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LXI. He rode a remarkable horse, too, with feet that were almost human; for its
hoofs were cloven in such a way as to look like toes. This horse was foaled on his own
place, and since the soothsayers had declared that it foretold the rule of the world for
its master, he reared it with the greatest care, and was the first to mount it, for it
would endure no other rider. Afterwards, too, he dedicated a statue of it before the
temple of Venus Genetrix.
LXII. When his army gave way, he often rallied it single-handed, planting himself in
the way of the fleeing men, laying hold of them one by one, and even catching them by the
throat and forcing them to face the enemy; that, too, when they were in such a panic that
an eagle-bearer made a pass at him with the point [the standard of the legion was a silver
eagle with outstretched wings, mounted on a pole which had a sharp point at the other end,
so that it could be set firmly in the ground] as he tried to stop him, while another left
the standard in Caesar's hand when he would hold him back.
LXIII. His presence of mind was no less renowned, and the instances of it will appear
even more striking. After the battle of Pharsalus, when he had sent on his troops and was
crossing the strait of the Hellespont in a small passenger boat, he met Lucius Cassius, of
the hostile party, with ten armored ships, and made no attempt to escape, but went to meet
Cassius and actually urged him to surrender; and Cassius sued for mercy and was taken on
board.
LXIV. At Alexandria, while assaulting a bridge, he was forced by a sudden sally of the
enemy to take to a small skiff; when many others threw themselves into the same boat, he
plunged into the sea, and after swimming for two hundred paces, got away to the nearest
ship, holding up his left hand all the way, so as not to wet some papers which he was
carrying, and dragging his cloak after him with his teeth, to keep the enemy from getting
it as a trophy.
LXV. He valued his soldiers neither for their personal character nor their fortune, but
solely for their prowess, and he treated them with equal strictness and indulgence; for he
did not curb them everywhere and at all times, but only in the presence of the enemy. Then
he required the strictest discipline, not announcing the time of a march or a battle, but
keeping them ready and alert to be led on a sudden at any moment wheresoever he might
wish. He often called them out even when there was no occasion for it, especially on rainy
days and holidays. And warning them every now and then that they must keep close watch on
him, he would steal away suddenly by day or night and make a longer march than usual, to
tire out those who were tardy in following.
LXVI. When they were in a panic through reports about the enemy's numbers, he used to
rouse their courage not by denying or discounting the rumours, but by falsely exaggerating
the true danger. For instance, when the anticipation of Juba's coming filled them with
terror, he called the soldiers together and said: "Let me tell you that within the
next few days the king will be here with ten legions, thirty thousand horsemen, a hundred
thousand light-armed troops, and three hundred elephants. Therefore some of you may as
well cease to ask further questions or make surmises and may rather believe me, since I
know all about it. Otherwise, I shall surely have them shipped on some worn out craft and
carried off to whatever lands the wind may blow them."
LXVII. He did not take notice of all their offences or punish them by rule, but he kept
a sharp look out for deserters and mutineers, and chastised them most severely, shutting
his eyes to other faults. Sometimes, too, after a great victory he relieved them of all
duties and gave them full licence to revel, being in the habit of boasting that his
soldiers could fight well even when reeking of perfumes. In the assembly he addressed them
not as "soldiers," but by the more flattering term "comrades," and he
kept them in fine trim, furnishing them with arms inlaid with silver and gold, both for
show and to make them hold the faster to them in battle, through fear of the greatness of
the loss. Such was his love for them that when he heard of the disaster to Titurius, he
let his hair and beard grow long, and would not cut them until he had taken vengeance.
LXVIII. In this way he made them most devoted to his interests as well as most valiant.
When he began the civil war, every centurion of each legion proposed to supply a horseman
from his own savings, and the soldiers one and all offered their service without pay and
without rations, the richer assuming the care of the poorer. Throughout the long struggle
not one deserted and many of them, on being taken prisoner, refused to accept their lives,
when offered them on the condition of consenting to serve against Caesar. They bore hunger
and other hardships, both when in a state of siege and when besieging others, with such
fortitude, that when Pompeius saw in the works at Dyrrachium a kind of bread made of
herbs, on which they were living, he said that he was fighting wild beasts; and he gave
orders that it be put out of sight quickly and shown to none of his men, for fear that the
endurance and resolution of the foe would break their spirit. How valiantly they fought is
shown by the fact that when they suffered their sole defeat before Dyrrachium, they
insisted on being punished, and their commander felt called upon rather to console than to
chastise them. In the other battles they overcame with ease countless forces of the enemy,
though decidedly fewer in number themselves. Indeed one cohort of the sixth legion, when
set to defend a redoubt, kept four legions of Pompeius at bay for several hours, though
almost all were wounded by the enemy's showers of arrows, of which a hundred and thirty
thousand were picked up within the ramparts. And no wonder, when one thinks of the deeds
of individual soldiers, either of Cassius Scaeva the centurion, or of Gaius Acilius of the
rank and file, not to mention others. Scaeva, with one eye gone, his thigh and shoulder
wounded, and his shield bored through in a hundred and twenty places, continued to guard
the gate of a fortress put in his charge. Acilius in the sea-fight at Massilia grasped the
stern of one of the enemy s ships, and when his right hand was lopped off, rivalling the
famous exploit of the Greek hero Cynegirus, boarded the ship and drove the enemy before
him with the boss of his shield.
