During the same year (146 B. C.) when Rome destroyed Carthage, she also destroyed Corinth in Greece, and brought Greece and Macedonia under her sway. She had previously (190 B. C.) defeated Antiochus the Great, and taken from him nearly all his territory in Asia Minor. By the year 58 B. C., Rome had become the most powerful nation in the world and still preserved a republican form of government. In that year, 58 B. C., the man who probably is the most generally regarded as the greatest man who has ever lived, appeared upon the stage of history. His name was Julius Cæsar. He appeared in that year, because he went then from Rome to Gaul, and started on those brilliant and in many respects unprecedented campaigns which have had so profound an effect on history, and which for originality in conception and execution have had no rivals since. At this time, Italy and the lands of Africa and Asia on which Alexander had impressed the civilization of Greece, were prosperous and well-governed; but beyond those countries only barbarous customs prevailed, and only a primitive civilization reigned. The lands that lay north and northwest of Italy, throughout all Gaul, were inhabited by savage tribes that were in a state of continual war with each other. In the southern and middle parts the effects of Roman civilization might be dimly seen; but in the southwestern part, and in the north, especially among the German tribes on the Rhine, and the Belgæ near the North Sea, a condition of virtually pure savagery prevailed. Into such a country Cæsar marched, at the head of a body of men wholly inferior in numbers to those they were to meet, not superior to them in courage or physical strength, but considerably superior to them in discipline, and vastly superior in the weapons and methods that had gradually been invented, with the progress of civilization. Thus, while the Roman machine was superior as a machine to any that the Gauls could bring to bear, it was smaller; so that the question to be decided was whether the superior excellence of the Roman machine was great enough to balance its inferiority in size. Looking back from our vantage ground on the history of the campaigns that followed, we feel inclined to answer the question in the negative, unless we consider Cæsar himself a part of the machine. It is true that the campaigns were decided in favor of the Roman machine; but there seems little ground for doubting that they would not have been so decided, if the genius of Cæsar had not managed the Roman machine and made improvements from time to time.