two-thirds of the full number. He does not forget to tell us once again
that among these eleven were the two legions which he had given up in
obedience to the demand of the Senate. Pompey himself, with these two
very legions, placed himself on the left away from the river; and
there also were all his auxiliaries,--not counted with the
legionaries,--slingers, archers, and cavalry. Scipio commanded in the
centre with the legions he had brought out of Syria. So Cæsar tells us.
“We learn from other sources that Lentulus commanded Pompey’s right
wing, lying on the river--and Domitius, whom we remember as trying to
hold Marseilles against young Brutus and Trebonius, the left. Cæsar had
80 cohorts, or eight legions, which should have numbered 48,000 men had
his legions been full;--but, as he tells us, he led but 22,000
legionaries, so that his ranks were deficient by more than a half. As
was his custom, he had his tenth legion to the right, away from the
river. The ninth, terribly thinned by what had befallen it within the
lines at Petra, joined to the eleventh, lay next the river, forming part
of Cæsar’s left wing. Antony commanded the left wing, Domitius Calvinus,
whom Cæsar sometimes calls by one name and sometimes by the other, the
centre,--and Sulla the right. Cæsar placed himself to the right, with
his tenth legion, opposite to Pompey. As far as we can learn, there was
but little in the nature of the ground to aid either of them;--and so
the fight began.

There is not much complication, and perhaps no great interest, in the
account of the actual battle as it is given by Cæsar. Cæsar makes a
speech to his army, which was, as we have already learned, and as he
tells us now, the accustomed thing to do. No falser speech was ever made
by man, if he spoke the words which he himself reports. He first of all
reminds them how they themselves are witnesses that he has done his best
to insure peace;--and then he calls to their memory certain mock
treaties as to peace, in which, when seeking delay, he had pretended to
engage himself and his enemy. He had never wasted, he told them, the
blood of his soldiers, nor did he desire to deprive the Republic of
either army--“alterutro exercitu”--of Pompey’s army or of his own. They
were both Roman, and far be it from him to destroy aught belonging to
the Republic. We must acknowledge that Cæsar was always chary of Roman
life and Roman blood. He would spare it when it could be spared; but he
could spill it like water when the spilling of it was necessary to his
end. He was very politic; but as for tenderness,--neither he nor any
Roman knew what it was.

Then there is a story of one Crastinus, who declares that whether dead
or alive he will please Cæsar. He throws the first weapon against the
enemy and does please Cæsar. But he has to please by his death, for he
is killed in his effort.

Pompey orders that his first rank shall not leave its order to advance,
but shall receive the shock of Cæsar’s attack. Cæsar points out to us
that he is wrong in this, because the very excitement of a first attack
gives increased energy and strength to the men. Cæsar’s legionaries are
told to attack, and they rush over the space intervening between the
first ranks to do so. But they are so well trained that they pause and
catch their breath before they throw their weapons. Then they throw
their piles and draw their swords, and the ranks of the two armies are
close pitted against each other.

But Pompey had thought that he could win the battle, almost without
calling on his legionaries for any exertion, by the simple strategic
movement of his numerous cavalry and auxiliaries. He outnumbered Cæsar
altogether, but in these arms he could overwhelm him with a cloud of
horsemen and of archers. But Cæsar also had known of these clouds. He
fought now as always with a triple rank of legionaries,--but behind his
third rank,--or rather somewhat to their right shoulder,--he had drawn
up a choice body of men picked from his third line,--a fourth line as it
were,--whose business it was to stand against Pompey’s clouds when the
attempt should be made by these clouds upon their right flank. Cæsar’s
small body of cavalry did give way before the Pompeian clouds, and the
horsemen and the archers and the slingers swept round upon Cæsar’s
flank. But they swept round upon destruction. Cæsar gave the word to
that fourth line of picked men. “Illi--they,” says Cæsar, “ran forward
with the greatest rapidity, and with their standards in advance attacked
the cavalry of Pompey with such violence that none of them could stand
their ground;--so that all not only were forced from the ground, but
being at once driven in panic, they sought the shelter of the highest
mountains near them. And when they were thus removed, all the archers
and the slingers, desolate and unarmed, without any one to take care of
them, were killed in heaps.” Such is Cæsar’s account of Pompey’s great
attack of cavalry which was to win the battle without giving trouble to
the legions.

