Caesar: A Sketch | Page 4

lands in Africa.-- Difficulties of the Campaign.--Battle of Thapsus.--No
more Pardons.-- Afranius and Faustus Sylla put to Death.--Cato kills

himself at Utica.-- Scipio killed.--Juba and Petreius die on each other's
Swords.--A Scene in Caesar's Camp.

CHAPTER XXV.
Rejoicings in Rome.--Caesar Dictator for the Year.--Reforms the
Constitution.--Reforms the Calendar--and the Criminal Law.--
Dissatisfaction of Cicero.--Last Efforts in Spain of Labienus and the
Young Pompeys.--Caesar goes thither in Person, accompanied by
Octavius.-- Caesar's Last Battle at Munda.--Death of
Labienus.--Capture of Cordova.-- Close of the Civil War.--General
Reflections.

CHAPTER XXVI.
Caesar once more in Rome.--General Amnesty.--The Surviving
Optimates pretend to submit.--Increase in the Number of
Senators.--Introduction of Foreigners.--New
Colonies.--Carthage.--Corinth.--Sumptuary Regulations.-- Digest of the
Law.--Intended Parthian War.--Honors heaped on Caesar.--The Object
of them.--Caesar's Indifference.--Some Consolations.--Hears of
Conspiracies, but disregards them.--Speculations of Cicero in the Last
Stage of the War.--Speech in the Senate.--A Contrast, and the Meaning
of it.--The Kingship.--Antony offers Caesar the Crown, which Caesar
refuses.--The Assassins.--Who they were.--Brutus and Cassius.--Two
Officers of Caesar's among them.--Warnings.--Meeting of the
Conspirators.--Caesar's Last Evening.--The Ides of March.--The
Senate-house.--Caesar killed.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Consternation in Rome.--The Conspirators in the Capitol.--Unforeseen
Difficulties.--Speech of Cicero.--Caesar's Funeral.--Speech of
Antony.-- Fury of the People.--The Funeral Pile in the Forum.--The
King is dead, but the Monarchy survives.--Fruitlessness of the
Murder.--Octavius and Antony.--Union of Octavius, Antony, and
Lepidus.--Proscription of the Assassins.--Philippi, and the end of
Brutus and Cassius.--Death of Cicero.--His Character.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
General Remarks on Caesar.--Mythological Tendencies.--Supposed
Profligacy of Caesar.--Nature of the
Evidence.--Servilia.--Cleopatra.--Personal Appearance of Caesar.--His
Manners in Private Life.--Considerations upon him as a Politician, a
Soldier, and a Man of Letters.--Practical Justice his Chief Aim as a
Politician.--Universality of Military Genius.--Devotion of his Army to
him, how deserved.--Art of reconciling Conquered Peoples.--General
Scrupulousness and Leniency.--Oratorical and Literary Style.--Cicero's
Description of it.--His Lost Works.--Cato's Judgment on the Civil
War.--How Caesar should be estimated.--Legend of Charles V.--
Spiritual Condition of the Age in which Caesar lived.--His Work on
Earth to establish Order and Good Government, to make possible the
Introduction of Christianity.--A Parallel.

CAESAR: A SKETCH

CHAPTER I.
To the student of political history, and to the English student above all
others, the conversion of the Roman Republic into a military empire
commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many differences, the
English and the Romans essentially resemble one another. The early
Romans possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of
whom we have historical knowledge, with the one exception of

ourselves. In virtue of their temporal freedom, they became the most
powerful nation in the known world; and their liberties perished only
when Rome became the mistress of conquered races, to whom she was
unable or unwilling to extend her privileges. If England was similarly
supreme, if all rival powers were eclipsed by her or laid under her feet,
the Imperial tendencies, which are as strongly marked in us as our love
of liberty, might lead us over the same course to the same end. If there
be one lesson which history clearly teaches, it is this, that free nations
cannot govern subject provinces. If they are unable or unwilling to
admit their dependencies to share their own constitution, the
constitution itself will fall in pieces from mere incompetence for its
duties.
We talk often foolishly of the necessities of things, and we blame
circumstances for the consequences of our own follies and vices; but
there are faults which are not faults of will, but faults of mere
inadequacy to some unforeseen position. Human nature is equal to
much, but not to everything. It can rise to altitudes where it is alike
unable to sustain itself or to retire from them to a safer elevation. Yet
when the field is open it pushes forward, and moderation in the pursuit
of greatness is never learnt and never will be learnt. Men of genius are
governed by their instinct; they follow where instinct leads them; and
the public life of a nation is but the life of successive generations of
statesmen, whose horizon is bounded, and who act from day to day as
immediate interests suggest. The popular leader of the hour sees some
present difficulty or present opportunity of distinction. He deals with
each question as it arises, leaving future consequences to those who are
to come after him. The situation changes from period to period, and
tendencies are generated with an accelerating force, which, when once
established, can never be reversed. When the control of reason is once
removed, the catastrophe is no longer distant, and then nations, like all
organized creations, all forms of life, from the meanest flower to the
highest human institution, pass through the inevitably recurring stages
of growth and transformation and decay. A commonwealth, says Cicero,
ought to be immortal, and for ever to renew its youth. Yet
commonwealths have proved as unenduring as any other natural