Most of us made the acquaintance of Titus Labienus in the
Commentaries of Caesar, and it is hard to think of him without a
Gallic background. At one moment the territory of the Treveri
and at another that of the Morini or the Remi furnish the setting.
Even when Caesar, at the end of a summer campaign, hurries to the
South to take a hand in Italian politics, Labienus stays behind in
charge of the winter quarters in Gaul. It is hard, also, to think of
him otherwise than as a soldier and as Caesar's lieutenant.
But of course the career of Labienus neither began in 58 B.C.
nor ended in the year 50; Gaul was not the only stage on which he
played a part, but he followed the pursuit of arms into all parts of
the Roman world — into Italy, Greece, Asia, Africa, and Spain.
He was not only Caesar's lieutenant, but his most bitter opponent.
What seems strangest of all to one who has come to know him in the
Commentaries is the fact that he was an experienced politician as
well as a soldier, and that it was his fate to be pitted against Cicero
in one of the most famous political cases of his time.
His intimacy with Caesar runs through a period of twenty-
eight years. From a chance reference in Cicero 1 we know that he
served with Caesar in the naval campaign of Publius Servilius
against the Cilician pirates in 78 B.C., so that Caesar and Labienus
must have been of approximately the same age and may well have
begun their careers together in the East. We hear nothing more of
Labienus for fifteen years. When he appears on the stage of history
again, he is once more in the company of Caesar, and one likes to
think of his fortunes as interwoven with those of Caesar during
these years when the records of his life fail us.
It is interesting to remember that the story of Labienus' life
begins again in the year 63, and that in this year fall at the same time
* Pro. Rob. perd. r. 21; cf. Suet. Iul. 3.