te power in your hands, as a remedy
against those intolerable evils. But Cato judged well in thinking it
eligible to make Pompey sole consul rather than you dictator, because
experience had shown that Pompey respected the forms of the Roman
constitution; and though he sought, by bad means as well as good, to
obtain the highest magistracies and the most honourable commands, yet he
laid them down again, and contented himself with remaining superior in
credit to any other citizen.

_Caesar_.--If all the difference between my ambition and Pompey's was
only, as you represent it, in a greater or less respect for the forms of
the constitution, I think it was hardly becoming such a patriot as Cato
to take part in our quarrel, much less to kill himself rather than yield
to my power.

_Scipio_.--It is easier to revive the spirit of liberty in a government
where the forms of it remain unchanged, than where they have been totally
disregarded and abolished. But I readily own that the balance of the
Roman constitution had been destroyed by the excessive and illegal
authority which the people were induced to confer upon Pompey, before any
extraordinary honours or commands had been demanded by you. And that is,
I think, your best excuse.

_Caesar_.--Yes, surely. The favourers of the Manilian law had an ill
grace in desiring to limit the commissions I obtained from the people,
according to the rigour of certain absolute republican laws, no more
regarded in my time than the Sybilline oracles or the pious institutions
of Numa.

_Scipio_.--It was the misfortune of your time that they were not
regarded. A virtuous man would not take from a deluded people such
favours as they ought not to bestow. I have a right to say this because
I chid the Roman people, when, overheated by gratitude for the services I
had done them, they desired to make me perpetual consul and dictator.
Hear this, and blush. What I refused to accept, you snatched by force.

_Caesar_.--Tiberius Gracchus reproached you with the inconsistency of
your conduct, when, after refusing these offers, you so little respected
the tribunitian authority. But thus it must happen. We are naturally
fond of the idea of liberty till we come to suffer by it, or find it an
impediment to some predominant passion; and then we wish to control it,
as you did most despotically, by refusing to submit to the justice of the
State.

_Scipio_.--I have answered before to that charge. Tib