So long as the world lasts men will discuss, without settling, the
question, What constitutes greatness? Some people will give one answer,
some another. There are those who hold that no man ought properly to be
called great who is not also good. Thus a French historian said that
Napoleon was as great as a man could be without virtue. Even here,
however, there is room for difference and discussion. What is meant by
virtue? Is the good man he who does good, who makes people better and
happier, or the man who is good in himself, who tries always to put the
welfare of others before his own, whether he succeeds or not? If the
first be true, poets, painters, and sculptors must rank highest in the
order of goodness as of greatness. If the second, most of the really
good are forgotten, since they tried and failed. Is success the test? It
is the only test that history accepts. The men who appear to us as great
in the story of the past are those who made some mark, whether for good
or evil, on their time. The others are forgotten. What we know of most
of the men, great or small, of the past, is not what they were, but what
they did. We know what they did. We can only guess why they did it.
Often, too, it happens that good men--men kindly, affectionate, and
unselfish--do harm to others without knowing it: bad men do good.
[Illustration: JULIUS CAESAR
The Brit. Mus. gem]
All these puzzling questions, and many more, are set to us by the
character of Caius Julius Caesar. He puzzled the men who lived in his
own time, and has gone on puzzling historians ever since. Brutus, who
loved him, finally killed him because he thought he was doing more harm
than good. Marcus Antonius, who also loved him, thought him, to the end,
the noblest man that ever lived. One great historian regards him as one
of the few really wise and far-seeing statesmen in the world's story;
a man who with extraordinary genius saw what the world needed and with
extraordinary will carried it out. Another sees him as no more than a
clever, selfish, and ambitious time-server: a man without fixed ideas or
principles, whose sole object was power. Both admit his genius: but
where one sees it directed steadily to great ends, the other sees
nothing fixed in his character but the determination to succeed.
Caesar's speeches (and he was a great speaker) are lost. We have two
volumes of his writings: his account of the conquest and settlement of
Gaul, and his account of the Civil War. These two volumes of
_Commentaries_ are so admirably written, in so pure and firm and lucid a
style, with such mastery of narrative and of order, that their author
would stand high among Roman writers had he been distinguished in no
other way. Only a remarkable man could have written an account of his
own doings in just this style. For there is no word of comment: the
whole thing is, as Caesar himself says, bare, simple, and plain, with
every kind of ornament cast aside. The language is simple, exact,
concise. Every word tells. There is never a word too much. The dryness
with which amazing feats of generalship, of endurance, of courage, are
set down only makes them, in the end, more impressive. No mere talker,
no one shifted this way and that by chance and by the opinion of others,
could have written these books. They are the record of one who could
both see and act.
In so far as we can judge a man from his face, the busts tell the same
story. They show us Caesar in middle age, when firmly set to serious
purposes, the idle impulses of youth left behind. The power to think,
the power to act--these are the characteristics of the familiar bust.
Yet Caesar, if we can believe the stories of him, retained to beyond
middle life a rare personal charm, and always had much of the quick,
passionate responsiveness of the artist. There was room in his mind for
all sorts of things beside the business of making men do what he wanted.
Whether the almost tragic nobility of the sculptured face, which is in
this respect like that of Napoleon, means that Caesar was led on by
something higher than personal ambition, the desire to engrave his own
will upon the stuff of life, it is impossible to say. He made history;
he was, in that sense, a man of destiny, but did he know what he was
doing? did he care for a good beyond his own?
[Illustration: JULIUS CAESAR
The Brit. Mus. bust]
The first incident we know of Caesar is highly characteristic. Pompeius
at the time of the proscriptions had put away his wife at Sulla's
behest. Caesar, a little younger, like him a rising young soldier, was
descended from one of the most illustrious of patrician families. But
his uncle had married Marius's sister. Not only was he the nephew of
Marius; he was allied to the beaten party in the Revolution by his
marriage to Cornelia the daughter of Cinna. Sulla commanded him to
divorce her. Caesar refused. He loved his wife dearly. Neither then
(he was hardly out of his teens) nor at any other time was he ready to
take orders from other men. Therefore his property and the dowry of his
young wife were confiscated. His own life was in danger and he had to
leave Rome. But his will did not bend. Sulla realized something of the
stuff of which, youthful and unknown as he was, Caesar was made. 'In
that young man', he said, 'there are many Mariuses.'
