LIX. There was one Taxiles,[420] who was said to be king of a part of India as large as Egypt, with a rich and fertile soil. He was also a shrewd man, and came and embraced Alexander, saying, "Why should we two fight one another, Alexander, since you have not come to take away from us the water which we drink nor the food which we eat; and these are the only things about which it is worth while for sensible men to fight? As for all other kinds of property, if I have more than you, I am willing to bestow it upon you, or, if you are the richer, I would willingly be placed in your debt by receiving some from you." Alexander was delighted with these words, and giving him his right hand as a pledge of his friendship exclaimed, "Perhaps you suppose that by this arrangement we shall become friends without a contest; but you are mistaken, for I will contend with you in good offices, and will take care that you do not overcome me." Saying thus, they exchanged presents, amongst which Alexander gave Taxiles a thousand talents of coined money. This conduct of his greatly vexed his friends; but caused him to be much more favourably regarded by many of the natives.

After this, Alexander, who had suffered great losses from the Indian mercenary troops who flocked to defend the cities which he attacked, made a treaty of alliance with them in a certain town, and afterwards, as they were going away set upon them while they were on the road and killed them all. This is the greatest blot upon his fame; for in all the rest of his wars, he always acted with good faith as became a king. He was also much troubled by the philosophers who attended him, because they reproached those native princes who joined him, and encouraged the free states to revolt and regain their independence. For this reason, he caused not a few of them to be hanged.

LX. His campaign against king Porus is described at length in his own letters. He tells us that the river Hydaspes[421] ran between the two camps, and that Porus with his elephants watched the further bank, and prevented his crossing. Alexander himself every day caused a great noise and disturbance to be made in his camp, in order that the enemy might be led to disregard his movements: and at last upon a dark and stormy night he took a division of infantry and the best of the cavalry, marched to a considerable distance from the enemy, and crossed over into an island of no great extent. Here he was exposed to a terrible storm of rain, with thunder and lightning; but, although several of his men were struck dead, he pressed on, crossed the island, and gained the furthermost bank of the river. The Hydaspes was flooded by the rain, and the stream ran fiercely down this second branch, while the Macedonians could with difficulty keep their footing upon this slippery and uneven bottom Here it was that Alexander is said to have exclaimed, "O ye Athenians, what toils do I undergo to obtain your praise."

This, however, rests only on the authority of the historian Oneskritus, for Alexander himself relates that they abandoned their rafts, and waded through this second torrent under arms, with the water up to their breasts. After crossing, he himself rode on some twenty furlongs in advance of the infantry, thinking that if the enemy met him with their cavalry alone, he would be able to rout them easily, and that, if they advanced their entire force, before a battle could be begun, he would be joined by his own infantry. And indeed he soon fell in with a thousand horse and sixty war chariots of the enemy, which he routed, capturing all the chariots, and slaying four hundred of the horsemen. Porus now perceived that Alexander himself had crossed the river, and advanced to attack him with all his army, except only a detachment which he left to prevent the Macedonians from crossing the river at their camp. Alexander, alarmed at the great numbers of the enemy, and at their elephants, did not attack their centre, but charged them on the left wing, ordering Koinus to attack them on the right. The enemy on each wing were routed, but retired towards their main body, where the elephants stood. Here an obstinate and bloody contest took place, insomuch that it was the eighth hour of the day before the Indians were finally overcome. These particulars we are told by the chief actor in the battle himself, in his letters. Most historians are agreed that Porus stood four cubits[422] and a span high, and was so big a man that when mounted on his elephant, although it was a very large one, he seemed as well proportioned to the animal as an ordinary man is to a horse. This elephant showed wonderful sagacity and care for its king, as while he was still vigorous it charged the enemy and overthrew them, but when it perceived that he was fainting from his wounds, fearing that he might fall, it quietly knelt on the ground, and then gently drew the spears out of his body with its trunk. When Porus was captured, Alexander asked him how he wished to be treated. "Like a king," answered Porus. Alexander then enquired if he had nothing else to ask about his treatment. "Everything," answered Porus, "is comprised in these words, like a king." Alexander now replaced Porus in his kingdom, with the title of satrap, and also added a large province to it, subduing the independent inhabitants. This country was said to have contained fifteen separate tribes, five thousand considerable cities and innumerable villages; besides another district three times as large, over which he appointed Philippus, one of his personal friends, to be satrap.