Cæsar acknowledges that Pompey’s legionaries drew their swords bravely
and began their share of the fighting well. Then at once he tells us of
the failure on the part of the cavalry and of the slaughter of the poor
auxiliary slingers, and in the very next sentence gives us to understand
that the battle was won. Though Pompey’s legions were so much more
numerous than those of Cæsar, we are told that Cæsar’s third line
attacked the Pompeian legionaries when they were “defessi”--worn out.
The few cohorts of picked men who in such marvellous manner had
dispersed Pompey’s clouds, following on their success, turned the flank
of Pompey’s legions and carried the day. That it was all as Cæsar says
there can be little doubt. That he won the battle there can, we presume,
be no doubt. Pompey at once flew to his camp and endeavoured to defend
it. But such defence was impossible, and Pompey was driven to seek
succour in flight. He found a horse and a few companions, and did not
stop till he was on the sea-shore. Then he got on board a
provision-vessel, and was heard to complain that he had been betrayed by
those very men from whose hands he had expected victory.

We are told with much picturesque effect how Cæsar’s men, hungry,
accustomed to endurance, patient in all their want, found Pompey’s camp
prepared for victory, and decked in luxurious preparation for the
senatorial victors. Couches were strewn, and plate was put out, and
tables prepared, and the tents of these happy ones were adorned with
fresh ivy. The senatorial happy ones have but a bad time of it, either
perishing in their flight, or escaping into the desert solitudes of the
mountains. Cæsar follows up his conquest, and on the day after the
battle compels the great body of the fugitives to surrender at
discretion. He surrounds them on the top of a hill and shuts them out
from water, and they do surrender at discretion. With stretched-out
hands, prone upon the earth, these late conquerors, the cream of the
Roman power, who had so lately sworn to conquer ere they slept, weeping
beg for mercy. Cæsar, having said a few words to them of his clemency,
gave them their lives. He recommends them to the care of his own men,
and desires that they may neither be slaughtered nor robbed.

Cæsar says he lost only 200 soldiers in that battle--and among them 30
officers, all brave men. That gallant Crastinus was among the 30. Of
Pompey’s army 15,000 had been killed, and 24,000 had surrendered! 180
standards and 9 eagles were taken and brought to Cæsar. The numbers seem
to us to be almost incredible, whether we look at those given to us in
regard to the conqueror or the conquered. Cæsar’s account, however, of
that day’s work has hitherto been taken as authoritative, and it is too
late now to question it. After this fashion was the battle of Pharsalia
won, and the so-called Roman Republic brought to an end.

But Cæsar by no means thought that his work was done;--nor indeed was
it nearly done. It was now clearly his first duty to pursue
Pompey,--whom, should he escape, the outside provinces and distant
allies of the Republic would soon supply with another army. “Cæsar
thought that Pompey was to be pursued to the neglecting of all other
things.” In the mean time Pompey, who seems to have been panic-struck by
his misfortune, fled with a few friends down the Ægean Sea, picked his
young wife up at an island as he went, and made his way to Egypt. The
story of his murder by those who had the young King of Egypt in their
keeping is well known and need not detain us. Cæsar tells it very
shortly. Pompey sends to young Ptolemy for succour and assistance,
trusting to past friendship between himself and the young king’s father.
Ptolemy is in the hands of eunuchs, adventurers, and cut-throat
soldiers, and has no voice of his own in the matter. But these ruffians
think it well to have Pompey out of the way, and therefore they murder
him. Achillas, a royal satrap, and Septimius, a Roman soldier, go out to
Pompey’s vessel, as messengers from the king, and induce him to come
down into their boat. Then, in the very sight of his wife, he is
slaughtered, and his head is carried away as proof of the deed. Such was
the end of Pompey, for whom no fortune had seemed to be too great, till
Cæsar came upon the scene. We are told by the Roman poet, Lucan, who
took the battle of Pharsalia as his difficult theme, that Cæsar could
bear no superior, and Pompey no equal. The poet probably wished to make
the latter the more magnanimous by the comparison. To us, as we examine
the character of the two generals, Cæsar seems at least as jealous of
power as his son-in-law, and certainly was the more successful of the
two in extruding all others from a share in the power which he coveted.
Pompey in the triumvirate admitted his junior to more, as he must have
felt it, than equal power: Cæsar in the triumvirate simply made a
stepping-stone of the great man who was his elder. Pompey at Thessaly
was forced to divide at least the name of his power with Scipio, his
last father-in-law: but Cæsar never gave a shred of his mantle to be
worn by another soldier.

