But as a man, so far as we can know him,--and if he had any vices, his enemies, the Roman historians, would have dilated upon them,--Hannibal was perhaps, excepting Gustavus Adolphus, the most admirable of all. As a captain he holds equal rank with the others. As a distinguishing mark, we may well call him “The Father of Strategy.” LECTURE III. CÆSAR. Caius Julius Cæsar is the only one of the great captains who trained himself to arms. Alexander, Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, owed their early military training to their fathers, though, indeed, Frederick’s was but the pipe-clay of war. Napoleon got his in the best school in France. Every Roman citizen was, to be sure, trained as a soldier, and Cæsar had had a slight experience in some minor campaigns. But the drilling of the soldier cannot produce the captain. And Cæsar began his military career at an age when that of the others--except Frederick--had ceased. A comparison of ages is interesting. Alexander made his marvellous campaigns between twenty-one and thirty-three years of age. Gustavus Adolphus’ independent military career was from seventeen to thirty-eight, the last two years being those which entitle him to rank with the great captains. Hannibal began at twenty-six and never left the harness till he was forty-five. Napoleon’s wonderful wars began at twenty-seven and ended at forty-six. Frederick opened his Silesian struggles at twenty-nine and closed them at fifty-one; the Seven Years’ War ran from his forty-fifth to his fifty-second year. Cæsar began at forty-two and ended at fifty-five. Thus the only two of the great captains whose best work was done near the fifties were Cæsar and Frederick. Of the others, Hannibal and Gustavus Adolphus were most admirable in the thirties, Napoleon between twenty-seven and thirty-nine, Alexander in the twenties. To take the age of each in the middle of his military career, Alexander and Gustavus were twenty-seven, Hannibal thirty-six, Napoleon thirty-seven, Frederick forty, and Cæsar forty-eight. Or, to place each at the height of his ability, Alexander was twenty-five, Hannibal thirty-four, Gustavus thirty-seven, Napoleon thirty-nine, Frederick forty-five, Cæsar fifty-two. Cæsar’s youth had been that of a young man of the upper-tendom, with a not unusual mixture of high breeding and vices, and was rather inclined to be a dandy,--but one of whom Sulla remarked that “it would be well to have an eye to yonder dandy.” In manhood he can socially be best described as a thorough man of the world, able and attractive; in stirring political life always remarkable for what he did and the way in which he did it.