Character of Cæsar

The new monarch of Rome, the first ruler of the whole domain of Romano-Hellenic civilisation, Gaius Julius Cæsar, was in his fifty-sixth year (born 12 July 652?) when the battle of Thapsus, the last link in a long chain of momentous victories, placed the decision of the future of the world in his hands. Pew men have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Cæsar—the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the track that he marked out for it until its sun had set. Sprung from one of the oldest noble families of Latium—which traced back its lineage to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations—he spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as into the far more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even these dissipated and nighty courses; Cæsar retained both his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and heart unimpaired.

With the passing of the Gabinian law the parties in the capital changed positions. From the time that the elected general of the democracy held in his hand the sword, his party, or what was reckoned such, had the preponderance in the capital. The nobility doubtless still stood in compact array, and still as before there issued from the comitial machinery none but consuls who according to the expression of the democrats were already designated to the consulate in their cradles; to command the elections and break down the influence of the old families over them was beyond the power even of the regents. But unfortunately the consulate, at the very moment when they had got the length of virtually excluding the “new men” from it, began itself to grow pale before the newly-risen star of the exceptional military power. The aristocracy felt this, though they did not exactly confess it; they gave themselves up as lost. Except Quintus Catulus, who with honourable firmness persevered at his far from pleasant post as champion of a vanquished party down to his death (694), no Optimate could be named from the highest ranks of the nobility, who sustained the interests of the aristocracy with courage and steadfastness.

Crassus goes to Syria

Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads of the “three-headed monster,” without any proper title to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak more accurately, he threw his weight into the scale of Caesar against Pompeius. The part of a supernumerary colleague is not a very honourable one; but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open to negotiation. What was offered to him was not much; but, as more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless, amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with, the view of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius after concessions so extensive, Cæsar gave to his old confederate Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war the same position to which Cæsar had attained by the Celtic war in Graul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense with every newly won million, or to the ambition which had been long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast and now glowed in it with restless fire.

State-religion

In the development of religion and philosophy no new element appeared during this epoch. The Romano Hellenic state-religion and the Stoic state-philosophy inseparably combined with it were not merely a convenient instrument for every government—oligarchy, democracy, or monarchy—but altogether indispensable, because it was just as impossible to construct the state wholly without religious elements as to discover any new state-religion adapted to form a substitute for the old. So the besom of revolution swept doubtless at times very roughly through the cobwebs of the augural bird-lore (P. 296); nevertheless the rotten machine creaking at every joint survived the earthquake which swallowed up the republic itself, and preserved its insipidity and its arrogance without diminution for transference to the new monarchy. As a matter of course, it fell more and more into disfavour with all those who manifested freedom of judgment. Towards the state-religion indeed public opinion maintained an attitude essentially indifferent; it was on all sides recognised as an institution of political convenience, and no one specially troubled himself about it with the exception of political and antiquarian literati. But towards its philosophical sister there gradually sprang up among the unprejudiced public that hostility, which the empty and yet perfidious hypocrisy of set phrases never fails in the long run to awaken. That a presentiment of its own worthlessness began to dawn on the Stoa itself, is shown by its attempt artificially to infuse into itself some fresh spirit in the way of syncretism.

In presenting to my readers the fourth volume of this translation—corresponding to the third volume of Professor Mommsen's work, and embracing the period from the death of Sulla to the battle of Thapsus, beyond which Dr. Mommsen has not as yet proceeded—I have to express my regret that so long a delay has taken place in its preparation. Important duties of another kind, to which I was called after completing the third volume, rendered it necessary that I should defer for a time the further prosecution of the work, and occasioned much interruption to its progress after I had resumed it. But I considered it due to those who had so favourably received the earlier volumes of my translation that I should endeavour personally to complete it; and I can only cast myself on their indulgence if I have somewhat unduly taxed their patience.

The delay has enabled me to compare the sheets with the fourth edition of the German, issued in the present year. I have adhered substantially to the same principles of translation as in the earlier volumes, endeavouring to retain as much of the form and manner of the original as seemed compatible with a due regard to English idiom, and even venturing in some cases to have less regard to the latter than to the desirableness of reproducing Dr. Mommsen's meaning without paraphrase.

CROYANCES SUR L'AME ET SUR LA MORT.

Jusqu'aux derniers temps de l'histoire de la Grèce et de Rome, on voit persister chez le vulgaire un ensemble de pensées et d'usages qui dataient assurément d'une époque très-éloignée et par lesquels nous pouvons apprendre quelles opinions l'homme se fit d'abord sur sa propre nature, sur son âme, sur le mystère de la mort.

Si haut qu'on remonte dans l'histoire de la race indoeuropéenne, dontles populations grecques et italiennes sont des branches, on ne voit pas que cette race ait jamais pensé qu'après cette courte vie tout tut fini pour l'homme Les plus anciennes générations, bicn avant qu'il y eût des philosophes, ontcru à une seconde existence après celle-ci. Elles ont envisagé la mort, non comme une dissolution de l'être, mais comme un simple changement de vie.

Mais en quel lieu et de quelle manière se passait cette seconde existence? Croyait-on que l'espritimmortel, une fois échappé dun corps, allait en animer un autre? Non; la croyance à la métempsycose n'a jamais pu s'enraciner dans les esprits des populations gréco-italiennes; et elle n'est pas non plus la plus ancienne opinion des Aryas del'Orieiit, puisque les hymnes des Védas sont en opposition avec elle. Croyait-on que l'esprit montait vers le ciel, vers la région de la lumière? Pas davantage; la pensee que les âmes entraient dans une demeure céleste, est dune époque relativement assez récente en Occident, puisqu'on la voit exprimée pour la première fois par le poëte Phocylide; le séjour céleste ne fut jamais regardequé comme la récompense de quelques grands hommes etdes bienfaiteurs de l'humanite.

On se propose de montrer ici d'après quels principes et par quelles règles la sociélé grecque et la sociélé romaine se sont gouvernées. On réunit dans la même étude les Romains et les Grecs, parce que ces deux peuples, qui étaient deux branches d'une même race, et qui parlaient deux idiomes issus d'une même langue, ont eu aussi les mêmes institutions et les memes principes de gouvernement et ont traversé une série de révolutions semblables.

On s'attachera surtout à faire ressortir les différences radicales et essentielles qui distinguent à tout jamais ces peuples anciens des societes modernes. Notre systeme d'éducation, qui nous fait vivre dès l'enfance au milieu des Grecs et des Romains, nous habitue à les comparer sans cesse à nous, à juger leur histoire d'après la nôtre et à expliquer nos révolutions par les leurs. Ce que nous tenons d'eux et ce qu'ils nous ont legue nous fait croirequ'ils nous ressemblaient; nous avons quelque peine à les considérer comme des peuples étrangers; c est presque toujours nous que nous voyons en eux. De là sont venues beaucoup d'erreurs. On ne manque guere de se tromper sur ces peuples anciens quand on les regarde à travers les opinions et les faits de notre temps.

Or les erreurs en cette matière ne sont pas sans danger- L'idée que l'on s'est faite de la Grèce et de Rome à souvent trouble nos générations. Pour avoir mal observé les institutions de la cité ancienne, on a imaginé de les faire revivre chez nous. On s'est fait illusion sur la liberté chez les anciens, et pour cela seul la liberté chez les modernes a été mise en péril.