In speaking, however, of the character of Pompey, and in comparing it
with that of his greater rival, it may probably be said of him that in
all his contests, both military and political, he was governed by a love
of old Rome, and of the Republic as the greatest national institution
which the world had ever known, and by a feeling which we call
patriotism, and of which Cæsar was,--perhaps, we may say, too great to
be capable. Pompey desired to lead, but to lead the beloved Republic.
Cæsar, caring nothing for the things of old, with no reverence for the
past, utterly destitute of that tenderness for our former footsteps
which makes so many of us cling with passionate fondness to convicted
errors, desired to create out of the dust of the Republic,--which fate
and his genius allowed him to recast as he would,--something which
should be better and truer than the Republic.

The last seven chapters of the third book of this Commentary form a
commencement of the record of the Alexandrine war,--which, beyond those
seven chapters, Cæsar himself did not write. That he should have
written any Commentary amidst the necessary toils of war, and the
perhaps more pressing emergencies of his political condition, is one of
the greatest marvels of human power. He tells us now, that having
delayed but a few days in Asia, he followed Pompey first to Cyprus and
then to Egypt, taking with him as his entire army three thousand two
hundred men. “The rest, worn out with wounds, and battles, and toil, and
the greatness of the journey, could not follow him.” But he directed
that legions should be made up for him from the remnants of Pompey’s
broken army, and, with a godlike trust in the obedience of absent
vassals, he went on to Egypt. He tells us that he was kept in Alexandria
by Etesian winds. But we know also that Cleopatra came to him at
Alexandria, requiring his services in her contest for the crown of
Egypt; and knowing at what price she bought them, we doubt the
persistent malignity of the Etesian winds, Had Cleopatra been a swarthy
Nubian, as some have portrayed her, Cæsar, we think, would have left
Alexandria though the Etesian winds had blown in his very teeth. All
winds filled Cæsar’s sails. Cæsar gets possession of Cleopatra’s brother
Ptolemy, who, in accordance with their father’s will, was to have
reigned in conjunction with his sister, and the Alexandrians rise
against him in great force. He slays Photinus, the servant of King
Ptolemy, has his own ambassador slain, and burns the royal fleet of
Egypt,--burning with it, unfortunately, the greater part of the royal
library. “These things were the beginning of the Alexandrine war.” These
are the last words of Cæsar’s last Commentary.

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

Having concluded his ten short chapters descriptive of the ten books of
the Commentaries written by Cæsar himself, the author of this little
Volume has finished his intended task,--and as he is specially anxious
not to be thought to have made an attempt at writing history, he would
not add any concluding words, were it not that three other Commentaries
of Cæsar’s three other wars were added to Cæsar’s Commentaries by other
writers. There is the Commentary on the Alexandrine war,--written
probably by Hirtius, the author of the last book of the Gallic war; and
two Commentaries on the African war and the Spanish war,--written, as
the critics seem to think, by one Oppius, a friend whom Cæsar loved and
trusted. The Alexandrine war was a war of itself, in which Cæsar was
involved by his matchless audacity in following Pompey into Egypt, and
perhaps by the sweetness of Cleopatra’s charms. And this led also to a
war in Asia Minor, the account of which is included with that of his
Egyptian campaign. The African war, and that afterwards carried on in
Spain with the object of crushing out the sparks of Pompeian revolt
against his power, are simply the latter portions of the civil war, and
their records might have been written as chapters added to the
Commentary “De Bello Civili.”