LXIX. They did not mutiny once during the ten years of the Gallic war; in the civil
wars they did so now and then, but quickly resumed their duty, not so much owing to any
indulgence of their general as to his authority. For he never gave way to them when they
were insubordinate, but always boldly faced them, discharging the entire ninth legion in
disgrace before Placentia, though Pompey was still in the field, reinstating them
unwillingly and only after many abject entreaties, and insisting on punishing the
ringleaders.
LXX. Again at Rome, when the men of the Tenth Legion clamored for their discharge and
rewards with terrible threats and no little peril to the city, though the war in Africa
was then raging, he did not hesitate to appear before them, against the advice of his
friends, and to disband them. But with a single word, calling them "citizens,"
instead of 'soldiers," he easily brought them round and bent them to his will; for
they at once replied that they were his "soldiers" and insisted on following him
to Africa, although he refused their service. Even then he punished the most insubordinate
by the loss of a third part of the plunder and of the land intended for them.
LXXI. Even when a young man he showed no lack of devotion and fidelity to his
dependents. He defended Masintha, a youth of high birth, against King Hiempsal [of
Numidia] with such spirit, that in the dispute he caught the king's son Juba by the beard.
On Masintha's being declared tributary to the king, he at once rescued him from those who
would carry him off and kept him hidden for some time in his own house; and when presently
he left for Hispania after his praetorship, he carried the young man off in his own
litter, unnoticed amid the crowd that came to see him off and the lictors with their
fasces.
LXXII. His friends he treated with invariable kindness and consideration. When Gaius
Oppius was his companion on a journey through a wild, woody country and was suddenly taken
ill, Caesar gave up to him the only shelter there was, while he himself slept on the
ground out-of-doors. Moreover, when he came to power, he advanced some of his friends to
the highest positions, even though they were of the humblest origin, and when taken to
task for it, flatly declared that if he had been helped in defending his honor by brigands
and cut-throats, he would have requited even such men in the same way.
LXXIII. On the other hand he never formed such bitter enmities that he was not glad to
lay them aside when opportunity offered. Although Gaius Memmius had made highly caustic
speeches against him, to which he had replied with equal bitterness, he went so far as to
support Memmius afterwards in his suit for the consulship. When Gaius Calvus, after some
scurrilous epigrams, took steps through his friends towards a reconciliation, Caesar wrote
to him first and of his own free will. Valerius Catullus, as Caesar himself did not
hesitate to say, inflicted a lasting stain on his name by the verses about Mamurra; yet
when he apologised, Caesar invited the poet to dinner that very same day, and continued
his usual friendly relations with Catullus's father.
LXXIV. Even in avenging wrongs he was by nature most merciful, and when he got hold of
the pirates who had captured him, he had them crucified, since he had sworn beforehand
that he would do so, but ordered that their throats be cut first. He could never make up
his mind to harm Cornelius Phagites, although when he was sick and in hiding the man had
waylaid him night after night, and even a bribe had barely saved him from being handed
over to Sulla. The slave Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised Caesar's enemies that
he would poison him, he merely punished by death, without torture. When summoned as a
witness against Publius Clodius, the paramour of his wife Pompeia, charged on the same
count with sacrilege, Caesar declared that he had no evidence, although both his mother
Aurelia and his sister Julia had given the same jurors a faithful account of the whole
affair; and on being asked why it was then that he had put away his wife, he replied:
"Because I maintain that the members of my family should be free from suspicion, as
well as from accusation."
LXXV. He certainly showed admirable self-restraint and mercy, both in his conduct of
the civil war and in the hour of victory. While Pompeius announced that he would treat as
enemies those who did not take up arms for the government, Caesar gave out that those who
were neutral and of neither party should be numbered with his friends. He freely allowed
all those whom he had made centurions on Pompeius' recommendation to go over to his rival.
When conditions of surrender were under discussion at Ilerda, and friendly intercourse
between the two parties was constant, Afranius and Petreius, with a sudden change of
purpose, put to death all of Caesar's soldiers whom they found in their camp; but Caesar
could not bring himself to retaliate in kind. At the battle of Pharsalus he cried out,
"Spare your fellow citizens," and afterwards allowed each of his men to save any
one man he pleased of the opposite party. And it will be found that no Pompeian lost his
life except in battle, save only Afranius and Faustus, and the young Lucius Caesar; and it
is believed that not even these men were slain by his wish, even though the two former had
taken up arms again after being pardoned, while Caesar had not only cruelly put to death
the dictator's slaves and freedmen with fire and sword, but had even butchered the wild
beasts which he had procured for the entertainment of the people. At last, in his later
years, he went so far as to allow all those whom he had not yet pardoned to return to
Italy, and to hold magistracies and the command of armies: and he actually set up the
statues of Lucius Sulla and Pompey, which had been broken to pieces by the populace. After
this, if any dangerous plots were formed against him, or slanders uttered, he preferred to
quash rather than to punish them. Accordingly, he took no further notice of the
conspiracies which were detected, and of meetings by night, than to make known by
proclamation that he was aware of them; and he thought it enough to give public warning to
those who spoke ill of him, not to persist in their conduct, bearing with good nature the
attacks on his reputation made by the scurrilous volume of Aulus Caecina and the abusive
lampoons of Pitholaus.
