But there was in his strategy more than a spontaneous brilliancy adequate to rescue him from the difficulties of a position he had not anticipated. In his campaigns we see evidence enough of caution and calculation. Especially in the matter of numerical superiority he was careful not to allow himself any hazards in a decisive engagement. The battle of Pharsalus is the only one in which it is certain that he won a victory with an army inferior in numbers to his opponent. In this case nothing else could have been done, for Pompeius, who was in control of the sea, would have removed his army from Greece if he had been outnumbered. There was but one way of forcing a pitched battle under these circumstances, and it was part of superior strategy to induce an enemy relying on superior numbers to confront troops superior in quality. But such chances Cæsar only took when obliged. There was little of the bravado element in his wars. The situation was outlined beforehand. The almost mathematical result bears witness to the presence of that same type of cool reflection which in the political side of his career makes the founder of the Roman Empire something of an enigma. It is hard to believe that a man can be just as unfeeling and unethical in statesmanship as when he is directing the movements of masses of troops. Cæsar’s genius stands for an abnormal development of intellectual power disciplined to serve the ambitious purposes of a man bent on enjoying personal rule, who, to a unique degree, had measured the capacity of other men and himself. * * * * * CHARLES THE GREAT I INTRODUCTORY Out of the chaos in Western Europe due to the collapse of Roman provincial rule in the fifth century, there came into being various Teutonic states. They all bore the mark of the early tribal organization of the German peoples and took up the work, more or less successfully, of assimilating the orderly elements and traditions of Roman polity. In the Italian peninsula the permanence of these political creations was short-lived, except in the case of the Lombards, who maintained an enduring rule, largely because they adhered to a crude policy of isolation and set well-considered limits to their desire for expansion. In Spain, the Goths, despite the predominance of the Roman provincial element, succeeded, with the help of the Church, in attaining a fairly centralized organization for several centuries until it was swept aside by the irresistible pressure of the Moslem conquest. To the North, in France, which was first of all the seat of various Teutonic peoples, the Franks, under the astute leadership of their tribal monarchs, gradually absorbed all the territory of the old Roman province of Gallia, adding to it the land to the east which had been the home of their ancestors before they had crossed into the Roman province.