The first outbreak of righteous indignation was in the West, and thence the war-cry of freedom spread far and wide. From the plains of Lombardy, it reached the fields of Campania, and was echoed beyond the Apennines. A fit leader sprang to the head of outraged thousands, and pointed to the Alps, telling them that beyond those dazzling heights was a home and a hope for the free. But in vain. To grace the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, a combat of ten thousand gladiators, and eleven thousand wild beasts, was offered to the metropolitans. Spartacus, and six thousand of his rebelling associates were crucified, thus lining the road from Capua to the Capitol with monuments of Roman refinement and power. Julius Cæsar, in the capacity of quæstor, came to Gades (Cadiz), in further Spain, and, not far from the temple of Hercules, beheld the statue of Alexander the Great. Then and there, in that remotest West, he was quickened by the most daring resolution, and immediately returned to Rome, fired with the purpose which soon after leaped the Rubicon and won the world. History records that he caused one important practical application to be made of astronomical science, in the correction of the calendar; this was due to the Alexandrian school, and was executed by the astronomer Sosigenes, who came from Egypt to Rome for the purpose. Thus was that age bounded by divine purpose and human ambition; Cæsar finding his motive to martial conquest on the same remote boundary where Pliny conceived the design of encyclopædic science. Moreover, the sagacious warrior found in the mode of arming and fighting there an improvement which he, with the greatest advantage, introduced into his own army. It was principally to his German auxiliaries, and the more effective mode of warfare he had learned from them, that he believed himself indebted for victory at Pharsalia, the crowning battle of his fortunes. Augustus formed his body-guard out of westerners only, and all succeeding emperors sought more and more to enlist Germans in their armies. The great scale of human destiny ever weighs heaviest in the West.