indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field;
he himself and his abler confidants replied to the Cato-literature
with Anticatones, and the republican and Caesarian scribes
fought round the dead hero of Utica like the Trojans and Hellenes
round the dead body of Patroclus; but as a matter of course
in this conflict--where the public thoroughly republican in its feelings
was judge--the Caesarians had the worst of it. No course remained
but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known
and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius
Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty
in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles,
while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected
to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more
annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded
was utterly arbitrary.(4) The underground machinations
of the overthrown parties against the new monarchy will be more fitly
set forth in another connection. Here it is sufficient to say
that risings of pretenders as well as of republicans were incessantly
brewing throughout the Roman empire; that the flames of civil war kindled
now by the Pompeians, now by the republicans, again burst forth brightly
at various places; and that in the capital there was perpetual
conspiracy against the life of the monarch. But Caesar
could not be induced by these plots even to surround himself
permanently with a body-guard, and usually contented himself
with making known the detected conspiracies by public placards.

Bearing of Caesar towards the Parties

However much Caesar was wont to treat all things relating
to his personal safety with daring indifference, he could not possibly
conceal from himself the very serious danger with which this mass
of malcontents threatened not merely himself but also his creations.
If nevertheless, disregarding all the warning and urgency
of his friends, he without deluding himself as to the implacability
of the very opponents to whom he showed mercy, persevered
with marvellous composure and energy in the course of pardoning
by far the greater number of them, he did so neither
from the chivalrous magnanimity of a proud, nor from the sentimental
clemency of an effeminate, nature, but from the correct statesmanly
consideration that vanquished parties are disposed of
more rapidly and with less public injury by their absorption
within the st