n the
wilderness, like a Napoleon in his early conquests.

This conquest of Gaul, during which he drove the Germans back to their
forests, and inaugurated a policy of conciliation and moderation which
made the Gauls the faithful allies of Rome, and their country its most
fertile and important province, furnishing able men both for the Senate
and the Army, was not only a great feat of genius, but a great
service--a transcendent service--to the State, which entitled Caesar to
a magnificent reward. Had it been cordially rendered to him, he might
have been contented with a sort of perpetual consulship, and with the
eclat of being the foremost man of the Empire. The people would have
given him anything in their power to give, for he was as much an idol to
them as Napoleon became to the Parisians after the conquest of Italy. He
had rendered services as brilliant as those of Scipio, of Marius, of
Sulla, or of Pompey. If he did not save Italy from being subsequently
overrun by barbarians, he postponed their irruptions for two hundred
years. And he had partially civilized the country he had subdued, and
introduced Roman institutions. He had also created an army of
disciplined veterans, such as never before was seen. He perfected
military mechanism, that which kept the Empire together after all
vitality had fled. He was the greatest master of the art of war known to
antiquity. Such transcendent military excellence and such great services
entitled him to the gratitude and admiration of the whole Empire,
although he enriched himself and his soldiers with the spoils of his ten
years' war, and did not, so far as I can see, bring great sums into the
national treasury.

But the Senate was reluctant to give him the customary rewards for ten
years' successful war, and for adding Western Europe to the Empire. It
was jealous of his greatness and his renown. It also feared him, for he
had eleven legions in his pay, and was known to be ambitious. It hated
him for two reasons: first, because in his first consulship he had
introduced reforms, and had always sided with the popular and liberal
party; and secondly, because military successes of unprecedented
brilliancy had made him dangerous. So, on the conclusion of the conquest
of Gaul, it withdrew two legions from his army, and sought to deprive
him of his promised second consulate, and even to recall him before his
term of office as governor was expired. In other words, it sought to
cripple