CHAPTER I.
The character of the first Caesar has perhaps never been worse appreciated
than by him who in one sense described it best--that is, with most force
and eloquence wherever he really _did_ comprehend it. This was Lucan,
who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor wandered more from
the truth, than in the contrasted portraits of Caesar and Pompey. The
famous line, "_Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum_," is a fine
feature of the real character, finely expressed. But if it had been
Lucan's purpose (as possibly, with a view to Pompey's benefit, in some
respects it was) utterly and extravagantly to falsify the character of the
great Dictator, by no single trait could he more effectually have
fulfilled that purpose, nor in fewer words, than by this expressive
passage, "_Gaudensque viam fecisse ruina_." Such a trait would be almost
extravagant applied even to Marius, who (though in many respects a perfect
model of Roman grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more perhaps
than any one man recorded in history capable of justifying the bold
illustration of that character in Horace, "_Si fractus illabatur orbis,
impavidum ferient ruinae_") had, however, a ferocity in his character, and
a touch of the devil in him, very rarely united with the same tranquil
intrepidity.
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