2023-06-28 08:08:48
Gaius Suetonius, chronicler and historian of the first century, collected the words of Julius Caesar when he was faced with the most important decision of his life: “We can still go back, but if we cross this little bridge, everything will have to be decided by weapons.” He hesitated for a second; he felt the chill of facing the full power of the Republic. However, the heat of his men inflamed him: «Let us march there where the signs of the gods and the iniquity of the enemies call us. ‘Jacta alea est’”. He was determined. Immediately afterwards, he crossed the Rubicon River and began a race of more than three hundred kilometers towards the very heart of Rome; a coup that ended in success.
Many have wanted to see these days similarities between the dictator and the mercenary leader Yevgueni Prigozhin. And the truth is that ‘Haberlas haylas’, as he would say. Wagner’s boss headed toward the heart of Russia, Moscow, at full speed on Saturday; the equivalent of the march of Caesar’s legionaries in the direction of the ‘eternal urbs’. He did it, moreover, with between 25,000 and 40,000 soldiers loyal to his person; the same as the Roman general with the XIII gemina. Although the most striking thing is that both generated chaos a weak government and lacking in troops. The one, led ‘de facto’ by Gnaeus Pompey; and the other, by Vladimir Putin.
Licenciar a Wagner
The first similarity between the two leaders must be found in the 6th century BC In the year 59 BC, the still consul Julius Caesar was appointed governor of the Cisalpine Gaul. In practice, the Senate thus gave him the command of four legions and the possibility of undertaking the conquest of the free peoples of the region. Suetonius himself recorded his victories in the following nine years:
«He reduced Gaul between the Pyrenees and the Alps, the Cevennes, the Rhone and the Rhine, to a Roman province, except for allied and friendly cities, forcing the conquered territory to pay an annual tribute of forty million sesterces».
Bretons and some Germanic tribes also fell under his gladius. Quite an achievement for a consul who longed for great military victories to finish positioning himself as a great man in the history of Rome. And he is not denied genius. However, that chess move by the Republic allowed it to hoard great power, as Marco Tulio Cicero lamented in a letter written in 50 BC:
“All of this has made him so powerful that the only hope that can stop him rests in a single citizen. [Pompeyo]. I really wish the latter hadn’t given him so much power in the first place instead of waiting until he was too strong to fight him.”
Caesar had it all: military power, money, and popularity among the Roman citizenry. Too much for a Senate that feared that it would have itself crowned monarch in front of the two triumvirs that accompanied him in power. It was then that politics made a move. The most conservative faction of the ‘urbs’ got the support of Gnaeus Pompey and pressured him to get the general to return to Rome, but without troops. According to Professor Andrés Cid in his documented article ‘Rome is staggering’, the senators voted for «César to depose the army from him, under penalty of being declared an enemy of the people». That further stirred up the spirits of the future dictator and his most loyal troops: the Legio XIII Gemina.
Yevgeny Prigozhin GI
The most astute will have already found the similarities between Caesar and Prigozhin. Last Monday, the mercenary leader confirmed in an eleven-minute statement through social networks that the Russian government intended to absorb his men in a few days. «We were the most prepared, we fulfilled all the missions […] as a result of intrigues and bad decisions, Wagner was supposed to cease to exist on July 1, 2023,” he stated. Needless to say, “Putin’s cook” amassed his fortune thanks to the 21st century tsar, who raised him to the pinnacle of military power in Africa first, and in Eastern Europe later, to avoid the political wear and tear that this entails for families. to see Russian citizens die at the front.
However, the historical popularizer Jose Luis Hernandez Garvico-authored by ‘On the banks of the Rubicon’ (Almuzara) next to Francisco Uria, calls for caution. «Cesar’s decision to attack the Republic was much more considered and was taken when he received the first letters from senators calling him to calm down. Prigozhin, for his part, has been more vehement. He has been gestated by what he considered a humiliation on the part of the Defense Minister, there is no doubt about that, but he has misjudged », he explained to ABC. The biggest mistake, he says, is that he was not as popular as Caesar. “In addition, and as he himself has explained, he only wanted to scare Putin, not kill him,” he says.
