150 THE WIVES OF THE C^SARS. 



more terrible assumptions of a vitiated democracy, might be repressed. 

 The disorganized polity of Rome, no longer able to control the tur- 

 bulence of a seditious generation, was hastening to a state of utter dis- 

 solution ; the voice of moderation was derided in the tempest of ra- 

 pacity, vengeance, and ambition j and where the elements of power 

 were casually concentrated, its pernicious strength was wielded by the 

 selfish purpose of pretensions sufficient to sustain distraction, but 

 utterly inadequate to the establishment of permanent tranquillity. In 

 such a state of desperate necessity, Caesar stood alone. If he descended 

 from his eminence, he sealed his fate. His perceptive mind beheld 

 the prospect of perpetuated discord in a dissolute republic, where 

 liberty was but a name the spell by which the democratic despotism 

 was inflamed, to the absolute extinction of security and internal peace. 

 The state was daily at the mercy of any popular incendiary who had 

 pandered to the fitful vices of the people, or the rapacious hopes of 

 a licentious soldiery. The polity of ancient commonwealths was ill 

 adapted to extensive states in eras of refinement. It is true, their 

 theory developed a fantastic freedom, which involved in all its opera- 

 tions the principle of self-extinction. And certain is it, that the 

 scourge of tyranny was never wielded with such bloody cruelty and 

 insult to its victims, as in those republics of the ancient world where 

 poetry and eloquence conspired to glorify an image incessantly beset 

 by turbulent ambition, and frequently destroyed by popular insanity. 

 Caesar may have contemplated the condition of his country with a 

 melancholy sense of its necessities, and with a daring resolution to 

 relieve them. He may have stepped above the forms of law in order 

 to restore and to amend it, and have seized a paramount authority 

 with which to quell the morbid discord that incessantly arose among 

 the fractious disputants who clamoured for republican equality. His 

 intrepidity and skill had triumphed over every obstacle ; he had dis- 

 dained the menaces of enmity, and disregarded the suggestions of mis- 

 trust.* His great achievements gave him a distinct superiority, to 

 which the multitude were willing to submit; his comprehensive 

 genius was the source of hope and expectation to a people wearied 

 with the rapid alternations of precarious tyranny. His magnanimity 

 had spurned the prosecution of individual enmity, and he appeared, 

 on the assumption of his powers, to have sacrificed the recollection of 

 his adversaries to the propitiating spirit of universal clemency .f He 

 was at once the hero and the statesman ; the admiration of the wise 

 and brave ; informed by long experience, and fired with the ambition 

 of a fame reposing on the welfare of his country. 



* " Subscripsere quidam L. Bruti statute Utlnam riveres.' Item ipsius 

 Caesaris statutae : " Brutus quia lieges ejecit, Consul primus factus est ; Hie 

 quia Consules ejecit, Hex postremo factus est.' Inscriptiones hae admoclum 

 fuere loquaces, ni mens Julio Caesari laeva fuisset." Christ. Matih. Theat. 

 Hist. C. Jul. CCBS. Imp. Rom. cap. 3. 



f- The concurrence of historians on all important points of Caesar's character, 

 when he had reached the summit of authority, exhibits an unrivalled instance 

 of the purest magnanimity. " Ignoscendo amicis, odia cum armis deposuit ; 

 nam Lentulum tantum, et Afranium et Faustum Sullae filium jussit occidi." 

 Such is the testimony of Aureiius Victor, de Vir. Illust. 78. That of Suetonius, 

 who mentions Lucius Caesar in the place of Lentuhis, reduces the ascribed se- 