LXXVI. Yet after all, his other actions and words so turn the scale, that it is thought
that he abused his power and was justly slain. For not only did he accept excessive
honors, such as an uninterrupted consulship, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship
of public morals, as well as the forename Imperator, the surname of Pater
Patriae ['Father of his Country'], a statue among those of the kings, and a raised
couch in the orchestra [at the theater]; but he also allowed honors to be bestowed on him
which were too great for mortal man: a golden throne in the Senate and on the judgment
seat; a chariot and litter [for carrying his statues among those of the gods] in the
procession at the circus; temples, altars, and statues beside those of the gods; a special
priest, an additional college of the Luperci, and the calling of one of the months by his
name. In fact, there were no honors which he did not receive or confer at pleasure. He
held his third and fourth consulships in name only, content with the power of the
dictatorship conferred on him at the same time as the consulships. Moreover, in both years
he substituted two consuls for himself for the last three months, in the meantime holding
no elections except for tribunes and plebeian aediles, and appointing praefects instead of
the praetors, to manage the affairs of the city during his absence. When one of the
consuls suddenly died the day before the Kalends of January, he gave the vacant office for
a few hours to a man who asked for it. With the same disregard of law and precedent he
named magistrates for several years to come, bestowed the emblems of consular rank on ten
ex-praetors, and admitted to the Senate men who had been given citizenship, and in some
cases half-civilized Gauls. He assigned the charge of the mint and of the public revenues
to his own slaves, and gave the oversight and command of the three legions which he had
left at Alexandria to a favorite of his called Rufo, son of one of his freedmen.
LXXVII. No less arrogant were his public utterances, which Titus Ampius records: that
the state was nothing, a mere name without body or form; that Sulla did not know his ABC's
when he laid down his dictatorship; that men ought now to be more circumspect in
addressing him, and to regard his word as law. So far did he go in his presumption, that
when a soothsayer once reported of a sacrifice direful innards without a heart, he said:
"They will be more favorable when I wish it; it should not be regarded as a portent,
if a beast has no heart" [playing on the double meaning of cor
('heart')--which was also regarded as the seat of intelligence].
LXXVIII. But it was the following action in particular that roused deadly hatred
against him. When the Senate approached him in a body with many highly honorary decrees,
he received them before the temple of Venus Genetrix without rising. Some think that when
he attempted to get up, he was held back by Cornelius Balbus; others, that he made no such
move at all, but on the contrary frowned angrily on Gaius Trebatius when he suggested that
he should rise. And this action of his seemed the more intolerable, because when he
himself in one of his triumphal processions rode past the benches of the tribunes, he was
so incensed because a member of the college, Pontius Aquila by name, did not rise, that he
cried: "Come then, Aquila, take back the republic from me, you tribune"; and for
several days he would not make a promise to any one without adding, "That is, if
Pontius Aquila will allow me."
LXXIX. To an insult which so plainly showed his contempt for the Senate he added an act
of even greater insolence; for at the Latin Festival, as he was returning to the city,
amid the extravagant and unprecedented demonstrations of the populace, someone in the
press placed on his statue a laurel wreath with a white fillet tied to it [an emblem of
royalty]; and when Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavus, tribunes of the plebeians, gave
orders that the ribbon be removed from the wreath and the man taken off to prison, Caesar
sharply rebuked and deposed them, either offended that the hint at regal power had been
received with so little favor, or, as he asserted, that he had been robbed of the glory of
refusing it. But from that time on he could not rid himself of the odium of having aspired
to the title of monarch, although he replied to the plebeians, when they hailed him as
king, "I am Caesar and no king" [with a pun on rex ('king') as a Roman
name], and at the Lupercalia, when the consul Marcus Antonius several times attempted to
place a crown upon his head as he spoke from the rostra, he put it aside and at last sent
it to the Capitol, to be offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Nay, more, the report had
spread in various quarters that he intended to move to Ilium or Alexandria, taking with
him the resources of the state, draining Italia by levies, and leaving the charge of the
city to his friends; also that at the next meeting of the Senate Lucius Cotta would
announce as the decision of the Fifteen [the quindecimviri sacris faciundis
('college of fifteen priests') in charge of the Sybilline books], that inasmuch as it was
written in the books of fate that the Parthians could be conquered only by a king, Caesar
should be given that title.
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