The character of Cæsar is full of inconsistencies; but they are the inconsistencies which are natural to man, and are sometimes found in men of a strong will and commanding talents who are destitute of moral principle. His faults and excellences, his capability and talents, were the result of his natural powers—not of pains or study. He was one of the greatest as well as one of the worst men who ever lived. He was an Epicurean in faith, and yet he had all the superstition which so often accompanies infidelity. His habitual humanity and clemency towards his fellow-citizens were interrupted by instances of stern and pitiless cruelty. He shed tears at the assassination of Pompey, and yet could massacre the Usipetes and the Tenchteri, and acted like a savage barbarian towards his chivalrous foe Vercingetorix. He delighted in the pure and refined pleasures of literature, and his intimate associates were men of taste and genius; and yet he was the slave of his sensual passions, and indulged in the grossest profligacy. He was candid, friendly, confiding, generous; but he was attracted by brilliant talents, and the qualities of the head, rather than the affections of the heart. The mainspring of his conduct as a general and a statesman exhibits a strong will and perfect self-reliance; and in like manner he owes the energy of his style of writing, and the persuasive force of his oratory, to the influence of no other minds: they are the natural fruit of clear perceptions, a penetrating intellect, an observing mind capable of taking a wide and comprehensive view of its subject. Men of varied acquirements and extensive knowledge, but of pedantic taste, are said to talk like books; the writings of Cæsar, on the contrary, are like lively and unconstrained conversation: they have all the reality which constitutes the great charm of his character. He was above affectation, for his was a mind born to lead the age in which he lived, not to think with others merely in deference to established usage and custom; and although his natural vanity and self-confidence led him to set his own character in the most favourable light, his vanity was honest: he had no intention wilfully to deceive. His wonderful memory fitted him for the task of faithfully recording the events in which he himself was an actor; and his power of attention and abstraction, which enabled him to write, converse, and dictate at the same time, shows how valuable must be a work on which were concentrated at once all the energies of his penetrating mind. CHAPTER XII. LIFE OF SALLUST—HIS INSINCERITY—HIS HISTORICAL WORKS—HE WAS A BITTER OPPONENT OF THE NEW ARISTOCRACY—PROFLIGACY OF THAT ORDER—HIS STYLE COMPARED WITH THAT OF THUCYDIDES—HIS VALUE AS AN HISTORIAN—TROGUS POMPEIUS—HIS HISTORIÆ PHILIPPICÆ. C. SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS (BORN B. C. 85.)