The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0095/00957.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 32KB | 472 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00957}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Plutarch's Lives
Part IV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Plutarch}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{caesar
brutus
upon
senate
himself
time
day
first
gave
way}
$Date{c75}
$Log{}
Title:       Plutarch's Lives
Book:        Caesar
Author:      Plutarch
Date:        c75
Translation: Dryden, Arthur Hugh Clough

Part IV

     Caesar, upon his return to Rome, did not omit to pronounce before the
people a magnificent account of his victory, telling them that he had subdued
a country which would supply the public every year with two hundred thousand
attic bushels of corn, and three million pounds weight of oil. He then led
three triumphs for Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, the last for the victory over,
not Scipio, but king Juba, as it was professed, whose little son was then
carried in the triumph, the happiest captive that ever was, who of a barbarian
Numidian, came by this means to obtain a place among the most learned
historians of Greece. After the triumphs, he distributed rewards to his
soldiers, and treated the people with feasting and shows. He entertained the
whole people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining couches
were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and of battles by sea, in
honor, as he said, of his daughter Julia, though she had been long since dead.
When these shows were over, an account was taken of the people, who, from
three hundred and twenty thousand, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty
thousand. So great a waste had the civil war made in Rome alone, not to
mention what the other parts of Italy and the provinces suffered.

     He was now chosen a fourth time consul, and went into Spain against
Pompey's sons. They were but young, yet had gathered together a very numerous
army, and showed they had courage and conduct to command it, so that Caesar
was in extreme danger. The great battle was near the town of Munda, in which
Caesar seeing his men hard pressed, and making but a weak resistance, ran
through the ranks among the soldiers, and crying out, asked them whether they
were not ashamed to deliver him into the hands of boys? At last, with great
difficulty, and the best efforts he could make, he forced back the enemy,
killing thirty thousand of them, though with the loss of one thousand of his
best men. When he came back from the fight, he told his friends that he had
often fought for victory, but this was the first time that he had ever fought
for life. This battle was won on the feast of Bacchus, the very day in which
Pompey, four years before, had set out for the war. The younger of Pompey's,
sons escaped; but Didius, some days after the fight, brought the head of the
elder to Caesar. This was the last war he was engaged in. The triumph which he
celebrated for this victory, displeased the Romans beyond any thing. For he
had not defeated foreign generals, or barbarian kings, but had destroyed the
children and family of one of the greatest men of Rome, though unfortunate;
and it did not look well to lead a procession in celebration of the calamities
of his country, and to rejoice in those things for which no other apology
could be made either to gods or men, than their being absolutely necessary.
Besides that, hitherto he had never sent letters or messengers to announce any
victory over his fellow-citizens, but had seemed rather to be ashamed of the
action, than to expect honor from it.

     Nevertheless his countrymen, conceding all to his fortune, and accepting
the bit, in the hope that the government of a single person would give them
time to breathe after so many civil wars and calamities, made him dictator for
life. This was indeed a tyranny avowed, since his power now was not only
absolute, but perpetual too. Cicero made the first proposals to the senate for
conferring honors upon him, which might in some sort be said not to exceed the
limits of ordinary human moderation. But others, striving which should deserve
most, carried them so excessively high, that they made Caesar odious to the
most indifferent and moderate sort of men, by the pretension and the
extravagance of the titles which they decreed him. His enemies, too, are
thought to have had some share in this, as well as his flatterers. It gave
them advantage against him, and would be their justification for any attempt
they should make upon him; for since the civil wars were ended, he had nothing
else that he could be charged with. And they had good reason to decree a
temple to Clemency, in token of their thanks for the mild use he made of his
victory. For he not only pardoned many of those who fought against him, but,
further, to some gave honors and offices; as particularly to Brutus and
Cassius, who both of them were praetors. Pompey's images that were thrown
down, he set up again, upon which Cicero also said that by raising Pompey's
statues he had fixed his own. When his friends advised him to have a guard,
and several offered their service, he would not hear of it; but said it was
better to suffer death once, than always to live in fear of it. He looked upon
the affections of the people to be the best and surest guard, and entertained
them again with public feasting, and general distributions of corn; and to
gratify his army, he sent out colonies to several places, of which the most
remarkable were Carthage and Corinth; which as before they had been ruined at
the same time, so now were restored and repeopled together.

     As for the men of high rank, he promised to some of them future
consulships and praetorships, some he consoled with other offices and honors,
and to all held out hopes of favor by the solicitude he showed to rule with
the general goodwill; insomuch that upon the death of Maximus one day before
his consulship was ended, he made Caninius Revilius consul for that day. And
when many went to pay the usual compliments and attentions to the new consul,
"Let us make haste," said Cicero, "lest the man be gone out of his office
before we come."

     Caesar was born to do great things, and had a passion after honor, and
the many noble exploits he had done did not now serve as an inducement to him
to sit still and reap the fruit of his past labors, but were incentives and
encouragements to go on, and raised in him ideas of still greater actions, and
a desire of new glory, as if the present were all spent. It was in fact a sort
of emulous struggle with himself, as it had been with another, how he might
outdo his past actions by his future. In pursuit of these thoughts, he
resolved to make war upon the Parthians, and when he had subdued them, to pass
through Hyrcania; thence to march along by the Caspian Sea to Mount Caucasus,
and so on about Pontus, till he came into Scythia; then to overrun all the
countries bordering upon Germany, and Germany itself; and so to return through
Gaul into Italy, after completing the whole circle of his intended empire, and
bounding it on every side by the ocean. While preparations were making for
this expedition, he proposed to dig through the isthmus on which Corinth
stands; and appointed Anienus to superintend the work. He had also a design of
diverting the Tiber, and carrying it by a deep channel directly from Rome to
Circeii, and so into the sea near Tarracina, that there might be a safe and
easy passage for all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he intended
to drain all the marshes by Pomentium and Setia, and gain ground enough from
the water to employ many thousands of men in tillage. He proposed further to
make great mounds on the shore nearest Rome, to hinder the sea from breaking
in upon the land, to clear the coast at Ostia of all the hidden rocks and
shoals that made it unsafe for shipping, and to form ports and harbors fit to
receive the large number of vessels that would frequently them.

     These things were designed without being carried into effect; but his
reformation of the calendar, in order to rectify the irregularity of time, was
not only projected with great scientific ingenuity, but was brought to it