At the time, and for long after, however, no sign of this was perceived
by most people. At an age when Pompeius, the darling of fortune, had
celebrated a triumph and was, despite his youth, a leading man in Rome,
looked up to by every one, rather feared by the Senate, wealthy,
prosperous, and important, Caesar was poor and quite unknown, attached
by his relationship to Marius and Cinna to a defeated faction and a
broken and discredited party. Yet Sulla was right. Caesar had a genius,
a patience, and a power of will such as Marius never possessed. Of his
military talents no one, not even Caesar himself, had any suspicion till
long after. His rise was slow and difficult. Until his alliance with
Crassus he was perpetually hampered by poverty and debts, both in fact
and in the opinion of Rome.
When he escaped from Rome (81) Caesar went abroad first to the Greek
islands, where he served his first campaign, and afterward to Bithynia;
he also raised an expeditionary force against the Rhodian pirates. After
Sulla's death he returned to Rome. His eloquence soon won him a position
in the Popular party. No one, however, regarded him as a serious rival
to Pompeius, who was at this time regarded as inclining more or less to
the Popular side. The enormous debts which were to be such a burden to
Caesar were mainly contracted while Pompeius was in the East. He carried
through magnificent building schemes, and gave superb games to the
people--such being the road to popularity. Wider plans were forming in
his mind, however: plans on the lines of Gracchus.
The great difficulty in Caesar's way, over and above his own debts, was
the character of the Popular party. It stood, to the majority of
Conservatives and men of wealth and standing, for nothing but disorder
and insecurity, with revolution in the background. These Conservatives
did not see that they were helping to bring about all the things they
dreaded by their opposition to change and their effort to keep all power
in the hands of their own order, and their fear, distrust, and jealousy
of any man of real ability. They drove young able men into the Popular
party; and the Popular party to them was always the party of Marius and
Cinna. There were in fact too many men in it of low character and
reckless ways of life; men like Catiline and his friend Cethegus, like
Clodius and Milo. The more clearly Caesar was marked out as the leader
of this party the more did the Conservatives dread and hate him. Not
without reason did he often think his very life was in danger. It was
always possible that riots might break out. If they did the Popular
party would be held responsible, and he would suffer for them all. His
debts increased this danger. They made him at once reckless and
powerless.
Yet Caesar's popularity in Rome was real. At the time when his
difficulties were thickest upon him he stood for election, against some
of the most honoured and important senators, as Pontifex Maximus, the
chief of the State religion. He was under forty; it was a post generally
held by an old man; his religious views were known to be extremely
'advanced'. Moreover, many people whispered that he had been privy to
Catiline's conspiracy, since Catiline was a member of his party. One of
the other candidates offered to pay his debts if he would retire. To
retire was not Caesar's way; he regarded the proposal as an insult. As
he left home on the day of election he told his mother, to whom he was
devoted, that he would return Pontifex or an exile. He was elected.
The same immovable courage was shown by Caesar at the time of the
Catilinarian conspiracy. The whole machinery of the trial of the
conspirators was contrary to the law; the Senate was not a proper Court
which could condemn men to death. Caesar knew that he was suspected by
many of being involved in the conspiracy and that many would be only too
delighted if they could see him in the dock for any reason. Yet he was
the one man who dared to point out the illegality and injustice of what
was being done and to vote against the death sentence. Caesar's life was
threatened at the time; but afterwards when the excitement died down and
people could consider the affair more calmly they saw that he had been
right; that he had kept his sense of justice when panic had made the
other senators lose theirs altogether.
Caesar was soon after this made governor of Spain (61-60). But his
creditors were so pressing that he would have actually been unable to
start had he not come to an understanding with Crassus. Crassus settled
the most urgent of his debts and he set out. Two stories are told of him
at this time which show a good deal of his mind. In crossing the Alps he
came upon a town so small that one of his friends remarked to him that
in a place so tiny there could be none of the struggle for place and
power such as there were in Rome, nothing worth having or being. Caesar,
however, said, 'I assure you I had rather be the first man here than the
second man in Rome.' When in Spain he spent his leisure in reading.
