suo modum. Quo magis hoc homines timuerant, eo gratior
civilis tanti imperatoris reditus fuit." No doubt there
was a dread among many of Pompey coming back as Sulla
had come: not from indications to be found in the
character of Pompey, but because Sulla had done so.

[230] Florus, lib. ii., xix. Having described to us the
siege of Numantia, he goes on "Hactenus populus Romanus
pulcher, egregius, pius, sanctus atque magnificus.
Reliqua seculi, ut grandia aeque, ita vel magis turbida
et f[oe]da."

[231] We have not Pollio's poem on the conspiracy, but
we have Horace's record of Pollio's poem:

Motum ex Metello consule civicum,
Bellique causas et vitia, et modos,
Ludumque Fortunae, gravesque
Principum amicitias, et arma
Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,
Periculosae plenum opus aleae,
Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.--Odes, lib. ii., 1.

[232] The German index appeared--very much after the
original work--as late as 1875.

[233] Mommsen, lib. v., chap. vi. I cannot admit that
Mommsen is strictly accurate, as Caesar had no real
idea of democracy. He desired to be the Head of
the Oligarchs, and, as such, to ingratiate himself
with the people.

[234] For the character of Caesar generally I would refer
readers to Suetonius, whose life of the great man
is, to my thinking, more graphic than any that has
been written since. For his anecdotes there is
little or no evidence. His facts are not all
historical. His knowledge was very much less
accurate than that of modern writers who have had
the benefit of research and comparison. But there
was enough of history, of biography, and of
tradition to enable him to form a true idea of the
man. He himself as a narrator was neither
specially friendly nor specially hostile. He has
told what was believed at the time, and he has
drawn a character that agrees perfectly with all
that we have learned since.

[235] By no one has the character and object of the
Triumvirate been so well described as by Lucan, who,
bombastic as he is, still manages to bring home to the
reader the ideas as to persons and events which he
wishes to convey. I have ventured to give in an
Appendix, E, the passages referred to, with such a
translation in prose