_Scipio_.--Alas, Caesar! how unhappily did you end a life made
illustrious by the greatest exploits in war and most various civil
talents!
_Caesar_.--Can Scipio wonder at the ingratitude of Rome to her generals?
Did not he reproach her with it in the epitaph he ordered to be inscribed
upon his tomb at Liternum, that mean village in Campania, to which she
had driven the conqueror of Hannibal and of Carthage? I also, after
subduing her most dangerous enemies, the Helvetians, the Gauls, and the
Germans, after raising her name to the highest pitch of glory, should
have been deprived of my province, reduced to live as a private man under
the power of my enemies and the enviers of my greatness; nay, brought to
a trial and condemned by the judgment of a faction, if I had not led my
victorious troops to Rome, and by their assistance, after all my offers
of peace had been iniquitously rejected, made myself master of a State
which knew so ill how to recompense superior merit. Resentment of this,
together with the secret machinations of envy, produced not long
afterwards a conspiracy of senators, and even of some whom I had most
obliged and loved, against my life, which they basely took away by
assassination.
_Scipio_.--You say you led your victorious troops to Rome. How were they
your troops? I thought the Roman armies had belonged to the Republic,
not to their generals.
_Caesar_.--They did so in your time. But before I came to command them,
Marius and Sylla had taught them that they belonged to their generals.
And I taught the senate that a veteran army, affectionately attached to
its leader, could give him all the treasures and honours of the State
without asking their leave.
_Scipio_.--Just gods! did I then deliver my country from the invading
Carthaginian, did I exalt it by my victories above all other nations,
that it might become a richer prey to its own rebel soldiers and their
ambitious commanders?
_Caesar_.--How could it be otherwise? Was it possible that the
conquerors of Europe, Asia, and Africa could tamely submit to descend
from their triumphal chariots and become subject to the authority of
praetors and consuls elected by a populace corrupted by bribes, or
enslaved to a confederacy of factious nobles, who, without regard to
merit, considered all the offices and dignities of the State as
hereditary possessions belonging to their families?
_Scipio_.--If I thought it no dishonour, after triumphing over Hannibal,
to lay down my fasces and obey, as all my ancestors had done before me,
the magistrates of the republic, such a conduct would not have
dishonoured either Marius, or Sylla, or Caesar. But you all dishonoured
yourselves when, instead of virtuous Romans, superior to your
fellow-citizens in merit and glory, but equal to them in a due subjection
to the laws, you became the enemies, the invaders, and the tyrants of
your country.
_Caesar_.--Was I the enemy of my country in giving it a ruler fit to
support all the majesty and weight of its empire? Did I invade it when I
marched to deliver the people from the usurped dominion and insolence of
a few senators? Was I a tyrant because I would not crouch under Pompey,
and let him be thought my superior when I felt he was not my equal?
_Scipio_.--Pompey had given you a noble example of moderation in twice
dismissing the armies, at the head of which he had performed such
illustrious actions, and returning a private citizen into the bosom of
his country.
_Caesar_.--His moderation was a cheat. He believed that the authority
his victories had gained him would make him effectually master of the
commonwealth without the help of those armies. But finding it difficult
to subdue the united opposition of Crassus and me, he leagued himself
with us, and in consequence of that league we three governed the empire.
But, after the death of Crassus, my glorious achievements in subduing the
Gauls raised such a jealousy in him that he could no longer endure me as
a partner in his power, nor could I submit to degrade myself into his
subject.
_Scipio_.--Am I then to understand that the civil war you engaged in was
really a mere contest whether you or Pompey should remain sole lord of
Rome?
_Caesar_.--Not so, for I offered, in my letters to the senate, to lay
down my arms if Pompey at the same time would lay down his, and leave the
republic in freedom. Nor did I resolve to draw the sword till not only
the senate, overpowered by the fear of Pompey and his troops, had
rejected these offers, but two tribunes of the people, for legally and
justly interposing their authority in my behalf, had been forced to fly
from Rome disguised in the habit of slaves, and take refuge in my camp
for the safety of their persons. My camp was therefore the asylum of
persecuted liberty, and my army fought to avenge the violation of the
rights and majesty of the people as much as to defend the dignity of
their general unjustly oppressed.