LXI. After this battle with Porus, Alexander's horse Boukephalus died, not immediately, but some time afterwards. Most historians say that he died of wounds received in the battle, but Onesikritus tells us that he died of old age and overwork, for he had reached his thirtieth year. Alexander was greatly grieved at his loss, and sorrowed for him as much as if he had lost one of his most intimate friends. He founded a city as a memorial of him upon the banks of the Hydaspes, which he named Boukephalia. It is also recorded that when he lost a favourite dog called Peritas, which he had brought up from a whelp, and of which he was very fond, he founded a city and called it by the dog's name. The historian Sotion tells us that he heard this from Potamon of Lesbos.

LXII. The battle with King Porus made the Macedonians very unwilling to advance farther into India. They had overcome Porus with the greatest difficulty, as he brought against them a force of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, and now offered the most violent opposition to Alexander, who wished to cross the river Ganges. This river, they heard, was thirty-two furlongs wide and a hundred cubits deep, while its further banks were completely covered with armed men, horses and elephants, for it was said that the kings of the Gandaritae and Praesiae were awaiting his attack with an army of eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, eight thousand war chariots, and six thousand elephants; nor was this any exaggeration, for not long afterwards Androkottus, the king of this country, presented five hundred elephants to Seleukus, and overran and subdued the whole of India with an army of six hundred thousand men.

Alexander at first retired to his tent in a rage, and shut himself up there, not feeling any gratitude to those who had prevented his crossing the Ganges, but regarding a retreat as an acknowledgment of defeat. However, after his friends had argued with him, and his soldiers had come to the door of his tent, begging him with tears in their eyes to go no farther, he relented, and gave orders for a retreat. He now contrived many ingenious devices to impress the natives, as, for instance, he caused arms, and bridles and mangers for horses to be made of much more than the usual size, and left them scattered about. He also set up altars, which even to the present day are reverenced by the kings of the Praesiae, who cross the river to them, and offer sacrifice upon them in the Greek fashion. Androkottus himself, who was then a lad, saw Alexander himself and afterwards used to declare that Alexander might easily have conquered the whole country, as the then king was hated by his subjects on account of his mean and wicked disposition.

LXIII. After this, Alexander wishing to see the outer ocean,[423] caused many rafts and vessels managed with oars to be built, and proceeded in a leisurely manner down the Indus. His voyage, however, was not an idle one, nor was it unaccompanied with danger, for as he passed down the river, he disembarked, attacked the tribes on the banks, and subdued them all. When he was among the Malli, who are said to be the most warlike tribe in India, he very nearly lost his life. He was besieging their chief city, and after the garrison had been driven from the walls by volleys of missiles, he was the first man to ascend a scaling ladder and mount the walls. The ladder now broke, so that no more could mount, and as the enemy began to assemble inside at the foot of the wall and shoot up at him from below, Alexander, alone against a host, leaped down amongst them, and by good luck, alighted on his feet. His armour rattled loudly as he leaped, and made the natives think that a bright light was emitted from his body; so that at first they gave way and fled from him. But when they saw that he was attended by only two followers, some of them attacked him at close quarters with swords and spears, while one standing a little way off shot an arrow at him with such force and with such good aim, that it passed through his corslet and imbedded itself in the bones of his breast. As he shrank back when the arrow struck him, the man who had shot it ran up to him with a drawn sword in his hand. Peukestas and Limnaeus now stood before Alexander to protect him. Both were wounded, Limnaeus mortally; but Peukestas managed to stand firm, while Alexander despatched the Indian with his own hand. Alexander was wounded in many places, and at last received a blow on the neck with a club, which forced him to lean his back against the wall, still facing the enemy. The Macedonians now swarmed round him, snatched him up just as he fainted away, and carried him insensible to his tent. A rumour now ran through the camp that he was dead, and his attendants with great difficulty sawed through the wooden shaft of the arrow, and so got off his corslet. They next had to pluck out the barbed head of the arrow, which was firmly fixed in one of his ribs. This arrow-head is said to have measured four fingers-breadths[424] in length, and three in width. When it was pulled out, he swooned away, so that he nearly died, but at length recovered his strength. When he was out of danger, though still very weak, as he had to keep himself under careful treatment for a long time, he heard a disturbance without, and learning that the Macedonians were anxious to see him, took his cloak and went out to them. After sacrificing to the gods for the recovery of his health, he started again on his journey, and passed through a great extent of country and past many considerable cities, all of which he subdued.