Alexandria, when Cæsar landed there in pursuit of Pompey and had offered
to him as a graceful tribute on his first arrival the head of his
murdered rival, was a city almost as populous and quite as rich as Rome;
and in the city, and throughout the more fertile parts of Egypt, there
was a crowd of Roman soldiers left there to support and to overawe the
throne of the Ptolemies. Cæsar, with hardly more than half a full legion
to support him, enters Alexandria as though obedience were due to him by
all in Egypt as Roman consul. He at once demands an enormous sum of
money, which he claims as due to himself personally for services
rendered to a former Ptolemy; he takes possession of the person of
Ptolemy the young king,--and is taken possession of by Cleopatra, the
young king’s sister, who was joint-heir with her brother to the throne.
In all his career there was perhaps nothing more audacious than his
conduct in Egypt. The Alexandrians, or rather perhaps the Roman army in
Egypt under the leading of the young king’s satraps, rise against Cæsar,
and he is compelled to fortify himself in the town. He contrives,
however, to burn all the Egyptian fleet, and with it unfortunately the
royal library, as we were told by himself at the end of the last
Commentary. He at length allows Ptolemy to go, giving him back to the
Egyptians, and thinking that the young king’s presence may serve to
allay the enmity of the Alexandrians. The young king wept at leaving
Cæsar, and declared that even his own kingdom was not so dear to him as
the companionship of Cæsar. But the crafty false-faced boy turns against
Cæsar as soon as he is free to do so. Cæsar never was in greater danger;
and as one reads one feels one’s self to be deprived of the right to say
that no more insane thing was ever done than Cæsar did when he swaggered
into Alexandria without an army at his back,--only by the remembrance
that Cæsar was Cæsar. First, because he wanted some ready money, and
secondly, because Cleopatra was pretty, Cæsar nearly lost the world in
Egypt.

But there comes to his help a barbarian ally,--a certain Mithridates of
Pergamus, a putative son of the great Mithridates of Pontus. Mithridates
brings an army to Cæsar’s rescue, and does rescue him. A great battle is
fought on the Nile,--a battle which would have been impossible to Cæsar
had not Mithridates come to his aid,--and the Egyptians are utterly
dispersed. Young Ptolemy is drowned; Cleopatra is settled on her throne;
and Egypt becomes subject to Cæsar. Then Cæsar hurries into Asia,
finding it necessary to quell the arrogance of a barbarian who had dared
to defeat a Roman general. The unfortunate conqueror is Pharnaces, the
undoubted son of Mithridates of Pontus. But Cæsar comes, and sees, and
conquers. He engages Pharnaces at Zela, and destroys his army; and then,
we are told, inscribed upon his banners those insolent words--“Veni,
vidi, vici.” He had already been made Dictator of the Roman Empire for
an entire year, and had revelled with Cleopatra at Alexandria, and was
becoming a monarch.

These were the campaigns of the year 47 B.C., and the record of them is
made in the Commentary “De Bello Alexandrino.”

In the mean time things have not been going altogether smoothly for
Cæsar in Italy, although his friends at Rome have made him Dictator. His
soldiers have mutinied against their officers, and against his
authority; and a great company of Pompeians is collected in that
province of Africa in which poor Curio was conquered by Juba,--when Juba
had Roman senators walking in his train, and Cæsar’s army was destroyed.
The province called by the name of Africa lay just opposite to Sicily,
and was blessed with that Roman civilisation which belonged to the
possessions of the Republic which were nearest to Rome, the great centre
of all things. It is now the stronghold of the Republican faction,--as
being the one spot of Roman ground in which Cæsar had failed of success.
Pompey, indeed, is no more, but Pompey’s two sons are here,--and Scipio,
Pompey’s father-in-law, whom Pompey had joined with himself in the
command at Pharsalus. Labienus is here, who, since he turned from Cæsar,
has been more Pompeian than Pompey himself; and Afranius, to whom Cæsar
was so kind in Spain; and Petreius and King Juba,--of whom a joint story
has yet to be told; and Varus, who held the province against Curio;--and
last of all there is that tower of strength, the great Cato, the most
virtuous and impracticable of men, who, in spite of his virtue, is
always in the wrong, and of whom the world at large only remembers that
he was fond of wine, and that he destroyed himself at Utica.

