The History of Rome: Translated with the Author's Sanction and Additions by William P. Dickson. With a Pref. by Leonhard Schmitz, Volume 4R. Bentley & son, 1880 - Rome |
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already amidst Antonius appeared Ariovistus aristocracy Armenia arms Asia Minor attack attempt battle burgesses Cæsar Cæsarians camp cantons capital Catilina Cato cavalry Celtic Celts Cicero Cilicia Cisalpine Gaul civil Clodius coast command communities compelled constitution consul consulship course Crassus death defeat democracy democratic doubtless Dyrrhachium East Egypt empire enemy especially Euphrates favour fleet Gaius Gaius Gracchus Gaul Germans governor Greek Hædui hand Hellenic Helvetii hitherto honour infantry insurrection Italian Italy king Labienus land Latin latter leader least legions Lucius Lucius Lucullus Lucullus Marcus ment merely Metellus military Mithradates monarchy nation officers oligarchy once opponents opposition Parthian party peius Pharsalus pirates political Pompeians Pompeius Pontic Pontus position prætor prince province Quintus regents republican Rhine Roman army Rome rule senate Sertorius sesterces slaves soldiers Spain Sulla Sullan Syria territory Tigranes tion took towns tribune troops Varro Vercingetorix victory whole
Popular passages
Page 283 - Rome with sure glance perceived in the German tribes the rival antagonists of the Romano -Greek world; inasmuch as with firm hand he established the new system of aggressive defence down even to its details, and taught men to protect the frontiers of the empire by rivers or artificial ramparts, to colonize the nearest barbarian tribes along the frontier with the view of warding off the more remote, and to recruit the Roman army by enlistment from the enemy's country ; he gained for the HellenicoItalian...
Page 449 - ... plenitude of power, in the times when as demagogue and conspirator he stole towards it by paths of darkness, and in those when, as joint possessor of the supreme power and then as monarch, he worked at his task in the full light of day before the eyes of the world. All the measures of a permanent kind that proceeded from him at the most various times assume their appropriate places in the great building-plan. We cannot therefore properly speak of isolated achievements of Caesar ; he did nothing...
Page 452 - ... gifted natures is the most difficult of all, — the task of recognizing, when on the pinnacle of success, its natural limits. What was possible he performed; and never left the possible good undone for the sake of the impossible better, never disdained at least to mitigate by palliatives evils that were incurable.
Page 452 - Such was this unique man, whom it seems so easy and ' yet is so infinitely difficult to describe. His whole nature is transparent clearness ; and tradition preserves more copious and more vivid information regarding him than regarding any of his peers in the ancient world. Of such a personage our conceptions may well vary in point of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, strictly speaking different ; to every not utterly perverted inquirer the grand figure has exhibited the same essential features,...
Page 453 - ... the perfect, can only be silent regarding it. For normality admits doubtless of being expressed, but it gives us only the negative notion of the absence of defect ; the secret of nature, whereby in her most finished manifestations normality and individuality are combined, is beyond expression.
Page 411 - Pompeiua was to keep his infantry on the defensive, but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance, and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning the infantry.
Page 452 - ... the grand figure has exhibited the same essential features, and yet no one has succeeded in reproducing it to the life. The secret lies in its perfection. In his character as a man as well as in his place in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts of existence meet and balance each other.
Page 448 - ... and guided by the cool sobriety which constitutes the most marked peculiarity of his genius. To this he owed the power of living energetically in the present, undisturbed either by recollection or by expectation ; to this he owed the capacity of acting at any moment with collected...
Page 453 - Caesar was a perfect man just because he more than any other placed himself amidst the currents of his time, and because he more than any other possessed the essential peculiarity of the Roman nation — practical apti tude as a citizen — in perfection : for his Hellenism in fact was only the Hellenism which had been long intimately blended with the Italian nationality.
Page 454 - Roman, and has invested the son of Philip alone with all the golden lustre of poetry, with all the rainbow hues of legend. But with equal reason the political life of nations has during thousands of years again and again reverted to the lines which Caesar drew ; and the fact, that the peoples to whom the world belongs still at the present day designate the highest of their monarchs by his name, conveys a warning deeply significant and, unhappily, fraught with shame.