164 ROMAN HISTORY: 



early public life. He flung himself upon the tide of events 

 then rushing stormily on prepared to stem it with strong 

 arm and heart of controversy but yet unaware how he 

 should be carried forwards, or on what shore his fortune 

 would cast him. 



This broad view tallies better, we think, with Caesar's 

 character and the records of his early life, than any more 

 refined speculation as to his political and personal objects at 

 this period. The juvenile excesses related of him were due 

 in some part, probably, to physical constitution an element 

 never to be disregarded in forming such estimates ; in part, 

 perhaps, to the desire of warding off suspicion at a time when 

 the hand of power was strong against his party. We have 

 already had occasion to comment on the frequent error of 

 historians in regarding character as single and unchangeable, 

 and parcelling out their theory of motives and events ac- 

 cordingly. The mind of Csesar was as entirely individual, as 

 little touched by time or changed by circumstances, as any 

 on record. But it is perfectly consistent with this to suppose 

 that his views were enlarged, and their direction determined 

 by events themselves. The ambition with which he was 

 early charged, he undoubtedly had; seconded by a strong 

 and consistent will and high intellectual power ; and these 

 qualities sufficiently defined his course in the existing state 

 of Rome. He seems to have avoided any direct connection 

 with the profligate plots so frequent at this period. We 

 doubt his being otherwise concerned in that of Catiline than 

 as a too indulgent spectator of scenes which might open new 

 avenues to his own ambition. During the career of Clodius 

 he was absent from the city ; but he signalised himself by 

 his efforts to shelter his political adversary, Cicero, whom 

 Pompey, professedly a friend, betrayed to the violent dema- 

 gogue. His own measures in the popular cause, both before 

 and during his consulship, appear to have been in themselves 



