le to maintain a permanent superiority
in the Roman commonwealth; the military machine fighting not for a party
but for a general, the rude force of the condottieri--after having
first appeared on the stage in the service of the restoration--soon
showed itself absolutely superior to all political parties. Caesar
could not but acquire a conviction of this amidst the practical
workings of party, and accordingly he matured the momentous
resolution of making this military machine itself serviceable
to his ideals, and of erecting such a commonwealth, as he had
in his view, by the power of condottieri. With this design
he concluded in 683 the league with the generals of the opposite party,
which, notwithstanding that they had accepted the democratic programme,
yet brought the democracy and Caesar himself to the brink
of destruction. With the same design he himself came forward eleven
years afterwards as a condottiere. It was done in both cases
with a certain naivete--with good faith in the possibility
of his being able to found a free commonwealth, if not by the swords
of others, at any rate by his own. We perceive without difficulty
that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit
into his service without becoming himself enslaved to it;
but the greatest men are not those who err the least.
If we still after so many centuries bow in reverence before what
Caesar willed and did, it is not because he desired and gained
a crown (to do which is, abstractly, as little of a great thing
as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal--of a free commonwealth
under one ruler--never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch
from sinking into vulgar royalty.

Caesar Consul

The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without
difficulty by the united parties. The aristocracy had to rest
content with giving to him--by means of a bribery, for which
the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited
surprise even in that period of deepest corruption--a colleague
in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy
was regarded in their circles as conservative energy,
and whose good intentions at least were not at fault if the genteel
lords did not get a fit return for their patriotic expenditure.

Caesar's Agrarian Law

As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion the requests of his
confederates, among which the assignation of land to the veterans
of the Asiatic