Among other books he studied the Life of Alexander the Great. The
followers of Pompeius who had just come back from the East were freely
comparing him to Alexander. Caesar was so much moved by what he read
that he sat thoughtful for a long time and at last, to the surprise of
his companions, burst into tears. They could not understand the reason
till he said, 'Do you not think I have sufficient cause for concern,
when Alexander at my age ruled over so many conquered countries and I
have not one glorious achievement to boast?'
In his government of Spain Caesar showed firmness, energy, and wisdom.
He carried out successful expeditions to distant parts of the peninsula
and brought the whole country into such good order that he enriched it
as well as the Roman State, himself, and his own soldiers. And all the
time that he was in Spain his mind was at work. From a distance he saw
the meaning of events in Rome with clearness and formed his own plans.
As soon as he returned he set to work to bring about that understanding
between himself, Crassus, and Pompeius that was known afterwards (at the
time it was a private bond) as the First Triumvirate (60). To bring this
about was by no means easy. Pompeius was jealous and apt to ride the
high horse. Crassus, though attached to Caesar, hated Pompeius. But
Caesar persuaded them both. The world might see how things stood when he
walked between them to the place of election for the consulship.
During his consulship (59) Caesar, despite the feeble opposition of his
colleague, carried through a big programme of reforms. In addition he
got a decree passed making him governor and military commander of Gaul
for five years. In Transalpine Gaul very dangerous movements were said
to be going on among the tribes. The Senate was not sorry to think of
getting Caesar out of the way and into a dangerous place: he himself
desired to win a glory equal to that of Pompeius and the command of an
army devoted to himself. In Gaul he meant to find both. And he did.
Plutarch, who wrote the lives of many distinguished Romans, was no lover
of Caesar. Pompeius is his hero. Yet Plutarch says that Caesar's
campaigns in Gaul (58-51) show him 'not in the least inferior to the
greatest and most admired commanders the world ever produced'. 'In
Gaul', he says, 'we begin a new life, as it were, and have to follow him
in quite another track.' In the nine years he spent there Caesar showed
astonishing genius as a soldier and won the utter devotion of his men.
But what he did in the field is surpassed by the statesmanship shown in
his settlement of the country and plan for its government.
In Gaul Caesar's great ideas found scope; but they were not born in
Gaul. If Caesar at work in Gaul appears to be a different man from
Caesar playing at politics in Rome, the reason is not that he suddenly
changed but that the picture of him in Rome is based on the accounts
given by his enemies, by men who feared and disliked without
understanding him. They have drawn a picture of a wild, extravagant, and
dissipated young man. Caesar was that, but behind it there was a mind
more powerful, a personality more strong, than in any of his
contemporaries: that mind and personality which old Sulla had perceived.
When in Rome Caesar worked incessantly even while he pretended to idle.
He was one of the busiest men in the city, though some of his busy-ness
was of a foolish kind. In Gaul his immense energies were turned to
constructive work. His health, which had been fragile--he suffered from
epilepsy or what was called 'the falling sickness' and from violent
headaches--and never became extraordinarily robust, was strengthened by
the hardships of a military life, by long marches, exposure, and spartan
food. And his energy, always extraordinary, seemed to grow by what it
fed on. He never rested. When on horseback on the march he kept
secretaries by him to write, at his dictation, letters, orders,
memoranda, draft laws, and his own history. He reduced his hours of
sleep to the fewest and at all times shared, like Hannibal, every
hardship of his men. They adored him, not only because of this and
because he never forgot that they were men like himself, but because of
something magnetic in his personality, that charm which is the hardest
thing in the world to describe or define. Caesar made his men believe in
him: trust him when he asked them to do things that appeared impossible:
face the most terrific odds and the severest trials in perfect belief in
him. They believed, as he did, in his star. But their devotion was not
only due to his genius. It was given to him, as a man, because of his
charm.