They are all at Utica,--and to them for the present Utica is Rome. They
establish a Senate; and Scipio, who is unworthy of the great name he
bears, and is incompetent as a general, is made commander-in-chief,
because Cato decides that law and routine so require. Scipio had been
consul,--had been joint commander with Pompey,--and his rank is the
highest. The same argument had been used when he was joined in that
command,--that it was fitting that such power should be given to him
because he was of consular rank. The command of the Republican fleet had
been intrusted to Bibulus on the same ground. We never hear of Cæsar so
bestowing promotion. He indeed is now and again led away by another
fault, trusting men simply because he loves them,--by what we may call
favouritism,--as he did when he allowed Curio to lose his army in
Africa, and thus occasioned all this subsequent trouble. As we read of
Scipio’s rank we remember that we have heard of similar cause for
ill-judged promotion in later times. The Pompeians, however, collect an
enormous army. They have ten Roman legions, and are supported, moreover,
by the whole force of King Juba. This army, we are told, is as numerous
as that which Pompey commanded at Pharsalus. There is quarrelling among
them for authority; quarrelling as to strategy; jealousy as to the
barbarian, with acknowledged inability to act without him;--and the
reader feels that it is all in vain. Cæsar comes, having quelled the
mutiny of his own old veterans in Italy by a few words. He has gone
among them fearing nothing; they demand their discharge--he grants it.
They require the rewards which they think to be their due, and he tells
them that they shall have their money,--when he has won it with other
legions. Then he addresses them not as soldiers, but as
“citizens”--“Quirites;” and that they cannot stand; it implies that they
are no longer the invincible soldiers of Cæsar. They rally round him;
the legions are re-formed, and he lands in Africa with a small army
indeed,--at first with little more than three thousand men,--and is
again nearly destroyed in the very first battle. But after a few months
campaigning the old story has to be told again. A great battle is fought
at Thapsus, a year and five months after that of Pharsalia, and the
Republic is routed again and for ever. The commentator tells us that on
this occasion the ferocity of Cæsar’s veterans was so great, that by no
entreaties, by no commands, could they be induced to cease from the
spilling of blood.

But of the destruction of the leaders separate stories are told us. Of
Cato is the first story, and that best known to history. He finds
himself obliged to surrender the town of Utica to Cæsar; and then, “he
himself having carefully settled his own affairs, and having commended
his children to Lucius Cæsar, who was then acting with him as his
quæstor, with his usual gait and countenance, so as to cause no
suspicion, he took his sword with him into his bedroom when it was his
time to retire to rest,--and so killed himself.” Scipio also killed
himself. Afranius was killed by Cæsar’s soldiers. Labienus, and the two
sons of Pompey, and Varus, escaped into Spain. Then comes the story of
King Juba and Petreius. Juba had collected his wives and children, and
all his wealth of gold and jewels and rich apparel, into a town of his
called Zama; and there he had built a vast funeral-pile, on which, in
the event of his being conquered by Cæsar, he intended to
perish,--meaning that his wives and children and dependants and rich
treasures should all be burned with him. So, when he was defeated, he
returned to Zama; but his wives and children and dependants, being less
magnificently minded than their king, and knowing his royal purpose, and
being unwilling to become ornaments to his euthanasia, would not let him
enter the place. Then he went to his old Roman friend Petreius, and they
two sat down together to supper. Petreius was he who would not allow
Afranius to surrender to Cæsar at Lerida. When they have supped, Juba
proposes that they shall fight each other, so that one at least may die
gloriously. They do fight, and Petreius is quickly killed. “Juba being
the stronger, easily destroyed the weaker Petreius with his sword.” Then
the barbarian tried to kill himself; but, failing, got a slave to finish
the work. The battle of Thapsus was fought, B.C. 47. Numidia is made a
province by Cæsar, and so Africa is won. We may say that the Roman
Republic died with Cato at Utica.

