Chapter 423 Crossing the Rubicon

But the situation did not develop as Caesar wished. Pompey, his greatest support in Rome, finally betrayed him.

The Senate passed a resolution to take back his position as governor of Gaul, disband his army, and let him return home alone. Not only was it impossible for him to win a triumph with his brilliant achievements in Gaul in the past few years, it was also difficult for him to successfully win the election for consul. On the contrary, he would become vulnerable and would only attract more attacks from political enemies.

If Pompey's promise was reliable, Cicero would not have been forced into exile.

What Caesar longed for was to return home peacefully and gain a prominent position in Rome, so that all the senators, even those who did not like him, would recognize his prestige, influence and authority, so that he could exert more political ambitions.

Now it seems that not only can he not realize this wish, but he is likely to end up like Milo, drifting overseas and living in poverty.

The Senate doesn't want me to live! ... Caesar sighed for a long time.

Seeing Caesar holding the letter for a long time without saying anything, the messenger beside him could not help asking him: "Governor, do you want to write back to Pompey?"

Caesar thought about it and nodded.

In the letter to Pompey, Caesar reviewed their past friendship, thanked Pompey for his past support, and then made it clear that if Pompey could get the Senate to pass a resolution so that he could enjoy immunity from prosecution after giving up his governorship and return to Rome, and also have partial command of the troops under his jurisdiction, he would be willing to seriously consider accepting the decree just passed by the Senate.

The messenger left with Caesar's letter.

Caesar immediately called his treasurer Mark Antony.

Mark Antony was a distant relative of Caesar, and from his name, it can be seen that he was not from a famous family in Rome.

The rise of Antony's family mainly came from his grandfather, who was one of the best orators in Rome at the time and even served as a consul, but died in the great purge after Marius returned to Rome. His father was mediocre and was ordered to eliminate pirates. Unfortunately, he was defeated and died soon after. His mother remarried with nine-year-old Antony. His stepfather, Lentulus, was one of Catiline's conspirators and was ordered to be executed by Cicero.

It can be said that Antony's growth career was quite bumpy. After he became an adult, he became Curio's younger brother. Curio introduced him to the pleasures of revelry, alcoholism and beautiful women, so he indulged in these pleasures and had almost no self-control.

In short, Curio and Antony, a group of young people, lived a dissolute, daring and notorious life, and were notorious in Rome.

In addition to these, because Mark Antony was strong and energetic, his character was particularly flamboyant and strong, and he was not afraid of intimidation.

However, he was careless and not meticulous enough, so he was not a qualified candidate for the treasury officer. But Caesar chose him, on the one hand, to win over Curio the Younger, and on the other hand, Caesar's family bloodline was thin, and there were not many relatives who could provide him with help. It was rare that Antony was his relative, worthy of trust and training. More importantly, he met Caesar's principles of employing people.

Although the Ulysses family was a famous priest family in Rome, it did not make much achievements in the political arena, far from being comparable to those famous families. In Caesar's generation, the family fell into decline, without many retainers or strong political connections, and mainly relied on Caesar's own struggle.

When Caesar took office as the governor of Gaul, most of the staff who were willing to follow him were new Roman nobles. Those noble children looked down on Caesar, who was "lucky", and drew a clear line with him because of their positions.

But there are a few ambitious children of noble families who like to do whatever they want. They are naturally not afraid of authority and hate the Roman officialdom tradition of only being able to advance step by step. They have no firm position. As long as they are given the opportunity to rise quickly, they are willing to work for Caesar.

And because of their origins and their unscrupulous style of doing things, they can often toss those traditional Roman elders to a pulp, thus creating a situation that is favorable to Caesar. Claudius is like this, so is Curio the Younger, and now Caesar has set his sights on Mark Antony.

It doesn't matter if the province's finances are not handled well. Caesar has his own professionals to take care of it. He just wants to give this distant relative a chance to be promoted to the upper level. Moreover, less than a year after he served as the governor of Gaul, Caesar used means to make Antony the Roman tribune for the next year.

Antony is naturally grateful to Caesar.

Now that the situation has changed, Caesar decided to release this evil wolf in advance.

He just implicitly expressed to Antony his disappointment in Pompey's betrayal of him and his anger at the Senate's constant suppression of him.

Antony immediately promised to go all out for Caesar.

After Pompey received Caesar's reply, he thought Caesar had compromised.

