The length of journeys which he accomplished within a given time, appears
even to us at this day, and might well therefore appear to his
contemporaries, truly astonishing. A distance of one hundred miles was no
extraordinary day's journey for him in a _rheda_, such as we have
described it. So elegant were his habits, and so constant his demand for
the luxurious accommodations of polished life, as it then existed in Rome,
that he is said to have carried with him, as indispensable parts of his
personal baggage, the little lozenges and squares of ivory, and other
costly materials, which were wanted for the tessellated flooring of his
tent. Habits such as these will easily account for his travelling in a
carriage rather than on horseback.

The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were notorious, and both
were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations in Rome.
Dining on one occasion at a table, where the servants had inadvertently,
for salad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse lamp-oil, Caesar would not
allow the rest of the company to point out the mistake to their host, for
fear of shocking him too much by exposing the mistake. At another time,
whilst halting at a little _cabaret_, when one of his retinue was
suddenly taken ill, Caesar resigned to his use the sole bed which the house
afforded. Incidents, as trifling as these, express the urbanity of Caesar's
nature; and, hence, one is the more surprised to find the alienation of
the senate charged, in no trifling degree, upon a failure in point of
courtesy. Caesar neglected to rise from his seat, on their approaching him
in a body with an address of congratulation. It is said, and we can
believe it, that he gave deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of
ceremonial observance, than by all his substantial attacks upon their
privileges. What we find it difficult to believe, however, is not that
result from the offence, but the possibility of the offence itself, from
one so little arrogant as Caesar, and so entirely a man of the world. He