The History of Rome, Volume 5Macmillan, 1908 - Rome |
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according Africa already amidst appeared Ariovistus aristocracy arms Arverni attack attempt battle battle of Pharsalus Bellovaci Brundisium burgesses Caesar Caesarians camp cantons capital Cato cavalry Celtic Celtic nation Celts Cicero Cisalpine Gaul civil Clodius command communities compelled consul consulship course Crassus culture Curio decree defeat doubtless Dyrrhachium Eburones empire enemy epoch especially favour fleet Gaius Gaius Gracchus Gallic Gaul Germans governor governorship Greek Haedui hand Hellenic Helvetii hitherto honour Ilerda Imperator infantry Italian Italy Juba king Labienus land Latin latter least legions levy literature Lucius magistrates Marcus means Menapii ment merely military monarchy nation nature nobility officers once opponents opposition Parthian perhaps period person Pharsalus poet political Pompeians Pompeius position praetor provinces regents remained republican respect Rhine Roman army Rome rule Scipio senate Sequani sesterces side soldiers Spain Syria territory tion town Transalpine troops Varro Vercingetorix victory whole
Popular passages
Page 306 - As a matter of course Caesar was a man of passion, for without passion there is no genius; but his passion was never stronger than he could control. He had had his season of youth, and song, love, and wine had taken joyous possession of his mind; but with him they did not penetrate to the inmost core of his nature.
Page 393 - There was nothing to bridge over or soften the fatal contrast between the world of the beggars and the world of the rich.
Page 312 - He is perhaps the only one among the mighty ones of the earth, who in great matters and little never acted according to inclination or caprice, but always without exception according to his duty as ruler, and who, when he looked back on his life, found doubtless erroneous calculations to deplore, but no false step of passion to regret. There is nothing in the history of Caesar's life, which even on a small scale can be compared with those poetico-sensual ebullitions — such as the murder of Kleitos...
Page 310 - It was natural that he should 11 even afterward remain still more statesman than general — just like Cromwell, who also transformed himself from a leader of opposition into a military chief and democratic king, and who in general, little as the Puritan hero seems to resemble the dissolute Roman, is yet, in his development as well as in the objects which he aimed at and the results which he achieved, of all statesmen, perhaps, the most akin to Caesar.
Page 309 - ... in the given case the right one; who with the certainty of divination found the proper means for every end; who after defeat stood ready for battle like William of Orange, and ended the campaign invariably with victory; who managed that element of warfare, the treatment of which serves to distinguish military genius from the mere ordinary ability of an officer — the rapid movement of masses — with unsurpassed perfection, and found the guarantee of victory not in the massiveness of his forces...
Page 393 - Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly with awful silence. It is a terrible picture, but not one peculiar to Italy ; wherever the government of capitalists in a slave-state has fully developed itself, it has desolated God's fair world in the...
Page 313 - 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. But where he recognized that fate had spoken, he always obeyed. Alexander on the Hyphasis, Napoleon at Moscow, turned back because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant at destiny for bestowing even on its...
Page 305 - Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations, he spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had...
Page 311 - His talent for organization was marvellous; no statesman has ever compelled alliances, no general has ever collected an army out of unyielding and refractory elements with such decision, and kept them together with such firmness, as Caesar displayed in constraining and upholding his coalitions and his legions; never did regent judge his instruments and assign each to the place appropriate for him with so acute an eye. He was monarch; but he never played the king. Even when absolute lord of Rome,...
Page 102 - Kalidasa attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden — all this is the work of Caesar ; and, while the creation of his great predecessor in the East has been almost wholly reduced to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar has outlasted those thousands of years which have changed religion and polity for the human race and even shifted the centre of civilization itself, and it stands erect for what we may term perpetuity.