It is difficult to compare Cæsar with Alexander or Hannibal. To make such comparison leads towards the trivial. A few of their marked resemblances or differences can alone be pointed out and their elemental causes suggested; every one must draw his own conclusions; and the fact that the equipment of all great captains is the same will excuse apparent iteration of military virtues.
In Cæsar we can hardly divorce the ambitious statesman from the soldier. We are apt to lose sight of the soldier proper. The two characters are closely interwoven. In the motive of his labors Cæsar is unlike Alexander or Hannibal. He strove, in Gaul, solely for military power; after Pharsalus he worked with the ample power so gained. Hannibal was never anything but a subordinate of the Carthaginian Senate. He had no political ambition whatever; military success was his sole aim,—and this on patriotic grounds. Alexander was a monarch ab initio. His inspiration was the love of conquest,—the greed of territory, if you like,—but as a king.
As a soldier, pure and simple, however, Cæsar is on an equal level, though his campaigns were markedly colored by his political aspirations. Hannibal employed state-craft to further his warlike aims; Cæsar waged war to further his political aims. Alexander had no political aims. His ambition was to conquer; to make Macedon the mistress of the world, as he was master of Macedon, and then to weld his dominions into one body. Rome was already mistress of the world, and Cæsar aimed to make himself master of Rome. Each had his own motive as a keynote.
In personal character, Hannibal stands higher than either. His ambition was purely for Carthage. The man was always merged in the patriot. He himself could acquire no greatness, rank, or power. His service of his country after Zama abundantly demonstrates Hannibal’s lofty, self-abnegating public spirit. What we know of Hannibal is derived, mostly, from Roman writers, and these are, of necessity, prejudiced. How could they be otherwise towards a man who for more than half a generation had humiliated their country as she had never been humiliated before? But in reading between the lines you readily discover what manner of soldier and man Hannibal truly was.
In personal attributes there is a divinity which hedges Alexander beyond all others. Despite his passionate outbursts and their often lamentable consequences, a glamour surrounds him unlike any hero of antiquity. But in mind and will, in true martial bearing, all are alike. The conduct of each is equally a pattern to every soldier.
Alexander and Hannibal, from youth up, led a life of simplicity and exercise, and their physique, naturally good, became adapted to their soldier’s work. Cæsar led the youth of a man of the world, and was far from strong at birth. He did, however, curb his pleasure to his ambition until he grew easily to bear the fatigue incident to the command of armies. Throughout life he accomplished a fabulous amount of work, mental and physical. His nervous force was unparalleled.
Intelligence and character were alike pronounced in all. But Alexander, perhaps because young, exceeded Cæsar and Hannibal in fire and in unreasoning enthusiasm. Hannibal possessed far more quiet wisdom, power of weighing facts, and valor tempered with discretion. In Cæsar we find an unimpassioned pursuit of his one object with cold, calculating brain-tissue, and all the vigor of body and soul put at the service of his purpose to control the power of the Roman State.
In each, the will and intellect were balanced, as they must be in a great captain. But in Alexander, the will often outran the intelligence; in Hannibal the intelligence occasionally overruled the ambition to act; in Cæsar it was now one, now the other bias which took the upper hand. Alexander was always daring, never cautious. Hannibal was always cautious, often daring. Cæsar was over-daring and over-cautious by turns. This is perhaps to an extent due to the ages of each, already given,—twenty-five, thirty-four, fifty-two.
Each possessed breadth, depth, strength, energy, persistent activity throughout his entire career, a conception covering all fields, a brain able to cope with any problem. But in Alexander we find these qualities coupled with the effervescence of imaginative youth; in Hannibal, with singular sharpness and the judgment of maturity; in Cæsar, with the cool circumspection of years, not unmixed with a buoyant contempt of difficulty. The parts of each were equally developed by education. By contact with the world, perhaps most in Cæsar, least in Hannibal.
The high intellectuality of each is shown in the art of their plans, in their ability to cope with difficult problems in the cabinet, and work them out in the field; and with this went daring, caution, zeal, patience, nervous equipoise which never knew demoralization. With each, intelligence and decision grew with the demand. They were never overtaxed. Strain made them the more elastic. Danger lent them the greater valor. With each the brain worked faster and more precisely the graver the test. As good judgment became more essential, the power rightly to judge increased.