pulace, to
whose support he owed so much. It was to free himself from the weight of
his equals that Pompeius selected the East for the seat of war, when
there were so many strong military reasons why he should have proceeded
to the West, to Romanized Spain, where he had veteran legions that might
under his lead have been found the equals of Caesar's small, but most
efficient army. He wished to get out of the Republican atmosphere, and
into a country where "the one-man power" was the recognized idea of
rule. He acted as a politician, not as a soldier, when he sailed from
Brundisium to the East, and the nobility were not blind to the fact, and
were not long in getting their revenge; for it was through their
political influence that Pompeius was forced to deliver battle at
Pharsalia, when there were strong military reasons for refusing to
fight. That they were involved in their chief's fall was only in
accordance with the usual course of things, there being nothing to equal
the besotted blindness of faction, as our current history but too
clearly proves.

As between Caesar and Pompeius, therefore, it is natural and just that
modern liberals should sympathize with the former, and contemplate his
triumph with pleasure, as he was by far the abler and better man, and
did not stain his success by bloodshed and plunder, things which the
Pompeians had promised themselves on a scale that would have astonished
Marius and Sulla, and which the Triumvirs never thought of equalling.
But when we are asked to behold as the result of the Roman Revolution
the deliverance of the provincials, and that as of purpose on the part
of the victor, we are inclined, in return, to ask of the Caesarians
whether they think mankind are such fools as not to be able to read and
to understand the Imperial history. That Caesar's success was beneficial
to Rome's subjects we do not dispute; but that the change he effected
was of the sweeping character claimed for it, or that Caesar ever thought
of being the reformer that his admirers declare him to have been, are
things yet to be proved. The change that came from the substitution of
the Imperial polity for the Republican was the result of circumstances,
and it was of slow growth. Imperialism was an Octavian, not a Julian
creation, as any reader will be able to understand who goes through the
closing chapters of Mr. Merivale's third volume. The first Caesar's
imperial career was too short, and too full of hard