For nine years Caesar was in Gaul. For nine years Rome saw nothing of
him, though he spent winters at Ravenna and Lucca, and all the time
never lost touch with what was going on in the capital, or hold over men
there. He had left one or two faithful friends, among them Marcus
Antonius and Curio, to look after his interests. But his whole mind and
energy were devoted to his work in Gaul. It was a great work. Caesar not
only fought battles and conquered territories, as Pompeius and Lucullus
had done in the East. He did what they had never even tried to do: he
romanized the country. Understanding, with rare quickness and sympathy,
the nature of the people with whom he had to deal, he did not try to
alter their deep-rooted habits. But he started the work, completed under
the Empire, of spreading Roman law and order, coins and ways of trading,
in a word Roman civilization, over Central Europe. Caesar's mark
remained upon it all. There were disturbances in various parts of the
country after he left it. What the Romans called Gaul was a vast region
inhabited by numerous tribes who hated and warred against one another,
and had not learnt how to live in peace side by side. When Caesar took
up his command, the wild hordes of the north were ready to swoop down
upon Rome as they had done in the time of Brennus and again later when
Marius defeated them at Vercellae and the Raudine Fields. As the result
of Caesar's work they were held back for more than four hundred years.
And since Caesar was a statesman as well as a soldier his work was never
wholly undone: the stamp of his genius and of Rome was set once and for
all on North-western Europe.
As a soldier Caesar ranks among the greatest in the world. When he first
went to Gaul his army was small--but four legions in all. The rest of
his army he created, enlisting and training it on the spot. With his
small forces he had to meet not Orientals, driven into battle by fear,
but sturdy and fiercely warlike men with whom fighting was a natural
passion. Among the Gaulish chieftains too there were leaders of great
military gifts--Ariovistus, the chief of the Teutons, and Vercingetorix
of the Arverni.
Some idea of the means by which Caesar stirred and inspired his men, and
checked the danger of insubordination in his own ranks, which rose at
times when they were called upon to fight forces far greater in numbers,
is given by a passage in his own story. It begins with a speech he made
to his men.
[Illustration: SUBMISSION OF TRIBES
from a relief of the Empire]
_How Caesar dealt with threats of insubordination provoked by fear
of meeting the Germans_
'If any of you are alarmed by the defeat and flight of the Gauls,
you will find on inquiry that they were tired out by the length of
the war, and that Ariovistus, who for many months had been
encamped behind the shelter of the swamps and made it impossible
to engage him, suddenly fell on them when they were scattered
without any thought of fighting, and conquered them rather by
stratagem than by valour. Such a policy might well succeed against
untrained barbarians, but even Ariovistus does not expect that
Roman armies can be ensnared by it. Again, if any disguise their
fears by a pretended anxiety about supplies or by imaginary
difficulties in the route, they are acting presumptuously; for, as
it seems, either they are hopeless about the commander's
performance of his duty or they are dictating to him what that
duty is. These matters are for my decision; corn is being supplied
by the Sequani, Leuci and Lingones, and the crops are already
ripe. As for the difficulties of the route, you will soon have an
opportunity of judging them. When I am told that the soldiers will
disobey me and refuse to march, I am not at all troubled, for I
know that, if an army has been disobedient, either its commander
has been defeated through incompetence or some overt act has
convicted him of extortion; but the whole course of my life bears
witness to my integrity, and my success is proved by my campaign
against the Helvetii. Accordingly I shall do at once what I had
intended to do later and shall march to-night at the fourth watch,
so that I may know without delay whether your fears are stronger
than the claims of honour and duty. If no one else follows me,
I shall start with the tenth legion, whose devotion is beyond
question, and I intend to make it my bodyguard.' Caesar had shown
special favour to this legion and had an absolute trust in its
valour.
This speech made an extraordinary impression upon all and inspired
very great enthusiasm and eagerness to advance. The tenth legion
set the example, thanking Caesar through its tribunes for his
generous confidence, and declaring that it was ready in every way
to fight. Then the rest of the legions commissioned their tribunes
and chief centurions to apologize to Caesar; they had never
hesitated or feared, and had never thought that they should meddle
with their commander in the control of operations. Caesar accepted
their apology and started at the fourth watch, as he had warned
them.
Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, i. 40. 8-41. 4.