_Scipio_.--You would therefore have me think that you contended for the
equality and liberty of the Romans against the tyranny of Pompey and his
lawless adherents. In such a war I, myself, if I had lived in your
times, would have willingly been your lieutenant. Tell me then, on the
issue of this honourable enterprise, when you had subdued all your foes
and had no opposition remaining to obstruct your intentions, did you
establish that liberty for which you fought? Did you restore the
republic to what it was in my time?
_Caesar_.--I took the necessary measures to secure to myself the fruits
of my victories, and gave a head to the empire, which could neither
subsist without one nor find another so well suited to the greatness of
the body.
_Scipio_.--There the true character of Caesar was seen unmasked. You had
managed so skilfully in the measures which preceded the civil war, your
offers were so specious, and there appeared so much violence in the
conduct of your enemies that, if you had fallen in that war, posterity
might have doubted whether you were not a victim to the interests of your
country. But your success, and the despotism you afterwards exorcised,
took off those disguises and showed clearly that the aim of all your
actions was tyranny.
_Caesar_.--Let us not deceive ourselves with sounds and names. That
great minds should aspire to sovereign power is a fixed law of Nature. It
is an injury to mankind if the highest abilities are not placed in the
highest stations. Had you, Scipio, been kept down by the republican
jealousy of Cato, the censor Hannibal would have never been recalled out
of Italy nor defeated in Africa. And if I had not been treacherously
murdered by the daggers of Brutus and Cassius, my sword would have
avenged the defeat of Crassus and added the empire of Parthia to that of
Rome. Nor was my government tyrannical. It was mild, humane, and
bounteous. The world would have been happy under it and wished its
continuance, but my death broke the pillars of the public tranquillity
and brought upon the whole empire a direful scene of calamity and
confusion.
_Scipio_.--You say that great minds will naturally aspire to sovereign
power. But, if they are good as well as great, they will regulate their
ambition by the laws of their country. The laws of Rome permitted me to
aspire to the conduct of the war against Carthage; but they did not
permit you to turn her arms against herself, and subject her to your
will. The breach of one law of liberty is a greater evil to a nation
than the loss of a province; and, in my opinion, the conquest of the
whole world would not be enough to compensate for the total loss of their
freedom.
_Caesar_.--You talk finely, Africanus; but ask yourself, whether the
height and dignity of your mind--that noble pride which accompanies the
magnanimity of a hero--could always stoop to a nice conformity with the
laws of your country? Is there a law of liberty more essential, more
sacred, than that which obliges every member of a free community to
submit himself to a trial, upon a legal charge brought against him for a
public misdemeanour? In what manner did you answer a regular accusation
from a tribune of the people, who charged you with embezzling the money
of the State? You told your judges that on that day you had vanquished
Hannibal and Carthage, and bade them follow you to the temples to give
thanks to the gods. Nor could you ever be brought to stand a legal
trial, or justify those accounts, which you had torn in the senate when
they were questioned there by two magistrates in the name of the Roman
people. Was this acting like the subject of a free State? Had your
victory procured you an exemption from justice? Had it given into your
hands the money of the republic without account? If it had, you were
king of Rome. Pharsalia, Thapsus, and Munda could do no more for me.
_Scipio_.--I did not question the right of bringing me to a trial, but I
disdained to plead in vindication of a character so unspotted as mine. My
whole life had been an answer to that infamous charge.
_Caesar_.--It may be so; and, for my part, I admire the magnanimity of
your behaviour. But I should condemn it as repugnant and destructive to
liberty, if I did not pay more respect to the dignity of a great general,
than to the forms of a democracy or the rights of a tribune.
_Scipio_.--You are endeavouring to confound my cause with yours; but they
are exceedingly different. You apprehended a sentence of condemnation
against you for some part of your conduct, and, to prevent it, made an
impious war on your country, and reduced her to servitude. I trusted the
justification of my affronted innocence to the opinion of my judges,
scorning to plead for myself against a charge unsupported by any other
proof than bare suspicions and surmises. But I made no resistance; I
kindled no civil war; I left Rome undisturbed in the enjoyment of her
liberty. Had the malice of my accusers been ever so violent, had it
threatened my destruction, I should have chosen much rather to turn my
sword against my own bosom than against that of my country.
