the republic of five hundred years ago. At that time people would not have crossed seven hills, but now we are responsible for the whole sea and land, and the army of Aliovistus has penetrated deep into Gaul, and the rest of Gaul is moving in panic, the most intense of which are the Helvetians (the indigenous people of present-day Switzerland), who have settled on the eastern shore of Lake Leman, and who have now written to me to move their whole family to Brittany. ”

At this time, the senate was aze, and Brittania was on the northwestern side of the Gallic sea. If the Helvetians did this, it would indeed cause chain unrest in Gaul.

Caesar then proceeded on to the subject. He said that the place of Brittnia was not deserted, but that there were dense Picts early there, and that if we had granted the Helvetic request, it would have triggered a revolt against Rome by the Picts.

"So at this time, it is necessary to appoint a person of high moral standing to guard the Gaul region for three to five years, to ease the situation that is about to erupt in the region, and when it comes to such a person, I, Caesar, as the chief consul, am the only one!" Caesar was the last to throw out a thousand arguments, and this time he once again relied on the reasoning of Li Pida to successfully combine his personal interests with the security affairs of the republic, so that the senators could not refute it, "And the situation in Syria is also a little tense, I recommend that the second consul, Byblos, take up his post, of course, and of course wait until the meeting is adjourned to send a minister to his house to inform him of this." ”

At this moment, little Cato could not bear it any longer, and he again shouted loudly for Caesar to show evidence, instead of talking nonsense here.

At this point, Caesar calmly slapped the pulpit, then raised his hand and shouted at Cicero, who had been silent in the corner: "This is like listening to our eloquents to give evidence." As soon as these words came out, little Cato was stunned, and sat next to him and watched the play silently, while many of them who were also kept in the dark were surprised.

Cicero groaned in pain, sometimes as if he wanted to stand up, sometimes hunched over and hesitated in place, but he finally took out the calf paper and got up, and read it with some stumbling stumbling as he wrote the letter, nominally addressed to his brother, a young nobleman of Gaul who had studied under Cicero, and in which he made it clear beyond any doubt that the Helvetians were indeed on the move, and that they were on the north side of the great mountain range, awaiting a reply from the city of Rome.

Crassus asked in a panic, of course his fears were justified, and it was known that he had a particularly large estate in the valley of the Gaul and Po Valleys, "How many of the whole Helvetian people participated in the migration?" ”

Cicero paused, and then, under Cato's glare, announced to the crowd with a constipated expression, "The whole Helvetian tribe has 320,000 people who have taken part in the migration, and they have abandoned twelve towns and more than eighty large villages, of which about 80,000 men can take up arms. They also claimed that if the city of Rome did not accede to their request, it would climb over the giant mountain range and enter the Po River Valley. ”

This is determined by the territory of the Roman Republic, its roots have always been in the Apennines, the long and narrow peninsula, its western republic has Sardinia as a barrier, Sicily in the south, and the Greek city-states that have submitted to Rome in the east, but the threat has always come from the pocket mouth in the north, the stretching Alps, which not only brings a sense of security to Rome, but also creates countless panics for Rome, and it is an undefended area, It will be easier for a determined enemy to infiltrate and wreak havoc. The same is true of the historical facts, this is how Brenus came, this is how Hannibal came, and the Teutons and Cimbris came this way.

When Caesar asked Cicero to swear an oath of authenticity to his words, Cicero did so, and the passage of the "Bassatus Plan" designating Caesar as governorship seemed to have been unimpeded, and the Senate decided at once that Caesar could serve as Inner and Outer Gaul, plus the governor of Illyria, for a maximum term of five years, with four legions!

At this moment little Cato rushed down from his seat, and beat the pulpit with great exclamation, shouting that if so many legions of the republic were put into the hands of Caesar, it would be tantamount to placing "a tyrant in the same safety as a strong fortress", and he again motioned a rebuttal to the plan.

Now it was Caesar's turn to be angry, and he loudly questioned Cato, if there was no suitable reason, not to harm the interests of the republic, and before Cato could say anything, Caesar pointed to Cato and said: "If you are really as worried about the country as you usually say, then do not stay in the city of Rome to hinder the correct national decisions, and go where it is really needed, I fought on the front lines of the battle of the Republic when I was young, and what about you?" (To be continued......)