The Spanish war, which afforded matter for the last Commentary, is a
mere stamping out of the embers. Cæsar, after the affair in Africa, goes
to Rome; and the historian begins his chronicle by telling us that he is
detained there “muneribus dandis,”--by the distribution of
rewards,--keeping his promise, no doubt, to those veterans whom he won
back to their military obedience by calling them “Quirites,” or Roman
citizens.[13] The sons of Pompey, Cnæus and Sextus, have collected
together a great number of men to support their worn-out cause, and we
are told that in the battle of Munda more than 30,000 men perished. But
that was the end of it. Labienus and Varus are killed; and the historian
tells us that a funeral was made for them. One Scapula, of whom it is
said that he was the promoter of all this Spanish rebellion, eats his
supper, has himself anointed, and is killed on his funeral-pile. Cnæus,
the elder son of Pompey, escapes wounded, but at last is caught in a
cave, and is killed. Sextus, the younger, escapes, and becomes a leading
rebel for some years longer, till at last he also is killed by one of
Antony’s officers.

This Commentary is ended, or rather is brought to an untimely close, in
the middle of a speech which Cæsar makes to the inhabitants of
Hipsala,--Seville,--in which he tells them in strong language how well
he behaves to them, and how very badly they have behaved to him. But we
reach an abrupt termination in the middle of a sentence.

After the battle of Munda Cæsar returned to Rome, and enjoyed one year
of magnificent splendour and regal power in Rome. He is made Consul for
ten years, and Dictator for life. He is still high priest, and at last
is called King. He makes many laws, and perhaps adds the crowning jewel
to his imperishable diadem of glory by reforming the calendar, and
establishing a proper rotation of months and days, so as to comprise a
properly-divided year. But as there is no Commentary of this year of
Cæsar’s life, our readers will not expect that we should treat of it
here. How he was struck to death by Brutus, Cassius, and the other
conspirators, and fell at the foot of Pompey’s statue, gathering his
garments around him gracefully, with a policy that was glorious and
persistent to the last, is known to all men and women.

              “Then burst his mighty heart;
    And in his mantle muffling up his face,
    Even at the base of Pompey’s statua,
    Which all the while ran blood, Great Cæsar fell.”

That he had done his work, and that he died in time to save his name and
fame from the evil deeds of which unlimited power in the State would too
probably have caused the tyrant to be guilty, was perhaps not the least
fortunate circumstance in a career which for good fortune has been
unequalled in history.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

ANCIENT CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS.

EDITED BY

THE REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A.

The volumes published contain--

1. THE ILIAD.
2. THE ODYSSEY.
3. HERODOTUS.

A Volume will be published on the 1st of each alternate month, price 2s.
6d.

_The aim of the present series will be to explain, sufficiently for
general readers, who these great writers were, and what they wrote; to
give, wherever possible, some connected outline of the story which they
tell, or the facts which they record, checked by the results of modern
investigations; to present some of their most striking passages in
approved English translations, and to illustrate them generally from
modern writers; to serve, in short, as a popular retrospect of the chief
literature of Greece and Rome._

_EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES._

Saturday Review.

If the other volumes are as well executed as this, the monthly issue
will soon furnish excellent guidance to the whole field of classical
literature, and when the way is thus rendered clear, good translations
will be read with far more pleasure and discrimination. We anticipate
that the judicious and novel design of such a series will meet, as it
deserves, with widespread and lasting favour; and that, with its
success, juster ideas will more generally prevail of the characteristics
of the great writers of old.

