Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2
Cæsar had skilfully taken precautions that his influence should be felt at Rome during his absence, as much as the instability of the magistracy would permit. By the aid of his daughter Julia, whose charms and mental accomplishments captivated her husband, Cæsar retained his influence over Pompey. By his favours to the son of Crassus, a young man of great merit, who was appointed his lieutenant, he assured himself of his father. Cicero is removed, but soon Cæsar will consent to his return, and will conciliate him again by taking into his favour his brother Quintus. There remains the opposition of Cato. Clodius undertakes to remove him under the pretence of an honourable mission: he is sent to Cyprus to dethrone King Ptolemy, whose irregularities excited the hatred of his subjects.1217 Finally, all the men of importance who had any chance of obtaining employment are gained to the cause of Cæsar; some even engage themselves to him by writing.1218 He can thus proceed to his province; Destiny is about to open a new path; immortal glory awaits him beyond the Alps, and this glory, reflected upon Rome, will change the face of the world.
The Explanation of Cæsar’s Conduct.
VII. We have shown Cæsar obeying only his political convictions, whether as the ardent promoter of all popular measures, or as the declared partisan of Pompey; we have shown him aspiring with a noble ambition to power and honours; but we are not ignorant that historians in general give other motives for his conduct. They represent him, in 684, as having already his plans defined, his schemes arranged, his instruments all prepared. They attribute to him an absolute prescience of the future, the faculty of directing men and things at his will, and of rendering each one, unknowingly, the accomplice of his profound designs. All his actions have a hidden motive, which the historian boasts of having discovered. If Cæsar raises up again the standard of Marius, makes himself the defender of the oppressed, and the persecutor of the hired assassins of past tyranny, it is to acquire a concurrence necessary to his ambition; if he contends with Cicero in favour of legality in the trial of the accomplices of Catiline, or to maintain an agrarian law of which he approves the political aim, or if, to repair a great injustice of Sylla, he supports the restoration of the children of the proscribed to their rights, it is for the purpose of compromising the great orator with the popular party. If, on the contrary, he places his influence at the service of Pompey; if, on the occasion of the war against the pirates, he contributes to obtain for him an authority considered exorbitant; if he seconds the plebiscitum which further confers upon him the command of the army against Mithridates; if subsequently he causes extraordinary honours to be awarded him, though absent, it is still with the Machiavellian aim of making the greatness of Pompey redound to his own profit. So that, if he defends liberty, it is to ruin his adversaries; if he defends power, it is to accustom the Romans to tyranny. Finally, if Cæsar seeks the consulate, like all the members of the Roman nobility, it is, say they, because he already foresees, beyond the fasces of the consul and the dust of battles, the dictatorship and even the throne. Such an interpretation results from the too common fault of not being able to appreciate facts in themselves, but according to the complexion which subsequent events have given them.
Strange inconsistency, to impute to great men at the same time mean motives and superhuman forethought! No, it was not the miserable thought of checking Cicero which guided Cæsar; he had not recourse to a tactic more or less skilful: he obeyed a profound conviction, and what proves it indisputably is, that, once elevated to power, his first acts are to execute, as consul or dictator, what as a citizen he had supported: witness the agrarian law and the restoration of the proscribed. No, if he supports Pompey, it is not because he thinks that he can degrade him after having once elevated him, but because this illustrious captain had embraced the same cause as himself; for it would not have been given to any one to read so far into the future as to predict the use which the conqueror of Mithridates would make of his triumphs and veritable popularity. In fact, when he disembarked in Italy, Rome was in anxiety: will he disband his army?1219 Such was from all quarters the cry of alarm. If he returns as a master, no one is able to resist him. Contrary to the general expectation, Pompey disbanded his troops. How then could Cæsar foresee beforehand a moderation then so unusual?
Is it truer to say that Cæsar, having become proconsul, aspired to the sovereign power? No; in departing for Gaul, he could no more have thought of reigning over Rome, than could General Buonaparte, starting for Italy in 1796, have dreamed of the Empire. Was it possible for Cæsar to foresee that, during a sojourn of ten years in Gaul, he would there link Fortune to him for ever, and that, at the end of this long space of time, the public mind at Rome would still be favourable to his projects? Could he foresee that the death of his daughter would break the ties which attached him to Pompey? that Crassus, instead of returning in triumph from the East, would be conquered and slain by the Parthians? that the murder of Clodius would throw all Italy into commotion? and, finally, that anarchy, which he had sought to stifle by the triumvirate, would be the cause of his own elevation? Cæsar had before his eyes great examples for his guidance; he marched in the track of the Scipios and of Paulus Æmilius; the hatred of his enemies forced him, like Sylla, to seize upon the dictatorship, but for a more noble cause, and by a course of proceeding exempt from vengeance and cruelty.
Let us not continually seek little passions in great souls. The success of superior men, and it is a consoling thought, is due rather to the loftiness of their sentiments than to the speculations of selfishness and cunning; this success depends much more on their skill in taking advantage of circumstances, than on that presumption, blind enough to believe itself capable of creating events, which are in the hands of God alone. Certainly, Cæsar had faith in his destiny, and confidence in his genius; but faith is an instinct, not a calculation, and genius foresees the future without understanding its mysterious progress.