[Illustration: A ROMAN LEGIONARY HELMET
found in Britain]
There was a moment when it looked as though all Caesar's work was to be
swept away. He spent part of the year 54 in Britain. While he was away
plans for a great rising were conceived. Soon after he returned all Gaul
rose in a blaze. The first rising was put down. In 52 another and more
serious movement took place with Vercingetorix at its head. The danger
was greater than ever. It was the more serious that Caesar knew that in
Rome his enemies were working against him. So great was it indeed that
Caesar's officers were in despair and begged him to retreat to some safe
spot until reinforcements could be sent. But to wait for reinforcements
would make things worse instead of better. The rebellion would gather
force. It was by no means certain that Pompeius, now hand in glove with
the Conservatives, would send him more troops. Pompeius would be glad to
see his rival fail. Caesar was not going to give him that pleasure. And
retreat in face of danger was never Caesar's way. Always he went to meet
it. So now. He delivered a blow at the very heart of the enemy's
position. Caesar's capture of Alesia, the stronghold of Vercingetorix,
and his defeat of the second great Gallic army that closed him in while
he was blockading the town are among the great feats in the history of
war. The odds were heavy against him. His army was in a position from
which no luck, only the most brilliant generalship, could save it.
Caesar not only saved it: he absolutely crushed the foe. Vercingetorix
surrendered. The rebellion collapsed. By the end of the next year Gaul
was under Caesar's feet again. It was possible for him to turn his eyes
and mind to Rome (50).
[Illustration: THE HEIGHTS OF ALESIA
The stronghold of Vercingetorix]
He did not want to quarrel with Pompeius. He had indeed from the first
done everything in his power to prevent such a quarrel. But he saw that
the old order of things in Rome was crumbling into ruin. If Pompeius and
he could not rule together, one of them must rule alone. In the years of
his absence Pompeius had moved more and more to the Conservative point
of view. His jealousy of Caesar had grown. The long struggle came to a
head when Caesar's time in Gaul drew to an end.
[Illustration: MARCUS ANTONIUS from a coin]
Caesar from his winter quarters at Ravenna declared that he was ready to
disband his army and return to Rome as a private citizen as soon as
Pompeius demobilized his troops. Pompeius actually had a larger force of
men under arms than Caesar, including two legions which Caesar had
borrowed and sent back to him. In the Senate Curio proposed that both
generals should lay down their commands. This was agreed to. Pompeius
refused. A few months later the question came up again. Curio, who had
been to Ravenna, where Caesar was, read a letter from him. In this he
said he would disarm, if Pompeius did the same. The Senate declared the
letter was dangerous, and the man who wrote it dangerous. A friend of
Pompeius then proposed that by a certain day Caesar, if not disarmed,
should be regarded as a traitor. When Marcus Antonius and Cassius,
another tribune, vetoed this, they were expelled from the Senate and
threatened with swords by Pompeius's adherents. Caesar could no longer
have any doubt as to what awaited him in Rome. He explained how things
stood to his soldiers: they cried to him to march on (49).
By Sulla's law the Rubicon was the military boundary of Italy. No one
might cross it under arms. Caesar paused for a moment on the bank; then
suddenly crying, 'The die is cast', he crossed the river at the head of
his men and marching with great speed entered Ariminum.
The poet Lucan, writing long afterwards, tried to penetrate the secrets
of his mind, and guess what passed in it at this moment.
_The Approach to the Rubicon: a Poet's Phantasy_
Caesar had already hurried across the frozen Alps, pondering in
his heart vast schemes of war to come; but when he reached the
narrow waters of the Rubicon, the vision of his distracted country
rose awful to his gaze, with saddened features clear seen through
the gloom and white locks flowing from beneath her crown of
towers. All dishevelled and bare-armed she stood before him,
uttering words broken by sighs: 'Whither do ye press on? Whither
do ye bear these my standards? If ye come as loyal citizens, thus
far and no further.' Then Caesar shuddered in every limb, his hair
stiffened, and faintness of heart, checking his steps, stayed him
at the very brink. Soon he cried: 'Oh Lord of thunder, that from
the Tarpeian rock dost survey all our city, and gods that followed
the race of Iulus from Troy, and mysteries of Quirinus lost to our
sight, and Jupiter enthroned over Latium on Alba's mount, and
hearth of Vesta's fire, and thou, Rome, worshipped as divine, be
gracious to my cause. I bear against thee no frenzied arms. Lo!
here am I, Caesar, conqueror by sea and land, still everywhere thy
soldier if none forbid. On him, on him shall rest the guilt who
makes me thy enemy!' Then without delay be gave the signal for
advance and quickly led his men through the swollen stream.
