time, appears even to us at this day, and might well therefore appear to
his contemporaries, truly astonishing. A distance of one hundred miles
was no extraordinary day's journey for him in a _rheda_, such as we have
described it. So elegant were his habits, and so constant his demand
for the luxurious accommodations of polished life, as it then existed in
Rome, that he is said to have carried with him, as indispensable parts
of his personal baggage, the little lozenges and squares of ivory, and
other costly materials, which were wanted for the tessellated flooring
of his tent. Habits such as these will easily account for his travelling
in a carriage rather than on horseback.
The courtesy and obliging disposition of Cæsar were notorious, and both
were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations
in Rome. Dining on one occasion at a table, where the servants had
inadvertently, for salad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse lamp-oil,
Cæsar would not allow the rest of the company to point out the mistake
to their host, for fear of shocking him too much by exposing the
mistake. At another time, whilst halting at a little _cabaret_, when
one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill, Cæsar resigned to his use
the sole bed which the house afforded. Incidents, as trifling as these,
express the urbanity of Cæsar's nature; and, hence, one is the more
surprised to find the alienation of the senate charged, in no trifling
degree, upon a failure in point of courtesy. Cæsar neglected to rise
from his seat, on their approaching him in a body with an address of
congratulation. It is said, and we can believe it, that he gave deeper
offence by this one defect in a matter of ceremonial observance, than
by all his substantial attacks upon their privileges. What we find it
difficult to believe, however, is not that result from the offence, but
the possibility of the offence itself, from one so little arrogant as
Cæsar, and so entirely a man of the world. He was told of the disgust
which he had given, and we are bound to believe his apology, in which
he charged it upon sickness, which would not at the moment allow him to
maintain a standing attitude. Certainly the whole tenor of his life was
not courteous only, but kind; and, to his enemies, merciful in a
degree which implied so much more magnanimity than men in general could
understand, that by many it was put down to the account of weakness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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