Political Generals
Towards what we now know to be the end of the Republic, the struggle for political power in the Roman world grew increasingly intense. Military success was often brokered into political power ‘back home’ by Roman generals. While it was true that only prominent individuals would be appointed to high command, these same people needed military success to keep their careers as politicians on track. A lack of victory, and even more so a lack of glory, would put a serious dent in anyone’s political aspirations.
Julius Caesar remains the outstanding political general of Roman history. Even though the Senate regularly told him to stick to his job in Gaul, he knew that as long as he was militarily successful, he could thumb his nose at the old men and become both richer and more influential in the process. His ultimate goal was absolute power, which would eventually lead him into a direct confrontation with both the Senate and Pompey, but then winners always get to write history… The third member of the Triumvirate, Crassus, had already been removed from the picture.
War was not always the route to success its adherents hoped. If the prize of political power was worth pursuing on the battlefield - and it obviously was for men like Caesar and Sulla a couple of generations earlier - then the costs of failure were high. This brings us to the fate of Crassus, a man who was driven to military adventurism by the need for ‘real’ political legitimacy. He would end up paying a high price for his military failings.
Crassus ranked alongside Pompey and Caesar in the First Triumvirate but he was not a military genius. His early campaign against Spartacus had been a success, as the gladiators had eventually been put down and crucified as servile rebels. Crassus, however, really owed his position in the First Triumvirate to his vast wealth - he was, relatively speaking, the Bill Gates of his day, only probably richer. When the three men divided up the Empire, Crassus took the wealthy East, and looked for a nice, juicy war to provide him with the chance for glory. Money had got him so far, but military success would make his chances of ending up as the top man in the Triumvirate that much greater. Dictator of Rome was not entirely beyond his reach.
This is what led Crassus to war with the Parthians. The Roman Empire didn’t need the war, but Crassus did. It’s also possible to interpret Caesar’s encouragement of Crassus as playing on the man’s weaknesses. Caesar was being successful in Gaul and gaining influence as a result; his letters to Crassus were a subtle incitement to keep up, not that Crassus needed much encouragement. He took an army deep into Parthian territory and managed, through bad management and bad luck, to get it surrounded and then butchered. The Parthians took Crassus and thousands of Romans captive. The lesser men were worked to death as slaves, but the Parthians killed Crassus, the richest of the Romans, by pouring molten gold down his throat - an incredibly cruel but undeniably ‘Bond Villain’ touch.
Caesar remains the finest example of the ‘political’ general: he used his political connections to gain command of an army, then used that army to boost his own political prospects. It didn’t hurt Caesar’s cause that he was also writing his own account of his campaign, and making sure that the best possible light was cast on events. Rome loved a winner, after all, and Caesar always made sure that his setbacks were someone else’s fault in the official write-ups afterwards
The thing that finally caused Caesar’s downfall was his overconfidence and arrogance. He’d always got away with ignoring the Senate because he’d won. When he ignored the Senate and just looked like he was enjoying himself with Cleopatra rather than working for the greater glory of Rome, his enemies in the Senate finally had enough. The rest, as they say, is history.
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