friendship of the Roman people. A little later still, some insurgents in
the centre of Gaul had concentrated in a place to the south-west, called
Urellocdunum (nowadays, it is said, Puy d'Issola, in the department of
the Lot, between Vayrac and Martel). After a long resistance they were
obliged to surrender, and Caesar had all the combatants' hands cut off,
and sent them, thus mutilated, to live and rove throughout Gaul, as a
spectacle to all the country that was, or was to be, brought to
submission. Nor were the rigors of administration less than those of
warfare. Caesar wanted a great deal of money, not only to maintain
satisfactorily his troops in Gaul, but to defray the enormous expenses he
was at in Italy, for the purpose of enriching his partisans, or securing
the favor of the Roman people. It was with the produce of imposts and
plunder in Gaul that he undertook the reconstruction at Rome of the
basilica of the Forum, the site whereof, extending to the temple of
Liberty, was valued, it is said, at more than twenty million five
hundred thousand francs. Cicero, who took the direction of the works,
wrote to his friend Atticus, "We shall make it the most glorious thing
in the world." Cato was less satisfied; three years previously
despatches from Caesar had announced to the Senate his victories over
the Belgian and German insurgents. The senators had voted a general
thanksgiving, but, "Thanksgiving!" cried Cato, "rather expiation! Pray
the gods not to visit upon our armies the sin of a guilty general. Give
up Caesar to the Germans, and let the foreigner know that Rome does not
enjoin perjury, and rejects with horror the fruit thereof!"

Caesar had all the gifts, all the means of success and empire, that can
be possessed by man. He was great in politics and in war; as active and
as full of resource amidst the intrigues of the Forum as amidst the
combinations and surprises of the battle-field, equally able to please
and to terrify. He had a double pride, which gave him double confidence