He gave way to the same extravagance in his public conversation, as T. Ampius informs us; according to whom he said: “The commonwealth is nothing but a name, without substance, or so much as the appearance of any. Sulla was an illiterate fellow to lay down the dictatorship. Men ought to be more cautious in their converse with me, and look upon what I say as a law.” To such a pitch of arrogance did he proceed that, when a soothsayer brought him word that the entrails of a victim opened for sacrifice were without a heart, he said: “The entrails will be more favourable when I please; and it ought not to be regarded as any ill omen if a beast should be destitute of a heart.”
But what brought upon him the greatest and most invincible odium was his receiving the whole body of the senate sitting, when they came to wait upon him before the temple of Venus Genitrix, with many honourable decrees in his favour. Some say, as he attempted to rise, he was held down by C. Balbus. Others say he did not attempt it at all, but looked somewhat displeased at C. Trebatius, who put him in mind of standing up. This behaviour appeared the more intolerable in him because, when one of the tribunes of the commons, Pontius Aquila, would not rise up to him, as in his triumph he passed by the place where they sat, he was so much offended, that he cried out, “Well then, master tribune, take the government out of my hands.” And for some days after, he never promised a favour to any person, without this proviso, “if Pontius Aquila will allow of it.”
To this extraordinary affront upon the senate, he added an action yet more outrageous. For when, after the sacrifice of the Latin festival, he was returning home, amidst the incessant and unusual acclamations of the people, one of the crowd put upon a statue of him a laurel crown, with a white ribbon tied round it, and the tribunes of the commons, Epidius Marullus and Cæsetius Flavus, ordered the ribbon to be taken away and the man to be carried to prison; being much concerned either that the mention of his advancement to regal power had been so unluckily made, or, as he pretended, that the glory of refusing it had been thus taken from him, he reprimanded the tribunes very severely, and dismissed them both from their office. From that day forward, he was never able to wipe off the scandal of affecting the name of king; though he replied to the people, when they saluted him by that title, “My name is Cæsar, not King.” And at the feast of the Lupercalia, when the consul Antony in the rostra put a crown upon his head several times, he as often put it away, and sent it into the Capitol to Jupiter. A report was extremely current that he had a design of removing to Alexandria or Ilium, whither he proposed to transfer the strength of the empire, and to leave the city to be administered by his friends. To this report it was added that L. Cotta, one of the fifteen commissioners entrusted with the care of the Sibyl’s books, would make a motion in the house that, as there was in those books a prophecy that the Parthians should never be subdued but by a king, Cæsar should have that title.[130] This was why the conspirators precipitated the execution of their design.[c]
APPIAN COMPARES CÆSAR WITH ALEXANDER
“Happy in all things, magnificent; and with just reason comparable to Alexander; for they were both beyond measure ambitious, warlike, ready in the execution of what they had resolved and hardy in dangers; they spared not their bodies; and in war relied not so much upon their conduct, as upon their bravery and good fortune. The one went a long journey in a country without water to go to Ammon, happily crossed over the bottom of the Pamphylian Gulf, the sea being retired as if his genius had locked up the waters; as another time marching in the champian, it caused it to cease from raining. He navigated an unknown sea; being in the Indies, he first scaled the walls of a city, and leaped down alone into the midst of his enemies, receiving thirteen wounds; was always victorious; and whatever war he was engaged in, he ended it in one or two battles.
“In Europe he subdued many barbarous people, and reduced them under his obedience, together with the Grecians, a fierce people, and lovers of liberty, who never before obeyed any person but Philip; who commanded them for some time under the honourable title of general of the Greeks. He carried his arms almost through all Asia with an incredible celerity. And to comprise in a word the happiness and power of Alexander, all the countries he saw he conquered; and as he was designing to conquer the rest, he died.
“As for Cæsar, passing the Ionian Sea in the midst of winter, he found it calm, as well as the British Ocean, which he passed without any knowledge of it in a time when his pilots, driven by storm against the English rocks, lost their ships; another time embarking alone by night in a little boat, and rowing against the waves, he commanded the pilot to hoist sail and rather to consider the fortune of Cæsar than the sea. He threw himself more than once all alone into the midst of his enemies, when his men were all struck with panic fear; and is the only general of the Romans that ever fought thirty times in pitched battle against the Gauls, and subdued in Gaul forty nations, before so dreadful to the Romans, that in the law dispensing with priests and old men from going to war, the wars against the Gauls are excepted, and the priests and all men obliged to bear arms. Before Alexandria, seeing himself alone enclosed upon a bridge, he laid down his purple, threw himself into the sea, and pursued by his enemies, swam a long time under water, only by intervals lifting up his head to take breath; till coming near his ships, he held up his hands, was known, and so saved.
“For the civil wars, which he neither undertook out of fear (as he himself says), or out of ambition, he had to deal with the greatest generals of the age, fighting at the head of many great armies; not barbarian, but Romans, encouraged by their former actions, and by their good fortune, yet he defeated them all; and not one of them but he ruined in a fight or two. But we cannot say of him as of Alexander, that he was never overcome; for he suffered once a great loss against the Gauls, under the conduct of Titurius and Cotta, his lieutenants. In Spain his army was so near blocked up by Petreius and Afranius, that he wanted but little of being besieged. At Dyrrhachium and in Africa they turned their backs; and in Spain, against the young Pompeius they fled. But for Cæsar himself, he was always undaunted; and whatever war he engaged in, came off in the end victorious; and the Roman Empire, which now extends itself by sea and land, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, was brought under his power, partly by his valour, and partly by his clemency. He settled himself much better than Sulla, and governed himself with more moderation; for being king in effect, in spite of all the world, he took not that name.
“At last, making his preparations for other wars, he was surprised by death as well as Alexander. Their armies were also alike; for the soldiers of both were cheerful in fight and hardy, but stubborn and mutinous when over-wrought with labour. The deaths of both of them were equally mourned and lamented by their armies, who attributed to them divine honours. They were both well made in body and of noble aspect; both descended from Jupiter; one by Eacus and Hercules, and the other by Anchises and Venus. Though they were inflexible when resisted, they were easier to pardon and be reconciled, and likewise to do good to such as they had vanquished; contented themselves with the victory.
“Hitherto the comparison is just, save only that their beginnings were not equal; for Alexander began with the quality of a king, in which he had been before instructed by his father Philip; but Cæsar was only a private man; and though he were of an illustrious race, yet his fortunes were much encumbered. They both despised the presages that threatened them, without injuring those divines who foretold their death; and almost the same signs happened to them, and a like event; for in the sacrifices made by one and the other twice, they found not the chief of the entrails of the victims; the first time they were only threatened with great danger. Alexander’s happened when besieging the Oxydracæ, being mounted first upon the wall, and the too great weight breaking the ladders behind him, he beheld himself deserted by his men, and threw himself into the midst of his enemies, where having received many wounds on his breast and a great blow on the neck, he was ready to die, when the Macedonians, touched with shame, broke open the gates and relieved him.