Their disinterested love for
Caesar appeared in another and more difficult illustration: it was a
traditionary anecdote in Rome, that the majority of those amongst Caesar's
troops, who had the misfortune to fall into the enemy's hands, refused to
accept their lives under the condition of serving against _him_.
In connection with this subject of his extraordinary munificence, there is
one aspect of Caesar's life which has suffered much from the
misrepresentations of historians, and that is--the vast pecuniary
embarrassments under which he labored, until the profits of war had turned
the scale even more prodigiously in his favor. At one time of his life,
when appointed to a foreign office, so numerous and so clamorous were his
creditors, that he could not have left Rome on his public duties, had not
Crassus come forward with assistance in money, or by promises, to the
amount of nearly two hundred thousand pounds. And at another, he was
accustomed to amuse himself with computing how much money it would require
to make him worth exactly nothing (_i. e._ simply to clear him of debts);
this, by one account, amounted to upwards of two millions sterling.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71