ad fallen in that war, posterity
might have doubted whether you were not a victim to the interests of your
country. But your success, and the despotism you afterwards exorcised,
took off those disguises and showed clearly that the aim of all your
actions was tyranny.

_Caesar_.--Let us not deceive ourselves with sounds and names. That
great minds should aspire to sovereign power is a fixed law of Nature. It
is an injury to mankind if the highest abilities are not placed in the
highest stations. Had you, Scipio, been kept down by the republican
jealousy of Cato, the censor Hannibal would have never been recalled out
of Italy nor defeated in Africa. And if I had not been treacherously
murdered by the daggers of Brutus and Cassius, my sword would have
avenged the defeat of Crassus and added the empire of Parthia to that of
Rome. Nor was my government tyrannical. It was mild, humane, and
bounteous. The world would have been happy under it and wished its
continuance, but my death broke the pillars of the public tranquillity
and brought upon the whole empire a direful scene of calamity and
confusion.

_Scipio_.--You say that great minds will naturally aspire to sovereign
power. But, if they are good as well as great, they will regulate their
ambition by the laws of their country. The laws of Rome permitted me to
aspire to the conduct of the war against Carthage; but they did not
permit you to turn her arms against herself, and subject her to your
will. The breach of one law of liberty is a greater evil to a nation
than the loss of a province; and, in my opinion, the conquest of the
whole world would not be enough to compensate for the total loss of their
freedom.

_Caesar_.--You talk finely, Africanus; but ask yourself, whether the
height and dignity of your mind--that noble pride which accompanies the
magnanimity of a hero--could always stoop to a nice conformity with the
laws of your country? Is there a law of liberty more essential, more
sacred, than that which obliges every member of a free community to
submit himself to a trial, upon a legal charge brought against him for a
public misdemeanour? In what manner did you answer a regular accusation
from a tribune of the people, who charged you with embezzling the money
of the State? You told your judges that on that day you had vanquished
Hannibal and Carthage, and bade them follow you to the temples to give
thanks to the gods. Nor could you ever be brought