366 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



dissimulator em ipsum illaqueant. And therefore we see the 

 greatest politiques have in a natural and free manner 

 professed their desires, rather than been reserved and dis- 

 guised in them. For so we see that Lucius Sylla made a 

 kind of profession, that he wished all men happy or un- 

 happy as they stood his friends or enemies. So Caesar, 

 when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess 

 that he had rather be first in a village than second at 

 Rome. So again as soon as he had begun the war, we see 

 what Cicero saith of him ; Alter (meaning of Caesar) non 

 r ecus at, sed quodammodo postulat, ut (ut est] sic appelktur 

 tyrannus. So we may see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, 

 that Augustus Caesar in his very entrance into affairs, 

 when he was a dearling of the senate, yet in his harangues 

 to the people would swear Ita parentis honores consequi liceat, 

 which was no less than the tyranny, save that, to help 

 it he would stretch forth his hand towards a statua of 

 Caesar's that was erected in the place : and men laughed 

 and wondered and said Is it possible ? or Did you ever 

 hear the like ? and yet thought he meant no hurt, he did 

 it so handsomely and ingenuously. And all these were 

 prosperous : whereas Pompey, who tended to the same 

 end but in a more dark and dissembling manner, as Taci- 

 tus saith of him, Occultior non melior^ wherein Sallust con- 

 curreth, ore probo, animo inverecundo, made it his design by 

 infinite secret engines to cast the state into an absolute 

 anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into 

 his arms for necessity and protection, and so the sovereign 

 power be put upon him, and he never seen in it : and 

 when he had brought it (as he thought) to that point, 

 when he was chosen consul alone, as never any was, yet he 

 could make no great matter of it, because men understood 

 him not ; but was fain in the end to go the beaten track 

 of getting arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of 

 Caesar's designs : so tedious casual, and unfortunate are 

 these deep dissimulations ; whereof it seemeth Tacitus 

 made this judgment, that they were a cunning of an in- 

 ferior form in regard of true policy ; attributing the one 

 to Augustus, the other to Tiberius, where speaking of 