LXIV. He captured ten of the Indian philosophers called Gymnosophistae;[425] who had been instrumental in causing Sabbas to revolt, and had done much mischief to the Macedonians. These men are renowned for their short, pithy answers, and Alexander put difficult questions to all of them, telling them that he would first put to death the man who answered him worst, and so the rest in order. The first was asked, whether he thought the living or the dead to be the more numerous. He answered, "The living, for the dead are not."

The second was asked, which breeds the largest animals, the sea or the land. He answered, "The land, for the sea is only a part of it."

The third was asked, which is the cleverest of beasts. He answered, "That which man has not yet discovered."

The fourth was asked why he made Sabbas rebel. He answered, "Because I wished him either to live or to die with honour."

The fifth was asked, which he thought was first, the day or the night. He answered, "The day was first, by one day." As he saw that the king was surprised at this answer, he added, "impossible questions require impossible answers."

Alexander now asked the sixth how a man could make himself most beloved. He answered, "By being very powerful, and yet not feared by his subjects."

Of the remaining three, the first one was asked, how a man could become a god. He answered, "By doing that which is impossible for a man to do."

The next was asked, which was the stronger, life or death. He answered, "Life, because it endures such terrible suffering."

The last, being asked how long it was honourable for a man to live, answered, "As long as he thinks it better for him to live than to die."

Upon this Alexander turned to the judge and asked him to pronounce his decision. He said that they had answered each one worse than the other. "Then," said Alexander, "you shall yourself be put to death for having given such a verdict." "Not so," said he, "O king, unless you mean to belie your own words, for you said at the beginning that you would put to death him who gave the worst answer."

LXV. Alexander now gave them presents and dismissed them unhurt. He also sent Onesikritus to the most renowned of them, who lived a life of serene contemplation, desiring that they would come to him. This Onesikritus was a philosopher of the school of Diogenes the cynic. One of the Indians, named Kalanus, is said to have received him very rudely, and to have proudly bidden him to take off his clothes and speak to him naked, as otherwise he would not hold any conversation with him, even if he came from Zeus himself. Dandamis, another of the Gymnosophists, was of a milder mood, and when he had been told of Sokrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes, said that they appeared to him to have been wise men, but to have lived in too great bondage to the laws. Other writers say that Dandamis said nothing more than "For what purpose has Alexander come all the way hither?" However, Taxiles persuaded Kalanus to visit Alexander. His real name was Sphines: but as in the Indian tongue he saluted all he met with the word 'Kale,' the Greeks named him Kalanus. This man is said to have shown to Alexander a figure representing his empire, in the following manner. He flung on the ground a dry, shrunken hide, and then trod upon the outside of it, but when he trod it down in one place, it rose up in all the others. He walked all round the edge of it, and showed that this kept taking place until at length he stepped into the middle, and so made it all lie flat. This image was intended to signify that Alexander ought to keep his strength concentrated in the middle of his empire, and not wander about on distant journeys.

