The Romans as a people belonged to the Mediterranean race, and the great majority, therefore, were short and dark, like the Sicilians of today. Cæsar, however, was tall and fair, with round, well-proportioned limbs and black piercing eyes. His portraits on coins and in sculpture show a spare face with a high, broad forehead inclined to baldness, representing a physique too delicate to sustain the enormous activities of his brain. To the end of his days he paid, perhaps, an excessive attention to his personal appearance, and was especially gratified when the Senate in his honor decreed him the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath; for he found it a means of covering his baldness. There was in his face and manner a frank sympathy that won the hearts of all those that came into close touch with him; and in spite of brutal conquests he developed an expression of gentleness and clemency mentioned by writers of his age. The greatest of his contemporaries was Cicero, who by sheer energy and ability had worked his way to the highest offices, and had rescued the state from a dangerous conspiracy. Though he was a consummate political orator, Cicero’s tastes lay chiefly in the direction of literary and philosophic composition, pleasant country life, and association with intellectual men. Cæsar tried to win him as a political ally; but Cicero and those intimate associates that loved the Republic feared Cæsar’s autocratic methods and ambition. This aloofness of the intellectual class drove Cæsar to seek friends and helpers in the lower ranks of society and among his subordinate military officers. Although a few of these people served him faithfully, the great majority were incompetent to fill the offices that he gave them, and were bent only on shirking duty and enriching themselves. On such a basis no man, however great, can build up a just and efficient system of government. [Illustration: CICERO In the Vatican Museum, Rome] [Illustration: CICERO In the Madrid Museum. Considered the most authentic marble portrait of the great orator] [Illustration: From History of Rome, by G. W. Botsford, The Macmillan Co., Publishers POMPEY] In spite of many admirable qualities Cæsar shared fully in the moral looseness of the age, which set at naught all marriage relations. Not even his friends at Rome, nor friendly kings who gave him their hospitality, could trust their wives to his honor. With Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, he had associated in her capital; but he shocked even his dissolute countrymen by bringing her to Rome and into his own house. _An Imitation of Alexander_ [Illustration: POMPEY’S THEATER (restored) First theater in Rome built of stone]