Civil Service Gazette.

No more happy idea has been conceived of late than that of which this is
the first instalment.... If the other volumes to follow equal the
‘Iliad,’ the series will be a most charming and instructive one, and the
‘Ancient Classics for English Readers’ will be a most invaluable aid to
modern Education.

Spectator.

Mr Collins deserves, or probably shares with his publishers, the highest
praise for a discovery which is not the less meritorious because it now
seems obvious. Labour without end has been spent with but little success
on the attempt to bring the great Greek and Latin classics within the
reach of unlearned readers. In truth, the method commonly pursued, the
method of translation, is cumbrous and ineffective. Translation
exercises an extraordinary fascination on those who practise it, and it
is not without a literary value, but it is least appreciated by those
for whom it is primarily intended. Pope’s brilliant paraphrases really
please, and Lord Derby is read because he was a great English noble; but
how few readers appreciate the exquisite skill with which Mr Worsley
performed the task of translating the ‘Odyssey’! The advantage of the
present series is, that the writers are not fettered by the fidelity
which often hampers a translator; that they can omit, or shorten, or
give in full as they please; that they can avail themselves of the
finest work of translation when any scene has to be presented in detail;
that they can introduce appropriate illustrations into the body of the
work and not relegate them to the obscurity of notes, and that they can
do all this within the compass of such a volume as can easily be read
through at a sitting. As to the two books before us, the ‘Iliad’ and the
‘Odyssey,’ they remind us of Lamb’s ‘Tales from Shakespeare.’ Other
matter, indeed, they contain; but this is the most attractive part of
them, and it is no slight praise to say that they need not shrink from
the comparison. We may say, indeed, though we have one or two faults to
find with details of execution, that they are admirably well done. The
main points of incident and character are skilfully seized; the
criticisms, both ethical and artistic, are sound and judicious; the
style is simple and spirited. Even readers of but little application
will find them easy to get through, and no one can read them without
really learning something about Homer.

Vanity Fair.

To such persons, who often in after-years feel keenly the neglect or
want of opportunities for becoming acquainted with the world-renowned
old Greek and Latin authors, and who, from press of occupation, are
unable to recover their lost ground, these volumes will present
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FOOTNOTES:

 [1] There is an eighth book, referring to an eighth and ninth
 campaign, but it is not the work of Cæsar.

 [2]

    Cœlo tonantem credidimus Jovem
    Regnare; præsens Divus habebitur Augustus.

 [3] The words are taken from Dean Merivale’s history.

 [4] She was that wife who was false with Clodius, and whom Cæsar
 divorced, declaring that Cæsar’s wife must not even be suspected. He
 would not keep the false wife; neither would he at that moment take
 part in the accusation against Clodius, who was of his party, and
 against whom such accusation backed by Cæsar would have been fatal.
 The intrusion of the demagogue into Cæsar’s house in the pursuit of
 Cæsar’s wife during the mysteries of the Bona Dea became the subject
 of a trial in Rome. The offence was terrible and was notorious.
 Clodius, who was hated and feared by the patricians, was a favourite
 with the popular party. The offender was at last brought to trial, and
 was acquitted by venal judges. A word spoken by the injured husband
 would have insured his condemnation, but that word Cæsar would not
 speak. His wife he could divorce, but he would not jeopardise his
 power with his own party by demanding the punishment of him who had
 debauched her.

 [5] Nipperdeius.

 [6] These people were the descendants of those Cimbri who, half a
 century before, had caused such woe to Rome! The Cimbri, we are
 told, had gone forth from their lands, and had been six times
 victorious over Roman armies, taking possession of “our Province,” and
 threatening Italy and Rome. The whole empire of the Republic had been
 in danger, but was at last saved by the courage, skill, and rapidity
 of Marius. In going forth from their country they had left a remnant
 behind with such of their possessions as they could not carry with
 them; and these Aduatici were the children and grandchildren of that
 remnant. Cæsar doubtless remembered it all.