LXVI. Alexander's voyage down the Indus and its tributaries, to the sea-coast, took seven months. On reaching the ocean he sailed to an island which he himself called Skillustis, but which was generally known as Psiltukis. Here he landed and sacrificed to the gods, after which he explored the sea and the coast as far as he could reach. Having done this, he turned back, after praying to the gods that no conqueror might ever transcend this, the extreme limit of his conquests. He ordered his fleet to follow the line of the coast, keeping India on their right hand: and he gave Nearchus the supreme command, with Onesikritus as chief pilot. He, himself, marched through the country of the Oreitae, where he endured terrible sufferings from scarcity of provisions, and lost so many men that he scarcely brought back home from India the fourth part of his army, which originally amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse. Most of the men perished from sickness, bad food, and the excessive heat of the sun, and many from sheer hunger, as they had to march through an uncultivated region, inhabited only by a few miserable savages, with a stunted breed of cattle whose flesh had acquired a rank and disagreeable taste through their habit of feeding on sea-fish.

After a terrible march of sixty days, the army passed through this desert region, and reached Gedrosia, where the men at once received abundant supplies of food, which were furnished by the chiefs of the provinces which they entered.

LXVII. After he had refreshed his troops here for a little, Alexander led them in a joyous revel for seven days through Karmania.[426] He, himself, feasted continually, night and day, with his companions, who sat at table with him upon a lofty stage drawn by eight horses, so that all men could see them. After the king's equipage followed numberless other waggons, some with hangings of purple and embroidered work, and others with canopies of green boughs, which were constantly renewed, containing the rest of Alexander's friends and officers, all crowned with flowers and drinking wine. There was not a shield, a helmet, or a pike, to be seen, but all along the road the soldiers were dipping cups, and horns, and earthenware vessels into great jars of liquor and drinking one another's healths, some drinking as they marched along, while others sat by the roadside. Everywhere might be heard the sound of flutes and pipes, and women singing and dancing; while with all this dissolute march the soldiers mingled rough jokes, as if the god Dionysus himself were amongst them and attended on their merry procession. At the capital of Gedrosia, Alexander again halted his army, and refreshed them with feasting and revelry. It is said that he himself, after having drunk hard, was watching a contest between several choruses, and that his favourite Bagoas won the prize, and then came across the theatre and seated himself beside him, dressed as he was and wearing his crown as victor. The Macedonians, when they saw this, applauded vehemently, and cried out to Alexander to kiss him, until at length he threw his arms round him and kissed him.

LXVIII. He was now much pleased at being joined by Nearchus and his officers, and took so much interest in their accounts of their voyage, that he wished to sail down the Euphrates himself with a great fleet, and then to coast round Arabia and Libya, and so enter the Mediterranean sea through the pillars of Herakles.[427] He even began to build many ships at Thapsakus, and to collect sailors and pilots from all parts of the world, but the severe campaigns which he had just completed in India, the wound which he had received among the Malli, and the great losses which his army had sustained in crossing the desert, had made many of his subjects doubt whether he was ever likely to return alive, and had encouraged them to revolt, while his absence had led many of his satraps and viceroys to act in an extremely arbitrary and despotic manner, so that his whole empire was in a most critical condition, and full of conspiracies and seditious risings. Olympias and Kleopatra[428] had attacked and driven out Antipater, and had divided the kingdom between themselves, Olympias taking Epirus, and Kleopatra Macedonia. When Alexander heard this, he said that his mother had proved herself the wiser of the two; for the Macedonians never would endure to be ruled by a woman. He now sent Nearchus back to the sea, determining to make war all along the coast, and coming down in person to punish the most guilty of his officers. He killed Oxyartes, one of the sons of Abouletes (the satrap of Susiana) with his own hands, with a sarissa or Macedonian pike. Abouletes had made no preparations to receive Alexander, but offered him three thousand talents of silver. Alexander ordered the money to be thrown down for the horses; and as they could not eat it, he said "What is the use of your having prepared this for me?" and ordered Abouletes to be cast into prison.

