We left Rome galloping down the Gadarene slope, and scrimmaging
for a vantage point whence to hurl herself headlong. Down she
came; a riot and roaring ruin: doing those things she ought not
to have done, and leaving undone those things she ought to have
done, and with no semblance of health in her. There was nothing
for it but the downfall of the world; good-bye civilization and
all that was ever upbuilded of old. Come now; we should become
good Congo forester in our time, with what they call 'long pig'
for our daintiest diet. It is a euphemism for your brother man.
But supposing this mist-filled Gadarene gulf were really
bridgable: supposing there were another side beyond the roar of
hungry waters and the horror; and that mankind,--European
mankind,--might pass over, and be saved, were there but staying
the rout for a moment, and affording a means to cross?
There is a bardic proverb in the Welsh: _A fo Ben, bydded
Bont:_--'He who is Chief, let him be the bridge': Bran the
Blessed said it, when he threw down his giant body over the gulf,
so that the men of the Island of the Mighty might pass over into
Ireland. And the end of an old cycle, and the beginning of a
new, when there is--as in our Rome at that time--a sort of
psychic and cyclic impasse, a break-down and terrible chasm in
history, if civilization is to pass over from the old conditions
to the new, a man must be found who can be the bridge. He must
solve the problems within himself; he must care so little for,
and have such control of, his personality, that he can lay it
down, so to speak, and let humanity cross over upon it. History
may get no news of him at all; although he is then the Chief of
Men, and the greatest living;--or it may get news, only to
belittle him. His own and the after ages may think very little
of him; he may possess no single quality to dazzle the
imagination:--he may seem cold and uninteresting, a crafty
tyrant;--or an uncouth old ex-rail-splitter to have in the White
House;--or an illiterate peasant-girl to lead your armies; yet
because he is the bridge, he is the Chief; and you may suspect
someone out of the Pantheons incarnate in him.
For the truth of all which, humanity has a sure instinct. When
there is a crisis we say, _Look for the Man._ Rome thought (for
the most part) that she had found him when Caesar, having
conquered Pompey, came home master of the world. If this phoenix
and phenomenon in time, now with no competitor above the
horizons, could not settle affairs, only Omnipotence could.
Every thinking (or sane) Roman knew that what Rome needed was a
head; and now at last she had got one. Pompey, the only
possible alternative, was dead; Caesar was lord of all things.
Pharsalus, the deciding battle, was fought in 48; he returned
home in 46. From the year between, in which he put the finishing
touches to his supremacy, you may count the full manvantara of
Imperial Rome: fifteen centuries until 1453 and the fall of
the Eastern Empire.
All opinion since has been divided as to the character of Caesar.
To those whose religion is democracy, he is the grand Destroyer
of Freedom; to the worshipers of the Superman, he is the chief
avatar of their god. Mr. Stobart,* who deals with him sanely,
but leaning to the favorable view, says he was "not a bad man,
for he preferred justice and mercy to tyranny and cruelty, and
had a passion for logic and order"; and adds, "he was a man
without beliefs or illusions or scruples." He began by being a
fop and ultra-extravagant; and was always, if we may believe
accounts, a libertine of the first water. He was, of course, an
epileptic. In short, there is nothing in history to give an
absolutely sure clue to his real self. But there is that passage
in Madame Blavatsky, which I have quoted before, to the effect
that he was an agent of the dark forces, and conquered Gaul for
them, to abolish the last effective Mysteries; and I think in
the light of that, his character, and a great deal of history
besides, becomes intelligible enough.--I will be remembered that
he stood at the head of the Roman religion, as Potifex Maximus.
------
* On whose book, _The Grandeur that was Rome,_ this paper also
largely leans.
------
But it was not the evil that he did that (obviously) brought
about his downfall. Caesar was fortified against Karma by the
immensity of his genius. Whom should he fear, who had conquered
Pompeius Magnus? None in the roman world could reach so high as
to his elbow;--for sheer largeness of mind, quickness and daring,
he stoood absolutely the Superman among pygmies. He knew his
aim, and could make or wait for it; and it was big and real.
Other men crowed or fumbled after petty and pinch-beck ends;
impossible rhetorical republicanisms; vain senatorial prestiges;
--or pleasure pure and simple--say rather, very complex and
impure. Let them clack, let them fumble! Caesar would do
things and get things done. He wore the whole armor of his
greatness, and could see no chink or joint in it through which a
hostile dagger might pierce. Even his military victories were
won by some greater than mere military greatness.--Karma,
perhaps, remembering the Mysteries at Gaulish Bibracte, and the
world left now quite lightless, might have a word to say; might
even be looking round for shafts to speed. But what, against a
man so golden-panoplied? "Tush!" saith Caesar, "there are no
arrows now but straws."