Roman soldiers, armed and triumphant to the Forum and the Capitol. There must have been a moment, its date we cannot dare to fix, when Cæsar finally came to the conclusion that the domination which he had achieved in the streets would avail him nothing if ever swords were drawn. When once he had realised the fact, his mind must have been turned to the only possible alternative. Had he within himself the makings of a great general? That he had a soldier's courage and readiness he had proved at Mytilene in B.C. 79, and in Asia in B.C. 74. That he could assert a personal ascendency over his followers he knew well, from his experiences during ten years of mob-management. But a man may be a good fighter and an inspiring leader, and yet lack the main qualities of generalship. Cæsar, like other young Romans of his class, had undoubtedly studied the theory of the art of war from the popular Greek manuals then in vogue. But so had many an incapable Optimate who had disgraced himself on the battlefield: it yet remained to be seen whether he possessed real military ability. This could only be learnt by making the experiment. The first occasion on which Cæsar had the opportunity of trying his hand at the game of war upon a considerable scale was when he went to Spain as propraetor in B.C. 61. This governorship was the turning-point in his whole career: his contemporaries supposed that it was important to him merely because it gave him the chance of paying off the enormous debts which hung round his neck like a mill-stone, and had made him the tool of Crassus. This no doubt had some weight in Cæsar's eyes: it is certain that by some wonderful tour de force he wrung vast sums out of Spain without earning a specially bad name for rapacity. But a Roman governor of those days had to emulate the exploits of Verres and Antonius if he wished to shock the public opinion of his contemporaries. There can be no doubt

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that Cæsar must have shorn the Spaniards close, to raise the money that paid off his debts; but, probably (as the Irish wit wrote of Lord Carteret), "he had a more genteel manner of binding their chains than most of his predecessors." A considerable part of the sum, too, was secured by the selling as slaves of his numerous prisoners of war, an obvious method of money-making on which the successful commander could always rely.

ance.

But the financial importance of Cæsar's Spanish governorship was nothing in comparison with its military importFor the first time he found himself at the head of a considerable army-he took over two legions and raised a third-and able to deal with it as he pleased. Nor were enemies wanting; never, since the Spanish provinces had been formed, had border warfare ceased on their north-western frontiers. The Galæci and Cantabrians still maintained their freedom in their hills, and many of the northern Lusitanians were practically independent, though nominally included within the borders of the empire. Even if Cæsar had not been wishing to try his fortune as a soldier, he would have been compelled to chastise these fierce hillmen for their perpetual raids into the more settled districts. But he was only too eager to discover his own possibilities in the military sphere. He carried out a long and difficult campaign in the valleys of the Lower Douro, the Mondego, and the Minho with complete success, showing an untiring watchfulness and a wary skill that must have surprised his soldiery, who knew him only as the hero of the Roman streets. It must have been in this Galician and Lusitanian campaign of B.C. 61 that Cæsar came to know himself, and to recognise that he was capable of the highest things in the field. It must have been a stirring moment, for it changed the whole of the outlook of his life. He need no longer make it his loftiest aim

to be the king of the Suburra and the hero and model of the young rakes of Rome. He might now aspire to beat Pompey on his own lines. If he could obtain a great military province and raise a large army, he might hope to achieve a more splendid reputation than that of the conqueror of the Pirates and of Mithradates. There would be no need to shed futile tears again before the statue of Alexander the Great; he might, after all, make up for the years lost in demagogy and in evil living. At forty-one years of age it is still not too late to start on the soldier's trade, though there is hardly another case in history, save Oliver Cromwell, of a general who discovered his avocation when so far advanced in middle life. Endowed with a splendid physique, which had not been ruined even by the twenty ill-spent years of his Roman career, Cæsar was still wiry, alert, and untiring. Probably the one virtue of his youth, his contempt for the delights of the cup and the platter, now stood him in good stead. He could march and starve with the sturdiest of his own legionaries. There seemed to be no danger that his body would fail him, and his mind. was at its best. The readiness and ingenuity which he had always displayed in the tactics of the Forum were easily transferred to the tactics of the field. The power of inspiring confidence, which had enabled him to discipline even the demoralised city mob, served him still better with the simple soldiery. Indeed it must have been a comparatively easy task to manage the conscripts of the Spanish or the Cisalpine province after managing the unruly and untrustworthy denizens of the Roman slums.

We cannot doubt that Cæsar returned to Rome in B.C. 60 with one desire before his eyes, that of obtaining first the consulate, and then, as proconsul, a military province of the first class—the Gauls for choice, since

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there he would both remain comparatively near to Italy, and also have a splendid field for operations and a great recruiting ground. It was fortunate for him that the change in his outlook on life, which had resulted from his Spanish campaign, was not apparent to his contemporaries. To Pompey and Crassus, no less than to Cicero and Cato. he was still the rakish demagogue of the past twenty years. Had Crassus guessed that his late debtor, the manager for many a day of his hirelings, was aspiring to climb to greatness over the pile of his money-bags-had Pompey known that the man who offered to deliver him from the insults of the Senate, was intending to supers de him in the position of Rome's greatest general, there would have been no First Triumvirate. But the change in Cæsar's character and designs was hidden from them: they allied themselves, as they supposed, with a mobmanager of genius, who undertook to clear the streets for them and to work the machinery of the Comitia. There was little in Cæsar's conduct in B.C. 60-59 to make them suspect that they were giving themselves a master, when they acquiesced in the bargain. He was to secure them what they desired, and they, in return, were to concede to him the consulship and the Gallic Provinces.

The combination of Cæsar's management and Crassus's money carried all before it, and the consulate was duly secured to the Democratic candidate. In older days it would have been a serious drawback that he failed to carry the election of L. Lucceius, the obscure person who ran with him, and that he was saddled with Bibulus, the most obstinate of Optimates, as his colleague. But in Cæsar's year of office it did not matter much whether he had a colleague or not. His consulship was a sort of carnival of illegality and mob law, which made a fitting close to the whole of his demagogic career. He violated rule of the constitution with a cheerful nonchalance

every

that surprised even his own lieutenants. He openly displayed armed men in the Comitia; he not only drove away the partisans of the Senatorial party by forcethat was now the ordinary rule in domestic politics-but arrested and hurried off in custody every one who dared to speak against his proposals-even the respectable Cato himself. His crowning act of illegality took place at the passing of his Agrarian Law; when Bibulus put up three tribunes to veto it, Cæsar quietly disregarded them, and proceeded with his business. The Optimate consul sprang to his feet, and began declaiming to the people that the whole proceedings were null and void, and that his colleague was violating the most fundamental laws of the constitution. Cæsar had him seized by his lictors, bundled him off the rostra, and told the attendants to see that no harm happened to him, and to turn him loose in some quiet street. Cato and the three dissentient tribunes were treated in the same unceremonious fashion. Then Cæsar bade the proceedings go on, and passed his law! If ever majestas, the open and deliberate commission of high treason, took place at Rome, this was the occasion. A magistrate had disregarded the veto of his own colleague and of three tribunes, and had finally laid violent hands on their sacrosanct persons and expelled them from the Assembly. The Optimates wondered that the sky did not fall then and there. But nothing happened, and Cæsar declared his bill to be law, and carried out its provisions. Bibulus formally summoned the Senate next day, narrated the indignities that he had suffered, and called upon the Fathers to support him in open resistance, and to declare all his colleague's doings invalid. He was met with a mournful silence: the days of Nasica and Opimius were over; no one offered to arm his clients and go forth to save the state. The veterans of Pompey and the mob of Cæsar seemed too formidable.