_Caesar_.--You beg the question in supposing that I really hurt my
country by giving her a master. When Cato advised the senate to make
Pompey sole consul, he did it upon this principle, that any kind of
government is preferable to anarchy. The truth of this, I presume, no
man of sense will contest; and the anarchy, which that zealous defender
of liberty so much apprehended, would have continued in Rome, if that
power, which the urgent necessity of the State conferred upon me, had not
removed it.
_Scipio_.--Pompey and you had brought that anarchy on the State in order
to serve your own ends. It was owing to the corruption, the factions,
and the violence which you had encouraged from an opinion that the senate
would be forced to submit to an absolute power in your hands, as a remedy
against those intolerable evils. But Cato judged well in thinking it
eligible to make Pompey sole consul rather than you dictator, because
experience had shown that Pompey respected the forms of the Roman
constitution; and though he sought, by bad means as well as good, to
obtain the highest magistracies and the most honourable commands, yet he
laid them down again, and contented himself with remaining superior in
credit to any other citizen.
_Caesar_.--If all the difference between my ambition and Pompey's was
only, as you represent it, in a greater or less respect for the forms of
the constitution, I think it was hardly becoming such a patriot as Cato
to take part in our quarrel, much less to kill himself rather than yield
to my power.
_Scipio_.--It is easier to revive the spirit of liberty in a government
where the forms of it remain unchanged, than where they have been totally
disregarded and abolished. But I readily own that the balance of the
Roman constitution had been destroyed by the excessive and illegal
authority which the people were induced to confer upon Pompey, before any
extraordinary honours or commands had been demanded by you. And that is,
I think, your best excuse.
_Caesar_.--Yes, surely. The favourers of the Manilian law had an ill
grace in desiring to limit the commissions I obtained from the people,
according to the rigour of certain absolute republican laws, no more
regarded in my time than the Sybilline oracles or the pious institutions
of Numa.
_Scipio_.--It was the misfortune of your time that they were not
regarded. A virtuous man would not take from a deluded people such
favours as they ought not to bestow. I have a right to say this because
I chid the Roman people, when, overheated by gratitude for the services I
had done them, they desired to make me perpetual consul and dictator.
Hear this, and blush. What I refused to accept, you snatched by force.
_Caesar_.--Tiberius Gracchus reproached you with the inconsistency of
your conduct, when, after refusing these offers, you so little respected
the tribunitian authority. But thus it must happen. We are naturally
fond of the idea of liberty till we come to suffer by it, or find it an
impediment to some predominant passion; and then we wish to control it,
as you did most despotically, by refusing to submit to the justice of the
State.
_Scipio_.--I have answered before to that charge. Tiberius Gracchus
himself, though my personal enemy, thought it became him to stop the
proceedings against me, not for my sake, but for the honour of my
country, whose dignity suffered with mine. Nevertheless I acknowledge my
conduct in that business was not absolutely blameless. The generous
pride of virtue was too strong in my mind. It made me forget I was
creating a dangerous precedent in declining to plead to a legal
accusation brought against me by a magistrate invested with the majesty
of the whole Roman people. It made me unjustly accuse my country of
ingratitude when she had shown herself grateful, even beyond the true
bounds of policy and justice, by not inflicting upon me any penalty for
so irregular a proceeding. But, at the same time, what a proof did I
give of moderation and respect for her liberty, when my utmost resentment
could impel me to nothing more violent than a voluntary retreat and quiet
banishment of myself from the city of Rome! Scipio Africanus offended,
and living a private man in a country-house at Liternum, was an example
of more use to secure the equality of the Roman commonwealth than all the
power of its tribunes.
_Caesar_.--I had rather have been thrown down the Tarpeian Rock than have
retired, as you did, to the obscurity of a village, after acting the
first part on the greatest theatre of the world.
_Scipio_.--A usurper exalted on the highest throne of the universe is not
so glorious as I was in that obscure retirement. I hear, indeed, that
you, Caesar, have been deified by the flattery of some of your
successors. But the impartial judgment of history has consecrated my
name, and ranks me in the first class of heroes and patriots; whereas,
the highest praise her records, even under the dominion usurped by your
family, have given to you, is, that your courage and talents were equal
to the object your ambition aspired to, the empire of the world; and that
you exercised a sovereignty unjustly acquired with a magnanimous
clemency. But it would have been better for your country, and better for
mankind, if you had never existed.