The Historians' History of the World 05

He has left behind him likewise two books of analogy, with the same number under the title of Anti-Cato, and a poem entitled

The Journey. Of these books he composed the first two in his passage over the Alps, as he was returning to his army from holding the assizes in Hither Gaul; the second work about the time of the battle of Munda; and the last during the four-and-twenty days he was upon his expedition from Rome to Further Spain. There are extant some letters of his to the senate, written in a manner never practised by any before him, for they are divided into pages in the form of a pocket-book; whereas the consuls and generals, till then, used constantly in their letters to continue the line quite across the sheet, without any folding or distinction of pages. There are extant likewise some letters from him to Cicero, and others to his friends concerning his domestic affairs; in which, if there was occasion for secrecy, he used the alphabet in such a manner that not a single word could be made out. The way to decipher those epistles was to substitute “d” for “a” and so of the other letters respectively. Some things likewise pass under his name, said to have been written by him when a boy or a very young man; as the Encomium of Hercules

, a tragedy entitled Œdipus, and a collection of apophthegms; all which Augustus forbid to be published, in a short and plain letter to Pompeius Macer, whom he had appointed to direct the arrangement of his libraries.

He was a perfect master of his weapons, a complete horseman, and able to endure fatigue beyond all belief. Upon a march, he used to go at the head of his troops, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, with his head bare in all kinds of weather. He would travel in a post-chaise at the rate of a hundred miles a day, and pass rivers in his way by swimming, or supported with leathern bags filled with wind, so that he often prevented all intelligence of his approach.

In his expeditions, it is difficult to say whether his caution or boldness was most conspicuous. He never marched his army by a route which was liable to any ambush of the enemy, without having previously examined the situation of the places by his scouts. Nor did he pass over into Britain, before he had made due inquiry respecting the navigation, the harbours, and the most convenient access to the island. But when advice was brought to him of the siege of a camp of his in Germany, he made his way to his men, through the enemy’s guards, in a Gallic habit. He crossed the sea from Brundusium and Dyrrhachium, in the winter, through the midst of the enemy’s fleets; and the troops which he had ordered to follow him not making that haste which he expected, after he had several times sent messengers to expedite them, in vain, he at last went privately, and alone, aboard a small vessel in the night-time, with his head muffled up; nor did he discover who he was, or suffer the master to desist from prosecuting the voyage, though the wind blew strong against them, until they were ready to sink.

He was never discouraged from any enterprise, nor retarded in the prosecution of it, by any ill omens. When a victim which he was about to offer in sacrifice had made its escape, he did not therefore defer his expedition against Scipio and Juba. And happening to fall, upon stepping out of the ship, he gave a lucky turn to the omen, by exclaiming, “I hold thee fast, Africa.” In ridicule of the prophecies which were spread abroad, as if the name of the Scipios was, by the decrees of fate, fortunate and invincible in that province, he retained in the camp a profligate wretch, of the family of the Cornelii, who, on account of his scandalous life, was surnamed Salutio.

He engaged in battle not only upon previous deliberation, but upon the sudden when an occasion presented itself; often immediately after a march, and sometimes during the most dismal weather, when nobody could imagine he would stir. Nor was he ever backward in fighting, until towards the end of his life. He then was of opinion that the oftener he had come off with success, the less he ought to expose himself to new hazards; and that he could never acquire so much by any victory as he might lose by a miscarriage. He never defeated an enemy whom he did not at the same time drive out of their camp; so warmly did he pursue his advantage that he gave them no time to rally their force. When the issue of a battle was doubtful, he sent away all the officers’ horses, and in the first place his own, that being deprived of that convenience for flight they might be under the greater necessity of standing their ground.