Not less was the blunder which, on the banks of the
Rubicon, befriended Caesar. Immediately after crossing, he harangued the
troops whom he had sent forward, and others who there met him from the
neighboring garrison of Ariminium. The tribunes of the people, those great
officers of the democracy, corresponding by some of their functions to our
House of Commons, men personally, and by their position in the state,
entirely in his interest, and who, for his sake, had fled from home, there
and then he produced to the soldiery; thus identified his cause, and that
of the soldiers, with the cause of the people of Rome and of Roman
liberty; and perhaps with needless rhetoric attempted to conciliate those
who were by a thousand ties and by claims innumerable, his own already;
for never yet has it been found, that with the soldier, who, from youth
upwards, passes his life in camps, could the duties or the interests of
citizens survive those stronger and more personal relations connecting him
with his military superior. In the course of this harangue, Caesar often
raised his left hand with Demosthenic action, and once or twice he drew
off the ring, which every Roman gentleman--simply _as_ such--wore as the
inseparable adjunct and symbol of his rank.
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