ower and arms, made him from want of
leisure give up the first rank, to which his natural talents invited
him, and consequently his attention to military matters and political
affairs by which he got the supreme power, did not allow him to attain
perfection in oratory. Accordingly at a later period, in his reply to
Cicero about Cato,[445] he deprecates all comparison between the
composition of a soldier and the eloquence of an accomplished orator
who had plenty of leisure to prosecute his studies.

IV. On his return to Rome he impeached[446] Dolabella[447] for
maladministration in his province, and many of the cities of Greece
gave evidence in support of the charge. Dolabella, indeed, was
acquitted; but to make some return to the Greeks for their zeal in his
behalf, Caesar assisted them in their prosecution of Publius
Antonius[448] for corruption before Marcus Lucullus, the governor of
Macedonia; and his aid was so effectual that Antonius appealed to the
tribunes, alleging that he had not a fair trial in Greece with the
Greeks for his accusers. At Rome Caesar got a brilliant popularity by
aiding at trials with his eloquence; and he gained also much good will
by his agreeable mode of saluting people and his pleasant manners, for
he was more attentive to please than persons usually are at that age.
He was also gradually acquiring political influence by the splendour
of his entertainments and his table and of his general mode of living.
At first those who envied him, thinking that when his resources
failed his influence would soon go, did not concern themselves about
his flourishing popularity: but at last when his political power had
acquired strength and had become difficult to overthrow and was
manifestly tending to bring about a complete revolution, they
perceived that no beginnings should be considered too small to be
capable of quickly becoming great by uninterrupted endurance and
having no obstacle to their growth by reason of being despised.
Cicero, who is considered to have been the first to suspect and to
fear the smiling surface[449] of Caesar's policy, as a man would the
smiling smoothness of a sea, and who observed the bold and determined
character which was concealed under a friendly and joyous exterior,
said that in all his designs and public measures he perceived a
tyrannical purpose; "but on the other hand," said he, "when I look at
his hair, which is arranged with so much care, and see him scratching
his