He was very happy to read Caesar's letter in public in the Senate, comforting the uneasy senators while asking them to make some compromises according to the requirements of the letter and give Caesar immunity and partial command of the army.

This was sternly rejected and refuted by Cato, Marcellus and others.

When the two sides were deadlocked, Antony, who was ordered to return to Rome early, attended the Senate as Caesar's representative and made a particularly harsh and vicious speech, attacking Cato, humiliating Pompey's entire political career, and even threatening armed conflict.

The whole venue was in uproar. Pompey stood there in shock. Thinking of how he had been desperately defending Caesar in the past few days, he felt that he had been greatly deceived and humiliated by Caesar. He trembled and shouted angrily: "A small financial officer under Caesar is so arrogant and domineering. What do you think it would be like if Caesar dominated Rome?!"

After the meeting, Pompey invited all the senators to his house and solemnly showed them his guarantee: he firmly supported the Senate and was willing to lead the army to fight if necessary!

Just when Pompey and the conservative senators reached a consensus - to remove Caesar's governorship at the cost of causing war, Caesar was reviewing the 13th Legion in Ravenna and gave a speech.

He told the story with great emotion: he and his soldiers expanded the territory of Rome without fear of hardship or sacrifice, and made immortal contributions, but the senators were always unfair to him, and the soldiers were implicated; he should have become consul with his brilliant achievements in Gaul, and then promulgated a bill to allow soldiers to own land and enjoy the cheers of the Roman people, but the senators who hated him not only cut off his possibility of becoming consul, but also promulgated a decree to make him resign from the post of governor in advance, disband the army, and even question him...

In order to enhance his persuasiveness, Caesar also brought Curio the Younger, who came from Rome to discuss important matters, to the soldiers.

Curio the Younger deliberately wore tattered clothes and declared to the soldiers with a wronged face: the Senate tried to arrest him for trial because he protected Caesar, and he finally escaped...

The soldiers were shocked and shouted loudly: they are willing to avenge the injustice suffered by Caesar and the tribune (Curio the Younger)!

Although Caesar sent messengers to Gaul immediately after sending Mark Antony away to recall the two legions stationed there. But at that time, Caesar only had one legion left in the northern Italian province, which was the Thirteenth Legion that he trusted the most.

This legion was formed shortly after he took office, and has been with him in battles since then. All the soldiers have received his generous rewards, and all the officers have been appointed and promoted thanks to him, so he is very confident that he can convince them to stand on his side.

This is indeed the case. When all the soldiers and officers shouted that they were willing to declare war on Rome for him, Caesar was encouraged and did not even wait to meet with the legion transferred from Gaul, and directly led the Thirteenth Legion south.

It was still mid-October 50 BC, nearly three months earlier than when Caesar declared war on Rome in his previous life.

Since the Gallic rebellion led by Vercingetorix did not happen in his previous life, Caesar's army was stronger and more fully prepared, which gave Caesar more confidence. After learning that Pompey had openly betrayed him (in his previous life, Pompey's attitude had always been vague) and Cato and others were going to take ruthless action against him, he resolutely chose to use force.

Once the decision was made, Caesar's ability to act was amazing. Before reviewing the 13th Legion, he had sent some capable subordinates and soldiers in plain clothes and secretly carrying weapons to control Amininum.

On October 20, 50 BC (the 22nd year of the establishment of the Nix tribe), Caesar led the 13th Legion to the north bank of the Rubicon River and stopped.

According to Roman law, Caesar, as the governor of Gaul, had legal jurisdiction north of the Rubicon River. Once he led his army into the south of the Rubicon River without the special order of the Senate, he became an out-and-out rebel.

Pompey and Cato could use this to call on Roman citizens to fight to defend the legitimate republic. Politically speaking, Caesar lost a move.

Caesar was not clear about how his adventurous actions would lead to the development of the situation, and he was not sure whether he could win the final victory, but he was clear about one thing: he could not retreat, because there was a cliff behind him!

Caesar's emotions were surging, and finally he was firm and said calmly: "The dice is thrown."

Then he urged his horse and was the first to wade across the river.

Due to the preparations made in advance, Caesar easily occupied Amininum and stayed there for a while, waiting for Antony who had hurriedly fled from Rome.

Caesar asked him to lead several brigades to occupy Aretium (now Arezzo), and sent several brigades to occupy Pisorum, Fanum and Ancona respectively.

Wherever the army went, the towns opened their gates to welcome the surrender, and no fighting occurred. Everything went smoothly.