r Spain, but was driven back, as Marius had
been on the Italian coasts when pursued by the generals of Sulla, and
ended his life by suicide. Cato, the noblest Roman of his day, whose march
across the African desert was one of the great feats of his age, might
have escaped, and would probably have been pardoned: but the lofty stoic
could not endure the sight of the prostration of Roman liberties, and,
fortifying his courage with the _Phaedon_ of Plato, also fell upon his
sword. The Roman republic ended with his death.

(M1021) After reducing Numidia to a Roman province, Caesar returned to
Italy with immense treasures, and was everywhere received with unexampled
honors. At Rome he celebrated a fourfold triumph--for victories in Gaul,
Egypt, Africa, and the East--and the Senate decreed that his image in ivory
should be carried in procession with those of the gods. His bronze statue
was set upon a globe in the capitol, as the emblem of universal
sovereignty. All the extravagant enthusiasm which marked the French people
for the victories of Napoleon, and all the servility which unbounded power
everywhere commands, were bestowed upon the greatest conqueror the ancient
world ever saw. A thanksgiving was decreed for forty days; the number of
the lictors was doubled; he was made dictator for ten years, with the
command of all the armies of the State, and the presidency of the public
festivals. He also was made censor for three years, by which he regulated
the Senate according to his sovereign will. His triumphs were followed by
profuse largesses to the soldiers and people, and he also instituted
magnificent games under an awning of silk, at the close of which the
_Forum Julium_ was dedicated.

(M1022) Such were his unparalleled honors and powers. All the great
offices of the State were invested and united in him, and nothing was
wanted to complete his aggrandizement but the name of emperor. But we turn
from these, the usual rewards of conquerors, to glance at the services he
rendered to civilization, which constitute his truest claim to
immortality. One of the greatest was the reform of the calendar, for the
Roman year was ninety days in advance of the true meaning of that word.
The old year had been determined by lunar months rather than by the
apparent path of the sun among the fixed stars which had been determined
by the ancient astronomers, and was one of the greatest discoveries of
ancient science. The Roman year consisted