neck, looking up to his noble countenance, sometimes drawing auguries of
hope from features so fitted for command, sometimes boding an early blight
to promises so prematurely magnificent. That she had something of her
son's aspiring character, or that he presumed so much in a mother of his,
we learn from the few words which survive of their conversation. He
addressed to her no language that could tranquillize her fears. On the
contrary, to any but a Roman mother his valedictory words, taken in
connection with the known determination of his character, were of a nature
to consummate her depression, as they tended to confirm the very worst of
her fears. He was then going to stand his chance in a popular election for
an office of dignity, and to launch himself upon the storms of the Campus
Martius. At that period, besides other and more ordinary dangers, the
bands of gladiators, kept in the pay of the more ambitious amongst the
Roman nobles, gave a popular tone of ferocity and of personal risk to the
course of such contests; and either to forestall the victory of an
antagonist, or to avenge their own defeat, it was not at all impossible
that a body of incensed competitors might intercept his final triumph by
assassination. For this danger, however, he had no leisure in his thoughts
of consolation; the sole danger which _he_ contemplated, or supposed
his mother to contemplate, was the danger of defeat, and for that he
reserved his consolations. He bade her fear nothing; for that without
doubt he would return with victory, and with the ensigns of the dignity he
sought, or would return a corpse.

Early indeed did Caesar's trials commence; and it is probable, that, had
not the death of his father, by throwing him prematurely upon his own
resources, prematurely developed the masculine features of his character,
forcing him whilst yet a boy under the discipline of civil conflict and
the yoke of practical life, even _his_ energies would have been
insufficient to sustain them. His age is not exactly ascertained, but it