overrun by barbarians, he postponed their irruptions for two hundred
years. And he had partially civilized the country he had subdued, and
introduced Roman institutions. He had also created an army of
disciplined veterans, such as never before was seen. He perfected
military mechanism, that which kept the Empire together after all
vitality had fled. He was the greatest master of the art of war known to
antiquity. Such transcendent military excellence and such great services
entitled him to the gratitude and admiration of the whole Empire,
although he enriched himself and his soldiers with the spoils of his ten
years' war, and did not, so far as I can see, bring great sums into the
national treasury.

But the Senate was reluctant to give him the customary rewards for ten
years' successful war, and for adding Western Europe to the Empire. It
was jealous of his greatness and his renown. It also feared him, for he
had eleven legions in his pay, and was known to be ambitious. It hated
him for two reasons: first, because in his first consulship he had
introduced reforms, and had always sided with the popular and liberal
party; and secondly, because military successes of unprecedented
brilliancy had made him dangerous. So, on the conclusion of the conquest
of Gaul, it withdrew two legions from his army, and sought to deprive
him of his promised second consulate, and even to recall him before his
term of office as governor was expired. In other words, it sought to
cripple and disarm him, and raise his rival, Pompey, over him in the
command of the forces of the Empire.

It was now secret or open war, not between Caesar and the Roman people,
but between Caesar and the Senate,--between a great and triumphant
general and the Roman oligarchy of nobles, who, for nearly five hundred
years, had ruled the Empire. On the side of Caesar were the army, the