Caesar was either adopted or elected to a
situation of infinite luxury and enjoyment. He had no interests to secure
by fighting in person: and he had a powerful interest in preventing others
from fighting; since in that way only he could raise up competitors to
himself, and dangerous seducers of the army. A consul, on the other hand,
or great lieutenant of the senate, had nothing to enjoy or to hope for,
when his term of office should have expired, unless according to his
success in creating military fame and influence for himself. Those Caesars
who fought whilst the empire was or seemed to be stationary, as Trajan,
did so from personal taste. Those who fought in after centuries, when the
decay became apparent, and dangers drew nearer, as Aurelian, did so from
the necessities of fear; and under neither impulse were they likely to
make durable conquests. The spirit of conquest having therefore departed
at the very time when conquest would have become more difficult even to
the republican energies, both from remoteness of ground and from the
martial character of the chief nations which stood beyond the frontier,--
it was a matter of necessity that with the republican institutions should
expire the whole principle of territorial aggrandizement; and that, if the
empire seemed to be stationary for some time after its establishment by
Julius, and its final settlement by Augustus, this was through no strength
of its own, or inherent in its own constitution, but through the continued
action of that strength which it had inherited from the republic.
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