 [7] And Cæsar was no doubt indignant as well as earnest, though,
 perhaps, irrational in his indignation. We know how sacred was held to
 be the person of the Roman citizen, and remember Cicero’s patriotic
 declaration, “Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum,--scelus verberari;”
 and again, the words which Horace puts into the mouth of Regulus when
 he asserts that the Roman soldier must be lost for ever in his shame,
 and useless, “Qui lora restrictis lacertis Sensit iners timuitque
 mortem.”

 [8] Cæsar speaks of the confluence of the Rhine and the “Mosa” as the
 spot at which he drove the Germans into the river,--and in various
 passages, speaking of the Mosa, clearly means the Meuse. It appears,
 however, to be the opinion of English scholars who have studied the
 topography of Cæsar’s campaigns with much labour, that the confluence
 of the Moselle and Rhine, from which Coblentz derives its name, is the
 spot intended. Napoleon, who has hardly made himself an authority on
 the affairs of Cæsar generally, but who is thought to be an authority
 in regard to topography, holds to the opinion that the site in Holland
 is intended to be described. Readers who are anxious on the subject
 can choose between the two; but readers who are not anxious will
 probably be more numerous.

 [9] “Hostium numerus capitum CDXXX millium fuisset,” from which words
 we are led to suppose that there were 180,000 fighting men, besides
 the women and children.

 [10] All well-instructed modern Britons have learned from the old
 authorities that the Briton war-chariots were furnished with scythes
 attached to the axles,--from Pomponius Mela, the Roman geographer,
 and from Mrs Markham, among others. And Eugene Sue, in his novel
 translated into English under the name of the ‘Rival Races,’ explains
 how the Bretons on the other side of the water, in the Morbihan, used
 these scythes; and how, before a battle with Cæsar’s legions, the
 wives of the warriors arranged the straps so that the scythes might be
 worked from the chariot like oars from a boat. But Cæsar says nothing
 of such scythes, and surely he would have done so had he seen them.
 The reader must choose between Cæsar’s silence and the authority of
 Pomponius Mela, Mrs Markham, and Eugene Sue.

 [11] The Tribunes of the people were officers elected annually to act
 on behalf of the people as checks on the magistracy of the Republic,
 and were endowed with vast powers, which they were presumed to use
 for the protection of liberty. But the office of Tribune had become
 degraded to party purposes, as had every other office of the state.

 [12] Dean Merivale in his account of this affair reduces the number
 of holes in Scæva’s shield to one hundred and twenty,--on the joint
 authority, no doubt, of Florus and Valerius Maximus; but Florus lived
 200 and Val. Max. 300 years after Cæsar. Suetonius allows the full
 number of holes, but implies that 120 were received while the warrior
 was fighting in one place, and 110 while fighting in another. Lucan
 sings the story of Scæva at great length, but does not give the number
 of wounds in the shield. He seems to say that Scæva was killed on this
 occasion, but is not quite clear on the point. That Scæva had one eye
 knocked out is certain. Lucan does indeed tell us, in the very last
 lines of his poem, that in Egypt Cæsar once again saw his beloved
 centurion;--but at the moment described even Cæsar was dismayed, and
 the commentators doubt whether it was not Scæva’s ghost that Cæsar
 then saw. Valerius Maximus is sure that Scæva was killed when he got
 the wounds;--but, if so, how could he have been rewarded and promoted?
 The matter has been very much disputed; but here it has been thought
 best to adhere to Cæsar.

 [13] Not in the Commentary, but elsewhere, we learn that he now
 triumphed four times, for four different victories, taking care to
 claim none for any victory won over Roman soldiers. On four different
 days he was carried through the city with his legions and his spoils
 and his captives. His first triumph was for the Gallic wars; and on
 that day Vercingetorix, the gallant Gaul whom we remember, and who
 had now been six years in prison, was strangled to do Cæsar honour.
 I think we hate Cæsar the more for his cruelty to those who were not
 Romans, because policy induced him to spare his countrymen.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Commentaries of Caesar, by Anthony Trollope