side, and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide."[233] The democracy here means Cæsar. Cæsar during his whole life had been learning that no good could come to any one from an effete Senate, or from republican forms which had lost all their salt. Democracy was in vogue with him; not, as I think, from any philanthropic desire for equality; not from any far-seeing view of fraternal citizenship under one great paternal lord--the study of politics had never then reached to that height--but because it was necessary that some one, or perhaps some two or three, should prevail in the coming struggle, and because he felt himself to be more worthy than others. He had no conscience in the matter. Money was to him nothing. Another man's money was the same as his own--or better, if he could get hold of it. That doctrine taught by Cicero that men are "ad justitiam natos" must have been to him simply absurd. Blood was to him nothing. A friend was better than a foe, and a live man than a dead. Blood-thirstiness was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man, to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. Of courage he had that better sort which can appreciate and calculate danger, and then act as though there were none. Nothing was wrong to him but what was injudicious. He could flatter, cajole, lie, deceive, and rob; nay, would think it folly not to do so if to do so were expedient.[234] In this coalition he appears as supporting and supported by the people. Therefore Mommsen speaks of him as "the democrat." Crassus is called the ally of the democrats. It will be enough for us here to know that Crassus had achieved his position in the Senate by his enormous wealth, and that it was because of his wealth, which was essential to Cæsar, that he was admitted into the league. By means of his wealth he had risen to power and had conquered and killed Spartacus, of the honor and glory of which Pompey robbed him. Then he had been made Consul. When Cæsar had gone as Proprætor to Spain, Crassus had found the money. Now Cæsar had come back, and was hand and glove with Crassus. When the division of the spoil came, some years afterward--the spoil won by the Triumvirate--when Cæsar had half perfected his grand achievements in Gaul, and Crassus had as yet been only a second time Consul, he got himself to be sent into Syria, that by conquering the Parthians he might make himself equal to Cæsar. We know how he and his son perished there, each of them probably avoiding the last extremity of misery to a