They never once mutinied during all the ten years of the Gallic War, but were sometimes a little refractory in the course of the Civil War. They always however returned quickly to their duty, and that not through the compliance but the authority of their general; for he never gave ground, but constantly opposed them on such occasions. The whole ninth legion he dismissed with ignominy at Placentia, though Pompey was at that time in arms; and would not receive them again into his service, until not only they had made the most humble submission and entreaty, but that the ringleaders in the mutiny were punished.
When the soldiers of the tenth legion at Rome demanded their discharge and rewards for their service, with great threats, and no small danger to the city, though at that time the war was warmly carried on against him in Africa, he immediately, notwithstanding all the efforts of his friends, who endeavoured to prevent him from taking such a measure, came up to the legion and disbanded it. But addressing them by the title of “quirites,” instead of “soldiers,” he by this single word so thoroughly regained their affections that they immediately cried out they were his “soldiers,” and followed him into Africa, though he had refused their service. He nevertheless punished the most seditious amongst them, with the loss of a third of their share in the plunder and the land which had been intended for them.
In the service of his clients, while yet a young man, he evinced great zeal and fidelity. He defended the cause of a noble youth, Masintha, against King Hiempsal, so strenuously that in a wrangle which happened upon the occasion he seized by the beard the son of King Juba; and upon Masintha being declared tributary to Hiempsal, while the friends of the adverse party were violently carrying him off, he immediately rescued him by force, kept him concealed in his house a long time, and when, at the expiration of his prætorship, he went to Spain, he carried him with him in his litter, amidst his sergeants, and others who had come to attend and take leave of him.
He always treated his friends with that good nature and kindness, that when C. Oppius, in travelling with him through a forest, was suddenly taken ill, he resigned to him the only place there was to lodge in at night, and lay himself upon the ground, and in the open air. When he had come to have in his own hands the whole power of the commonwealth, he advanced some of his faithful adherents, though of mean extraction, to the highest posts in the government. And when he was censured for this partiality, he openly said, “Had I been assisted by robbers and cut-throats in the defence of my honour, I should have made them the same recompense.”
He never in any quarrel conceived so implacable a resentment as not very willingly to renounce it when an opportunity occurred. Though C. Memmius had published some extremely virulent speeches against him, and he had answered him with equal acrimony, yet he afterwards assisted him with his vote and interest, when he stood candidate for the consulship. When C. Calvus, after publishing some scandalous epigrams against him, endeavoured to effect a reconciliation by the intercession of friends, he wrote of his own accord the first letter. And when Valerius Catullus, who had, as he himself observed, in his verses upon Mamurra put such a stain upon his character as never could be obliterated, begged his pardon, he invited him to supper the same day; and continued to take up his lodging with his father occasionally, as he had been accustomed to do.
His disposition was naturally averse to severity in retaliation. After he had made the pirates, by whom he had been taken, prisoners, because he had sworn he would crucify them, he did so indeed; but previously to the execution of that sentence, ordered their throats to be cut. He could never bear the thought of doing any harm to Cornelius Phagita, who had kidnapped him in the night, with the design of carrying him to Sulla; and from whose custody, not without much difficulty and a large bribe likewise, he had been able to extricate himself. Philemon, his secretary, who had made a promise to his enemies to poison him, he put to death only, without torture. When he was summoned as a witness against P. Clodius, his wife Pompeia’s gallant, who was prosecuted for a pollution of religious ceremonies, he declared he knew nothing of the affair, though his mother Aurelia and his sister Julia gave the court an exact and full account of the transaction. And being asked why then he had divorced his wife: “Because,” said he,“I would have those of my family untainted, not only with guilt, but with the suspicion of it likewise.”
Both in the administration of government and his behaviour towards the vanquished party in the Civil War, he showed a wonderful moderation and clemency. And whilst Pompey declared that he would consider all those as enemies who did not take arms in defence of the republic, he desired it to be understood that he should regard all those who remained neuter as his friends. In respect of all those to whom he had, on Pompey’s recommendation, given any command in the army, he left them at perfect liberty to go over to him, if they pleased. When some proposals were made at Ilerda for a surrender, which gave rise to a free communication between the two camps, and Afranius and Petreius, upon a sudden change of resolution, had put to the sword all Cæsar’s men that were found in the camp, he scorned to imitate the base treachery which they had practised against himself. In the field of Pharsalia, he called out to the soldiers “to spare their fellow-citizens,” and afterwards gave liberty to every man in his army to save an enemy. None of them, so far as appears, lost their lives but in battle, excepting only Afranius, Faustus, and young Lucius Cæsar; and it is thought that even they were put to death without his consent. Afranius and Faustus had borne arms against him, after their pardon had been granted them; and L. Cæsar had not only in the most cruel manner destroyed with fire and sword his freedmen and slaves, but cut to pieces the wild beasts which he had prepared for the entertainment of the people. And finally, a little before his death, he granted liberty to all whom he had not before pardoned, to return into Italy, and admitted them to a capacity of bearing offices both civil and military.
He even erected again the statues of Sulla and Pompey, which had been thrown down by the populace. And any machinations against him, or reflections upon him, he chose rather to put a stop to than punish. Accordingly, with regard to any conspiracies against him which were discovered, or nightly cabals, he went no further than to intimate by a proclamation that he knew of them; and as to those who indulged themselves in the liberty of reflecting severely upon him, he only warned them in a public speech not to persist in their obloquy. He bore with great moderation a virulent libel written against him by Aulus Cæcina, and the abusive lampoons of Pitholaus, most highly reflecting on his reputation.
His other actions and declarations, however, with regard to the public, so far outweigh all his good qualities, that it is thought he abused his power and was justly cut off. For he not only accepted of excessive honours, as the consulship every year successively, the dictatorship for life, and the superintendency of the public manners, but likewise the titles of “imperator,” and “father of his country,” besides a statue amongst the kings, and a throne in the place allotted to the senators in the theatre. He even suffered some things to be decreed for him that were unsuitable to the greatest of human kind; such as a golden chair in the senate house and upon the bench when he sat for the trial of causes, a stately chariot in the Circensian procession, temples, altars, images near the gods, a bed of state in the temples, a peculiar priest, and a college of priests, like those appointed in honour of Pan, and that one of the months should be called by his name. He indeed both assumed to himself, and granted to others, every kind of distinction at pleasure. In his third and fourth consulship he had only the title of the office, being content with the power of dictator, which was conferred upon him at the same time; and in both years he substituted other consuls in his room, during the three last months; so that in the intervals he held no assemblies of the people for the election of magistrates, excepting only tribunes and ædiles of the commons; and appointed officers, under the name of prefects, instead of the prætors, to administer the affairs of the city during his absence. The honour of the consulship, which had just become vacant by the sudden death of one of the consuls, he instantly conferred, the day before the 1st of January, upon a person who requested it of him, for a few hours.
With the same unwarrantable freedom, regardless of the constant usage of his country, he nominated the magistrates for several years to come. He granted the insignia of the consular dignity to ten persons of prætorian rank. He called up into the senate some who had been made free of the city, and even natives of Gaul, who were little better than barbarians. He likewise appointed to the management of the mint and the public revenue of the state some of his own servants; and entrusted the command of three legions, which he left at Alexandria, to an old catamite of his, the son of his freedman Rufinus.