Cato had done. The question how far Caesar was justified in
the position which he had taken up by certain alleged injuries, affected
Cicero less than it has done subsequent inquirers. Had an attempt been
made to recall Caesar illegally? Was he subjected to wrong by having his
command taken away from him before the period had passed for which the
people had given it? Was he refused indulgences to which the greatness
of his services entitled him--such as permission to sue for the
Consulship while absent from Rome--while that, and more than that, had
been granted to Pompey? All these questions were no doubt hot in debate
at the time, but could hardly have affected much the judgment of Cicero,
and did not at all affect his conduct. Nor, I think, should they
influence the opinions of those who now attempt to judge the conduct of
Caesar. Things had gone beyond the domain of law, and had fallen
altogether into that of potentialities. Decrees of the Senate or votes
of the people were alike used as excuses. Caesar, from the beginning of
his career, had shown his determination to sweep away as cobwebs the
obligations which the law imposed upon him. It is surely vain to look
for excuses for a man's conduct to the practice of that injustice
against him which he has long practised against others. Shall we forgive
a house-breaker because the tools which he has himself invented are used
at last upon his own door? The modern lovers of Caesar and of Caesarism
generally do not seek to wash their hero white after that fashion. To
them it is enough that the man has been able to trample upon the laws
with impunity, and to be a law not only to himself but to all the world
around him. There are some of us who think that such a man, let him be
ever so great--let him be ever so just, if the infirmities of human
nature permit justice to dwell in the breast of such a man--will in the
end do more harm than good. But they who sit at the feet of the great
commanders admire them as having been law-breaking, not law-abiding.
To say that Caesar was justified in the armed position which he took in
Northern Italy in the autumn of this year, is to rob him of his praise.
I do not suppose that he had meditated any special line of policy during
the years of hard work in Gaul, but I think that he was determined not
to relinquish his power, and that he was ready for any violence by which
he might preserve it.

If such was Cicero's idea of this man--if such the