The Historians' History of the World 05

On the 13th of September, 45, the dictator appeared once more at the gates of Rome, but he did not triumph till the commencement of October. His victory was represented as gained over the Iberians; the miserable outcasts whom Cneius had banded together were all confounded together under the common title of strangers and enemies. Two of the dictator’s lieutenants, Fabius, and Pedius who was also his kinsman, were allowed the honour of separate triumphs. These ceremonies were followed as usual with games and festivals, which kept the populace in a fever of delight and admiration. They had complained that among the numerous spectacles offered to their view each citizen could witness only a portion, while to the foreigners who flocked to this great feast of nations, the dramatic entertainments had been unintelligible. The games were now multiplied in various quarters of the city, while plays were represented in different languages for the benefit of every people. The subjects of the empire had entered Rome as conquerors in Cæsar’s train, and thus he inaugurated the union of the capital with the provinces. Kings and commonwealths sent their ambassadors to this mighty congress of nations. Among them were the Moors and the Numidians, the Gauls and the Iberians, the Britons and the Armenians, the Germans and the Syrians. The Jews, insulted by Pompey and rifled by Crassus, offered their willing homage to the champion who alone of all the Romans had spoken to them in the language of kindliness and respect. Cleopatra the queen of Egypt came, her crown in her hand, offering her treasures and her favours to her admirer and preserver. All in turn had trembled at the official caprices of the Roman knights, and Cæsar could afford them perhaps no sweeter revenge, nor represent to them more vividly the extent of his power, than in degrading before their faces these petty tyrants of the provinces. He compelled one of them, named Laberius, who was also a dramatic composer, to enact one of his own comic pieces, that is, to dance and sing upon the stage before the concourse of citizens and strangers. “Alas!” said the wretched man in his prologue, “after sixty years of honour I have left my house a knight, to return to it a mime. I have lived one day too long.” Cæsar restored to him the golden ring of knighthood, forfeited by this base but compulsory compliance. He presented him also with a large sum of money, to show perhaps more completely the prostration of his order.

Such trifling persecutions, whether personal or political in their objects, are undoubtedly pitiable enough. But it is Cæsar’s glory that his arm fell heavily upon none of his fellow-citizens. The nephew of Marius forgot the banishment of his uncle, the ruins of Carthage, and the marshes of Minturnæ; the avenger of the Sullan revolution scorned to retaliate the proscriptions; the advocate of Cethegus and Lentulus refrained from demanding blood for blood. It is worth remarking that Cicero, the most humane perhaps of his own party, the most moderate in sentiments, the fairest estimater of men and measures, could hardly persuade himself of the possibility of Cæsar abstaining from massacre. Such was the wise man’s reading of the history of his countrymen; and when at last he found that the conqueror meditated no such use of his victory, his heart, we fear, still remained untouched, and he never, perhaps, renounced the secret hope that Cæsar’s opponents would prove less merciful than himself.