Lucan, _Pharsalia_, i. 183-203.
There was no resistance. It was not Caesar's intention to use any
violence. In Rome, however, when the news came that he was moving south,
people fell into a panic. Pompeius lost his head. Although the forces at
his command were greater than Caesar's, he left the city, leaving
everything, including the State Treasury, behind him. Most of the
senators and people of consequence did the same.
Within sixty days from his crossing the Rubicon Caesar entered Rome and
made himself master of it and of all Northern Italy without bloodshed.
People who had trembled and believed that a reign of terror and
proscriptions of the kind carried out by Marius and Sulla would follow,
breathed again. Caesar showed no bitterness. There were no executions.
The property of those who had fled with Pompeius was untouched. Even to
Labienus, the one officer of his own who deserted him and joined the
other side, Caesar was generous. He sent his goods after him.
Caesar summoned those members of the Senate who had remained in Rome and
addressed them in a mild and gracious speech. He had no desire for war:
he urged them to send deputies to Pompeius. But no one would do this.
Pompeius meantime was embarking for Greece. Caesar did not follow him.
He was master in Rome: but Rome was utterly dependent for all its
supplies, the means by which it lived, on the world outside. Of that
world Pompeius seemed master. Caesar's first task was, therefore, not to
defeat Pompeius but to secure the food supply of the capital. For this
purpose he himself set out for Spain, where there was a strong Pompeian
army, leaving Marcus Antonius in charge in Italy and sending Curio to
Sicily. The Spanish campaign was severe, but after the Battle of Ilerda
the Pompeian armies were shattered. A considerable force surrendered.
Caesar pardoned the men and many of them joined his legions. When he
returned home, capturing Massilia on the way, he heard that Curio had
done excellently in Sicily: Cato had been defeated and fled to Pompeius.
The West was safe. From Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia corn flowed into
Rome. Caesar could sail for Dyrrachium to meet Pompeius. Pompeius
rejected all his proposals for peace. He was in a strong position: his
army far outnumbered Caesar's, and his companions were blindly certain
of victory. They indeed spent their time quarrelling among themselves as
to who should hold the great offices in Rome when they got back there:
who should be Pontifex Maximus for instance, when Caesar had been
killed. They were so sure of victory that when Caesar was compelled to
shift his camp, since his men were dying of starvation, they insisted on
following him and giving battle, though Pompeius saw that this was
playing Caesar's game: whereas to delay would have worn him down. At the
battle of Pharsalia (48) Caesar's much smaller army won a complete
victory, thanks to his superior generalship. The princes of the East
sent in their submission to the conqueror. The senators and men of rank
who survived Pharsalia hastened to make their peace with Caesar, all
except Cato, who had not shaved or cut his hair since Caesar crossed the
Rubicon, and now sailed to Africa to resist to the last.
Pompeius fled to Egypt. Thither Caesar followed him only to learn the
news of his death. When the bloody head of his chief enemy and sometime
friend was handed to him Caesar turned away, tears in his eyes.
Years before Caesar had planned to bring Egypt under the Roman rule: but
this plan had been defeated. Now he found everything in confusion there.
The old king, dying two years earlier, had left his kingdom to his
children, Cleopatra, then sixteen, and a baby boy. By Cleopatra, who
even as a young girl had those extraordinary powers of mind and charm
that have made her famous through the ages, Caesar was fascinated. Her
wit and gaiety, her beauty and changefulness, held him entranced: and
week after week he stayed on in Alexandria, while a dangerous
insurrection was being planned by the ex-vizier of the old king.
Suddenly it broke out. Caesar had but a handful of troops: to save his
fleet from being used against him he had to set fire to it with his own
hands. From the dock the flames spread to the palace and destroyed the
great Alexandrine library, the most wonderful in the world. Caesar
himself only just escaped: he had to swim across the harbour, holding
his papers in one hand.
[Illustration: CLEOPATRA from a coin]
The danger was serious but brief. Reinforcements arrived from Cilicia:
the Egyptian rebels were defeated: the ex-vizier put to death: Cleopatra
and her brother made rulers over Egypt under the protection of Rome.
