the noble ambition of
Caesar, and he preferred to re-establish the senatorial oligarchy.

[Illustration: Marius on the ruins of Carthage.]

When Sulla crushed the Marian party Caesar had just arrived at manhood.
Though of an old patrician house, he had yet a family connection with
the democratic party, Marius having married his aunt. He himself had
married a daughter of the democratic leader Cinna, and for refusing to
divorce her he was proscribed by Sulla, but managed to keep in hiding
till the storm was past. After the death of the great reactionist
(B.C. 78), he seized every opportunity of reviving the spirit of the
popular party; as, for instance, by publicly honoring the memory of
Marius, bringing to justice murderers of the proscription, and
courageously raising his single voice in the Senate against the
illegal execution of Catiline's partisans (B.C. 63). Clearly seeing
the necessity for personal government, at a time when his own services
and distinctions were not such as to entitle him to aspire to it,
Caesar did his best to secure it for Pompey, then far the foremost man
in Rome, by strenuously supporting measures which virtually placed the
empire at his absolute disposal for an indefinite period. A fairly
good soldier, but a most vain, unreliable, and incompetent statesman,
Pompey after five years let these powers slip through his hands.

[Illustration: Julius Caesar.]

Caesar was by this time thirty-eight (B.C. 62). He had steadily risen
in influence and official rank; and it was, no doubt, now that he
determined to take the great task into his own hands. He was the
recognized chief of the popular party, which aimed at concentrating
Republican government in the hands of a single person, as the only
means of bridling the oligarchy. But this was not to be accomplished
merely by popular votes, as many a democratic leader had found to his
cost. Caesar needed an army and a military reputation, and with rare
patience he set himself to acquire both. By a coalition with
Pompey--now obliged to treat him as an equal--he obtained the
consulship (B.C. 59), which on its expiration entitled him to a great
military command.

Roman generals had of late preferred to extend their conquests
eastward, and to win comparatively easy and lucrative triumphs in
Asia, over people who had possessed for long ages a type of
civilization suited to them, and who therefore could never thoroughly
assimilate Western manners and instit