likewise prevailed, that if he returned as
a private person, he would, like Milo, have to plead his cause before the
judges, surrounded by armed men. This conjecture is rendered highly
probable by Asinius Pollio, who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the
vanquished and slaughtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed
himself in these very words: "This was their intention: I, Caius Caesar,
after all the great achievements I had performed, must have been
condemned, had I not summoned the army to my aid!" Some think, that
having contracted from long habit an extraordinary love of power, and
having weighed his own and his enemies' strength, he embraced that
occasion of usurping the supreme power; which indeed he had coveted from
the time of his youth. This seems to have been the opinion entertained
by Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that Caesar
used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides, which he
thus translates:

Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia
Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.

Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws,
For sovereign power alone can justify the cause. [57]

XXXI. When intelligence, therefore, was received, that the interposition
of the tribunes in his favour had been utterly rejected, and that they
themselves had fled from the city, he immediately sent forward some
cohorts, but privately, to prevent any suspicion of his design; and, to
keep up appearances, attended at a public spectacle, examined the model
of a fencing-school which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat down
to table with a numerous party of his friends. But after sun-set, mules
being put to his carriage from a neighbouring mill, he set forward on his
journey with all possible privacy, and a small retinue. The lights going
out, he lost his way, and (22) wandered about a long time, until at
length, by the help of a guide, whom he found towards day-break, he
proceeded on foot through some narrow paths, and again reached the road.
Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the
boundary of his province [58], he halted for a while, and, revolving in
his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he
turned to those about him, and said: "We may still retreat; but if we
pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in
arms."

XXXII. While he was thus hesitating, the following i