of any new historic
grounds to exalt his feeble competitor, has been adopted as the best
chance for filling up the mighty gulf between them. Lord Brougham, for
instance, on occasion of a dinner given by the Cinque Ports at Dover to
the Duke of Wellington, vainly attempted to raise our countryman by
unfounded and romantic depreciations of Caesar. He alleged that Caesar had
contended only with barbarians. Now, _that_ happens to be the literal
truth as regards Pompey. The victories on which his early reputation was
built were won from semi-barbarians--luxurious, it is true, but also
effeminate in a degree never suspected at Rome until the next
generation. The slight but summary contest of Caesar with Pharnaces, the
son of Mithridates, dissipated at once the cloud of ignorance in which
Rome had been involved on this subject by the vast distance and the
total want of familiarity with Oriental habits. But Caesar's chief
antagonists, those whom Lord Brougham specially indicated, viz., the
Gauls, were _not_ barbarians. As a military people, they were in a stage
of civilization next to that of the Romans. They were quite as much
_aguerris_, hardened and seasoned to war, as the children of Rome. In
certain military habits they were even superior. For purposes of war
four races were then pre-eminent in Europe--viz., the Romans, the
Macedonians, certain select tribes among the mixed population of the
Spanish peninsula, and finally the Gauls. These were all open to the
recruiting parties of Caesar; and among them all he had deliberately
assigned his preference to the Gauls. The famous legion, who carried the
_Alauda_ (the lark) upon their helmets, was raised in Gaul from Caesar's
private funds. They composed a select and favored division in his army,
and, together with the famous tenth legion, constituted a third part of
his forces--a third numerically on the day of battle, but virtually a
half. Even the rest of Caesar's army had been for so long a space
recruited in the Gauls, Transalpine as well as Cisalpine, that at
Pharsalia the bulk of his forces is known to have been Gaulish. There
were more reasons than one for concealing that fact. The policy of Caesar
was, to conceal it not less from Rome than from the army itself. But the
truth became known at last to all wary observers. Lord Brougham's
objection to the quality of Caesar's enemies falls away at once when it
is collated with the deliberate composition of Caesar's own army. B