usurpation, the ruler has not only to take care to maintain his power,
but in all that he undertakes he has to consider by what means and in
what ways he can establish his right to govern, and his own personal
qualifications for it. Men who are in such a position are urged on to
act by a very sad necessity, from which they cannot escape, and such was
the position of Caesar at Rome.

In our European States, men have wide and extensive spheres in which
they can act and move. The much-decried system of centralization has
indeed many disadvantages; but it has this advantage for the ruler, that
he can exert an activity which shows its influence far and wide. But
what could Caesar do, in the centre of nearly the whole of the known
world? He could not hope to effect any material improvements either in
Italy or in the provinces. He had been accustomed from his youth, and
more especially during the last fifteen years, to an enormous activity,
and idleness was intolerable to him. At the close of the civil war he
would have had little or nothing to do unless he had turned his
attention to some foreign enterprise. He was obliged to venture upon
something that would occupy his whole soul, for he could not rest. His
thoughts were therefore again directed to war, and that in a quarter
where the most brilliant triumphs awaited him, where the bones of the
legions of Crassus lay unavenged--to a war against the Parthians. About
this time the Getae also had spread in Thrace, and he intended to check
their progress likewise. But his main problem was to destroy the
Parthian empire and to extend the Roman dominion as far as India, a plan
in which he would certainly have been successful; and he himself felt so
sure of this that he was already thinking of what he should undertake
afterward.

It is by no means incredible that, as we are told, he intended on his
return to march through the passes of the Caucasus, and through ancient
Scythia into the country of the Getae, and thence through Germany and
Gaul into Italy. Besides this expedition, he entertained other plans of
no less gigantic dimensions. The port of Ostia was bad, and in reality
little better than a mere roadstead, so that great ships could not come
up the river. Accordingly it is said that Caesar intended to dig a canal
for sea-ships, from the Tiber, above or below Rome, through the Pomptine
marshes as far as Terracina. He further contemplated to cut through the
Isthmus of Corinth.