as time went on; admiring him, liking him, willing
to act with him if it might be possible, but not the less determined to
put down all the attempts at patriotic republican virtue in which the
orator delighted to indulge. Mr. Forsyth expresses an opinion that
Caesar, till he crossed the Rubicon after his ten years' fighting in
Gaul, had entertained no settled plan of overthrowing the Constitution.
Probably not; nor even then. It may be doubted whether Caesar ever spoke
to himself of overthrowing the Constitution. He came gradually to see
that power and wealth were to be obtained by violent action, and only by
violent action. He had before him the examples of Marius and Sulla, both
of whom had enjoyed power and had died in their beds. There was the
example, also, of others who, walking unwarily in those perilous times,
had been banished as was Verres, or killed as was Catiline. We can
easily understand that he, with his great genius, should have
acknowledged the need both of courage and caution. Both were exercised
when he consented to be absent from Rome, and almost from Italy, during
the ten years of the Gallic wars. But this, I think, is certain, that
from the time in which his name appears prominent--from the period,
namely, of the Catiline conspiracy--he had determined not to overthrow
the Constitution, but so to carry himself, amid the great affairs of the
day, as not to be overthrown himself.

Of what nature was the intercourse between him and Pompey when Pompey
was still absent in the East we do not know; but we can hardly doubt
that some understanding had begun to exist. Of this Cicero was probably
aware. Pompey was the man whom Cicero chose to regard as his
party-leader, not having himself been inured to the actual politics of
Rome early enough in life to put himself forward as the leader of his
party. It had been necessary for him, as a "novus homo," to come forward
and work as an advocate, and then as an administrative officer of the
State, before he took up with politics. That this was so I have shown by
quoting the opening words of his speech Pro Lege Manilia. Proud as he
was of the doings of his Consulship, he was still too new to his work to
think that thus he could claim to stand first. Nor did his ambition lead
him in that direction. He desired personal praise rather than personal
power. When in the last Catiline oration to the people he speaks of the
great men of the Republic--of the two Scipios, and of