Caesar in the spring crossed to Asia Minor, where he came, saw, and
conquered, as he himself said. In September he was in Athens: in October
in Rome: in December in Africa. There, at the battle of Thapsus, he
crushed out the last spark of opposition. Cato, who had fled to Utica,
killed himself, much to Caesar's distress. He admired the sturdy
independence of the old man and would have spared him. His daughter
Portia was married to Marcus Junius Brutus, a Pompeian whom Caesar had
pardoned and loved as a son.
The secret of Caesar's clemency, which astonished his contemporaries,
lay partly in his own nature, partly in his clear purpose to
re-establish life in Rome on a firm and lasting foundation. His mind had
no bitterness. Bitterness arises out of some inner uncertainty; Caesar
had a rare certainty as to what he wanted to do and as to his being able
to do it. He was not afraid of other people or of their judgements. He
had no need to compare himself uneasily with them. He could stand on
what he did, irrespective of what they thought about it. He had come to
build, not to destroy. He had seen the failure of Marius and of Sulla.
Sulla had tried to restart Rome on a false basis--the rule of one party
in the State, standing on the bleeding bodies and broken fortunes of the
other. He had failed. His system had crumbled, and in its ruin it had
brought the whole State to the ground. Moreover, Sulla's system had left
no room for growth. Rome's task in the world had grown enormously and
the old machine was quite incapable of fulfilling it. Caesar wanted to
create a new machine that could govern not a city but a world.
[Illustration: A ROMAN COIN
celebrating the murder of Caesar]
Caesar worked with the energy and power of a giant at his colossal task.
Every part of the State was in disorder--the army, the navy, the
treasury, the laws, trade, the whole business of government. He had to
reconstruct the whole, and in the space of little more than a year he
did much towards this. And besides these great tasks there were lesser
ones--the reform of the calendar, of the system of weights and measures,
of the language. Reforms are never popular. The change from bad to good
is slow and gradual. Caesar's followers were not made as rich as they
had hoped. His measures were directed to filling, not private pockets,
but the coffers of the State.
The people loved him. Their lot was vastly improved. But a growing body
began to say that he was behaving as a tyrant and that things were no
better than they had been under the old government. Some of these people
were sincere republicans who were afraid that Caesar was trying to make
himself king. Among them was Marcus Junius Brutus.
Brutus had married Cato's daughter and shared many of Cato's ideas.
Round him there gathered a knot of men, among whom the ablest was Caius
Cassius, who determined to free the city of the tyrant. To the minds of
Brutus and Cassius it seemed that Caesar was destroying the seeds of
greatness in all other men, to make himself supreme. Shakespeare makes
Cassius argue thus:
_The Penalty of Greatness_
_Cassius._ Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
'Brutus' will start a spirit as soon as 'Caesar'.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was fam'd with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompassed but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O! you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.
Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, I. ii.
Caesar was warned of the conspiracy but took little heed. He had always
taken his life in his hand. He knew that he walked in constant danger.
When a soothsayer warned him to beware the Ides of March he only
laughed; and when the Ides (March 15) came and his wife implored him to
stay indoors, he paid no attention but set out for a meeting of the
Senate as usual to transact his daily business, hearing petitions and
so on.
It was the day chosen by the conspirators. One of them detained Marcus
Antonius, who generally watched over his chief's safety: the others
gathered round Caesar. At a sudden signal, they fell upon him with their
daggers. Caesar was unarmed. At the foot of the statue of Pompeius,
which he had himself caused to be set up in a place of honour, he fell.
Pierced by six and thirty wounds he died. Marcus Brutus raised his
dagger, dyed with Caesar's blood, and holding it aloft declared that he
had freed Rome from a tyrant.
So Caesar fell (44). Years of bitter civil war followed. Then at last
Caesar's nephew and adopted son, Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, did
that which Brutus had slain Caesar to prevent--changed the Roman
Republic into the Roman Empire. All the Emperors bore the name of
Caesar. Throughout the vast world over which the Roman eagles flew,
Julius Caesar was worshipped almost as a god.
[Illustration: A CINERARY URN]
[Illustration: A ROMAN WATER-CARRIER
with his water-skin on his back]