Rome in the latter days of the Republic was not between the people and
the aristocracy, but between the aristocracy and the military chieftains
on one side, and those demagogues whom it feared on the other. The
result showed that the aristocracy feared and distrusted Caesar; and he
used the people only to advance his own ends,--of course, in the name of
reform and patriotism. And when he became Dictator, he kicked away the
ladder on which he climbed to power. It was Imperialism that he
established; neither popular rights nor aristocratic privileges. He had
no more love of the people than he had of those proud aristocrats who
afterwards murdered him.

But the empire of the world--to which Caesar at that time may, or may
not, have aspired: who can tell? but probably not--was not to be gained
by civil services, or reforms, or arguments in law courts, or by holding
great offices, or haranguing the people at the rostrum, or making
speeches in the Senate,--where he was hated for his liberal views and
enlightened mind, rather than from any fear of his overturning the
constitution,--but by military services and heroic deeds and the
devotion of a tried and disciplined regular army. Caesar was now
forty-three years of age, being in the full maturity of his powers. At
the close of his term as Consul he sought a province where military
talents were indispensable, and where he could have a long term of
office. The Senate gave him the "woods and forests,"--an unsubdued
country, where he would have hard work and unknown perils, and from
which it was probable he would never return. They sent him to Gaul. But
this was just the field for his marvellous military genius, then only
partially developed; and the second period of his career now began.

It was during this second period that he rendered his most important
services to the State and earned his greatest fame. The dangers which