+His talent for organisation was marvellous.+--No statesman has ever compelled alliances, no general has ever collected an army out of unyielding and refractory elements with such decision, and kept them together with such firmness, as Caesar displayed in constraining and upholding his coalitions and his legions; never did regent judge his instruments and assign each to the place appropriate for him with so accurate an eye. +He was monarch; but he never played the king.+--‘I am no king, but Caesar.’ Even when absolute lord of Rome, he retained the deportment of the party-leader; perfectly pliant and smooth, easy and charming in conversation, complaisant towards everyone, it seemed as if he wished io be nothing but the first among his peers. Caesar ruled as king of Rome for five years and a half, not half as long as Alexander: in the intervals of seven great campaigns, which allowed him to stay not more than fifteen months altogether in the capital of his empire, +he regulated the destinies of the world for the present and the future+. The outlines were laid down, and thereby the new State was defined for all coming time: the boundless future alone could complete the structure. But precisely because the building was an endless one, the master so long as he lived restlessly added stone to stone, with always the same dexterity and always the same elasticity busy at work. Thus he worked and created as never did any man before or after him: and as a worker and creator he still, after well-nigh two thousand years, lives in the memory of the nations--the first and withal unique Imperator Caesar. MOMMSEN. B67 CICERO AND ANTONIUS. A. _Peroration of the Second Philippic, 44 B.C._ Respice, quaeso, aliquando rem publicam, M. Antoni: quibus ortus sis, non quibuscum vivas considera: mecum, uti voles: redi cum re publica in gratiam. Sed de te tu videris: ego de me ipso profitebor. Defendi rem publicam adulescens, non {5} deseram senex: contempsi Catilinae gladios, non pertimescam tuos. Quin etiam corpus libenter obtulerim, si repraesentari morte mea libertas civitatis potest: ut aliquando dolor populi Romani pariat, quod iam diu parturit. Etenim si abhinc {10} annos prope viginti hoc ipso in templo negavi posse mortem immaturam esse consulari, quanto verius nunc negabo seni? Mihi vero, patres conscripti, iam etiam optanda mors est, perfuncto rebus eis quas adeptus sum quasque gessi. Duo modo haec {15} opto: unum, ut moriens populum Romanum liberum relinquam--hoc mihi maius ab dis immortalibus dari nihil potest,--alterum, ut ita cuique eveniat ut de re publica quisque mereatur. CICERO, _Phil._ ii. 46. [Linenotes: 2. +quibus ortus sis+: espec. his grandfather M. Antonius, the famous orator, whom Cicero held in great esteem. 5. +adulescens+, i.e. in 63 B.C., when he was in his 44th year. 8. +repraesentari+ = _be realised, won now and here_. --Jebb. 11. +templo+, i.e. _Concordiae_. Cic. refers to _In Catil._ iv.