The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-05-19

lIh ~ AlAN DNANANR 80 49, -
unexampled confusion, he had learned by
thirty years experience to adapt himself to
the most widely divergent conditions. Al
ways entirely engrossed in the question of
the hour, he was at the moment OF his
assassination not bordering problems of
internal reorganization. but only consider
ing how he could Use the Dictatorship that
ne had won in the civil war to conquer
pnrthia and become a second Alexander.
In SOME striking pages near the close OF
his volume the author of this work portrays
the three distinguished Romans who were
to establish the First Triumvirate, Pom
pey, We are told, was the typical grand
s~eipneuT and gifted with a considerable
Measure Of ability. against which, however,
must be set some peculiar sources of weak
ness. The safety that comes Of immense
riches and the easy and unprecedented sue
cesses Of his early career acted as a dead
weight upon his spirit; and at the time
when the triumvirate was formed and for
some time afterward he was further dis
tracted by the strange passion which seized
him in middle life for the young and gra-
cious Julia. the daughter OF Julius Caesar.
"A great aristo crat, fully persuaded that he
was d great man, he was ready enough to
he responsible for the government of the
world, provided only that it in no way
interfered with his personal comfort and
satisfaction"
Crassus was of less pliable stuff. UntirinR
in his pursuit of power and wealth. he was
not to be stated with the mere possession Of
riches, with slaves or houses or land or
mines. or with the hundreds of debtors
whom he held at his mercy; he could never
shake Of his old dream of a feat OF arms
which should make him the equal of Lu-
cvllus and Pompey and bring compensation
for the failures which from time to time
had interrupted his political career. Yet,
after ali, Crassus -is-pronounced, except as
regards his family relations, merely an
egoist on a gigantic scale. He was far less
concerned for the order or the disorder OF
the empire as a whole han for the health
Of his children or for a small mistake in his
private account
What. Of Caesar. the third and far the
greatest member Of the Triumvirate? Cesar
as he vas about so r. c. is represented as
the psychological puzzle of his day, for his
devious course had driven all his critics
OF the trail The fashionable young patri-
clan, with his charming literary gift. his
exquisite manner in speech and writing.
his amazing quickness of acquisition and
o~mniyofous appetite for study. from a.
tronomy at the one pole To strategy at the
other. after entering into politics with a
show n moderation. mad strangely falSitied
the expectations OF all friends and observers.
Thick .had watched him sinking deeper
and deeper into debt, then practically
auctioaing his services to the highest bid
der, changing his whole programme from
one day TO the next. comming Cling sexual in
triRues with politics and government. eN-
citing the poor and base against the rich
and noble, and leaving nothing undone that
q cynical and shameless versatility could
suggest How could men forget. asks
our author, that the chief of the popular
party, who had promised TO put an end to
the abuses of capitalism, had not scrupled
10 sell his influence for one of the most dis
uTeddiitst5!o johG 81 the time, the reduction
Of the contract price for the farming of the
taxes OF the province of Asia, a reduction
which caused the shares in the tax farming
company Immediately to rise in value?
One who treated politics in this way could
surely not be considered a serious states
man by the thinking public of the time.
Even as late as 50 B c.. he seemed to many
II not. most onlookers merely one of those
noisy and INSCRIPTIONS but shallow minded
politicians who. finding an unworthy
satisf Sction in the futile arts Of ostentation
and notoriety and gifted with a magnih-
cent rhetorical style, often make themselves
heard and felt in the disorder of a young
mercantile democracy when men are deaf
A. 49,. alaipna ~ pnOraIG nr nOlitipo htt he
ginning TO be attentive to crude and novel
ideas in speech and writing, particularly il
expressed in unchastened and vituperative
language Now this frivolous young up
start was going of to Gaul What for?
To make wars and ~conquests! But he had
had no experience OF real warfare, and
everybody in Rome knew that he did not
even have good health. but was OF a delicate
and nervous constitution, and a prey to
attacks Of epilepsy.
We can, Of course. see more in retrospect
IMAM ceesar's contemporaries saw. FeTero
points u that contemporary tudents OF
politics. who detected in every event the
hRndiwork OF some small creed or party,
failed to understand that IL was circum-
stances which continually had been thwart-
ing Casar, against his own higher aspira-
tons. In all that he had proposed to do.
the mar whom almost all modern histo-
rians naively regard as resolved from his
earliest youth to undertake ~singlehanded the
government OF the world. and whose life Is
described a. a continuous and calculated
effort toward the supreme goal Of his ambi-
ton, had up TO this moment, more than any
other distinguished man Of his time, been
exposed TO the mercilcss bufietings Of
cvents.. With q mind admirably endowed
Tor scientific or artistic achievements,
keen, alert. imaginative and withal ambl-