Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/127

 Historic Problems.

��Ill

��have already quoted. Plutarch was a Greek writer contemporary with Sue- tonius, whose parallel " Lives of Greek and Roman Commanders " are among the most useful and popular of ancient compositions. But Plutarch has very little historical value, and he is regarded as authority only when his statements coincide with those of other writers. In fact, he himself tells us that he does not write history : he writes the lives of great men, with a moral purpose. His life of Julius Caesar is the most imper- fect in the whole series. It is a con- fused jumble of facts snatched from different sources, without order, consis- tency, regularity, or accuracy. The writer seemed to labor like a man under restraint. He skimmed over all of Caesar's great actions, and manifestly showed a satisfaction when he could draw the attention of the reader to other characters and circumstances, however insignificant. Where he de- rived his information concerning the dramatic incident of the great captain's anxious pause on the banks of the Italian river, we do not know ; but this we know, that no reliable historian, contemporary or otherwise, has made mention of it.

The internal evidences are still stronger that Caesar never acted the part ascribed to him on the Rubicon. Caesar was not the man to hesitate after he had once determined on a thing. If he ever possessed doubts at all, they were all settled before he summoned his legions to march out of Cisalpine Gaul. The idea of his stopping in full march, and anxiously weighing the probable consequences of one irremediable step, is not consis- tent with Caesar's character. He had calculated his chances, examined the whole field from every point of view,

��before he left Ravenna. He never undertook an enterprise until he had carefully examined the chances of suc- cess ; and, when once he had deter- mined upon his course, his audacity and his despatch confounded his ene- mies, and his genius overthrew them.

Why should Caesar have paused on the Rubicon ? You answer that he was a rebel marching to enslave his countrj-. But Rome was already enslaved. The Rome of the Fabii and the Comelii was no more. Her republican institu^ tions had been overthrown by Marius, by Sulla, by Pompey. Ten years pre- vious her territories had been parcelled among the triumvirs. Caesar was no upstart rebel. The strife was not be- tween principles or parties, but it was a strife for power between two individuals. That Pompey was the representative of the senatorial party, made it no better for him, but worse ; for it had been the subserviency of the senate that at first paved the way for the dictators and the triumvirs. That Caesar was the rep- resentative of the people, did indeed better his circumstances ; for Rome was free, you say. Pompey and the senate fled: the people welcomed him. Caesar was no rebel then ; or, if a rebel, Pompey was a tyrant. If Pompey was a tyrant, then Caesar, instead of being a base, dis- honorable wretch plotting to overthrow his country, was rather an ardent patriot seeking to deliver her. Surely there was no more need of Cassar pausing on the Rubicon than there was of Washington pausing on the bank of the Delaware, when he was about to attack the Hessians ; and as the latter did not hesitate, we have no reason to believe the other did.

It has been strongly doubted whether Jeanne d'Arc ever suffered the punish- ment that has made her a martyr,

�� �