Betrayal, loyalty and barbarism
From here, the similarities are counted by dozens. To begin with, Wagner recalls –with exceptions– Legio XIII Gémina, the one that accompanied the Roman on his way through the Rubicon. The general had no doubts about his effectiveness on the battlefield. In fact, his men had fought dozens of combats since the unit was created by Caesar himself to fight in Gaul. In practice, they were just as skilled as Prigozhin’s mercenaries and were loyal to the end. In fact, once the dictator was victorious against Pompey, he discharged his members and awarded them land in Italy and Spain.
The parallels do not end here. The Legio XIII ran into, according to the historian Sergei Ivanovich Kovaliov in his ‘History of Rome’, with a Senate lacking veteran troops to defend the capital. «Although a war had been preparing for a long time, nothing was yet ready. Pompey did not have adequate troops to fight against Caesar; For this reason, on January 18, he himself and two consuls fled from Rome, “reveals the expert. Vladimir Putin did not sneak out of Moscow, at least, the Kremlin reported after his private plane was spotted in St. Petersburg. However, analysts believe that he only had two very depleted divisions, plus one of paratroopers, to defend himself.
Although, once again, Garvi bets on caution when listing similarities. More than for the reward, he is convinced that the legionnaires moved out of his admiration for Caesar. «They were faithful because he had great charisma. In that sense, he does harbor parallels with Prigozhin, whose harangues against Russian oligarchs have made him a very popular character. He was aware of his man and they reciprocated with respect, “he says.
It is true that Caesar had a dual relationship with his men. As Uría explained in an interview with ABC a few months ago, he was always generous with them, but, at the same time, he harshly punished them when they did not live up to his expectations. “He even went to the extreme extent of ‘decimating’ some of the legions under his command,” he revealed. However, he was always aware that his political success and his personal success depended on the loyalty of his men.
However, both he and Federico Romero Díaz –coordinator of the choral work ‘City‘ (Edaf) and historian – remember that the future dictator did not pay the salaries of the legionnaires, that was a matter of the Republic. “Although the contrary has been extended, the expenses were borne by the State. Although some generals raised their own legions, they did not pay for them out of their own pocket,” Romero reveals in statements to ABC.
Julio César, in one of his most famous performances ABC
The lack of initial resistance is another parallel. Prigozhin seized the population of Rostov del Don in a breath During the night his troops advanced into this region from southern Russia and conquered it by outnumbering the defenders ten to one. César, for his part, did the same with Rimini, in northeastern Italy.
And that, not to mention the atrocities that the general perpetrated in Gaul; those that Pliny the Elder defined as “humani generis iniuriam” or “crimes against humanity”. A genocide evoked by the massacres of the Wagner Group in Mali first, and Ukraine later.
The similarity exists in part, of that there is no doubt, but Garvi reminds us that we should not analyze history from the eyes of the present. «The war was not seen from goodism nor from the current western point of view in the first century BC. There was no respect for human life. Caesar deployed an effective campaign that allowed him to finish off his enemies, and he did it for the glory of the Roman Republic. Embraced as he was in power struggles with Pompey, criticism proliferated among the chroniclers », he explains. Nothing to do with Wagner: «They have many fights on their backs. They have passed through the Congo, Chechnya, Syria, Mali… They are warlords accused of violating human rights. You have to be careful with comparisons.
The last one is among the most striking. In 49 BC, as the historian Mary Beard explains in her works, all armies were private. There was no state military, but power was held by the aristocrats who, through loot and treasures, paid the soldiers outright. “Call no man rich unless he can afford a contingent of his own,” said the Roman politician Licinius Crassus. The short-term result was civil war between them. In the medium term, and after the rise to power of Octavian Augustusthis changed drastically.
This was the passage of the Rubicon
Fact, legend or a mix of both. In 49 B.C. C., Julius Caesar made one of the most difficult decisions of his life: to cross the Rubicon River, the natural border between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. According to popular belief, he shortly after said that the die was cast. Either end the Republic, or nothing.
The episode was collected by the classical author Plutarch in his longest essay, although with some nuances: «Finally, with some anger, as if giving up speeches he abandoned himself to the future, and pronouncing that common expression, typical of those who run dubious luck –’The die is already thrown‘–, he threw himself to pass with his men».
In the words of Plutarch, “the troops that he had with him were not more than about three hundred horse and five thousand infantry.” Those legionaries were part of the XIII Gemina, his most loyal legion; the one that he had founded in 57 BC to confront the Belgians and that would end his days with a degree in our Hispania. And it is that Caesar did not have a large army at that time. That is one of the many myths that have been spread about this passage.
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