LXIX. While Alexander was in Persis[429] he first renewed the old custom that whenever the king came there he should give every woman a gold piece. On account of this custom we are told that many of the Persian kings came but seldom to Persis, and that Ochus never came at all, but exiled himself from his native country through his niggardliness. Shortly afterwards Alexander discovered that the sepulchre of Cyrus had been broken into, and put the criminal to death, although he was a citizen of Pella[430] of some distinction, named Polemarchus. When he had read the inscription upon the tomb, he ordered it to be cut in Greek letters also. The inscription ran as follows: "O man, whosoever thou art, and whencesoever thou comest—for I know that thou shalt come—I am Cyrus, who won the empire for the Persians. I pray thee, do not grudge me this little earth that covereth my body." These words made a deep impression upon Alexander, and caused him to meditate upon the uncertainty and changefulness of human affairs. About this time, Kalanus, who had for some days been suffering from some internal disorder, begged that a funeral pile might be erected for him. He rode up to it on horseback, said a prayer, poured a libation for himself and cut off a lock of his own hair, as is usual at a sacrifice, and then, mounting the pile, shook hands with those Macedonians who were present, bidding them be of good cheer that day, and drink deep at the king's table. He added, that he himself should shortly see the king at Babylon. Having spoken thus he lay down and covered himself over. He did not move when the fire reached him, but remained in the same posture until he was consumed, thus sacrificing himself to the gods after the manner of the Indian philosophers. Many years afterwards another Indian, a friend of Caesar, did the like in the city of Athens; and at the present day his sepulchre is shown under the name of "the Indian's tomb."

LXX. After Alexander left the funeral pyre, he invited many of his friends and chief officers to dinner, and offered a prize to the man who could drink most unmixed wine. Promachus, who won it, drank as much as four choes.[431] He was presented with a golden crown worth a talent, and lived only three days afterwards. Of the others, Chares, the historian, tells us that forty-one died of an extreme cold that came upon them in their drunkenness.

Alexander now celebrated the marriage of many of his companions at Susa. He himself married Statira, the daughter of Darius, and bestowed the noblest of the Persian ladies upon the bravest of his men. He gave a splendid banquet on the occasion of his marriage, inviting to it not only all the newly married couples, but all those Macedonians who were already married to Persian wives. It is said that nine thousand guests were present at this feast, and that each of them was presented with a golden cup to drink his wine in. Alexander entertained them in all other respects with the greatest magnificence, and even paid all the debts of his guests, so that the whole expense amounted to nine thousand eight hundred and seventy talents. On this occasion, Antigenes the one-eyed got his name inscribed on the roll as a debtor, and produced a man who said that he was his creditor. He received the amount of his alleged debt, but his deceit was afterwards discovered by Alexander, who was much enraged, banished him from his court, and took away his command. This Antigenes was a very distinguished soldier. When Philip, was besieging Perinthus, Antigenes, who was then very young, was struck in the eye with a dart, and would not allow his friends to pull it out, nor leave the fight, before he had driven back the enemy into the city. He now was terribly cast down at his disgrace, and made no secret of his intention of making away with himself. The king, fearing that he would carry out his threat, pardoned him, and permitted him to keep the money.

LXXI. Alexander was much pleased with the appearance of the three thousand youths whom he had left to be trained in the Greek manner, who had now grown into strong and handsome men, and showed great skill and activity in the performance of military exercises; but the Macedonians were very discontented, and feared that their king would now have less need for them. When Alexander sent those of them who were sick or maimed back to the sea coast, they said that it was disgraceful treatment that he should send these poor men home to their country and their parents in disgrace, and in worse case than when they set out, after he had had all the benefit of their services. They bade him send them all home, and regard them all as unserviceable, since he had such a fine troop of young gallants at his disposal to go and conquer the world with. Alexander was much vexed at this. He savagely reproached the soldiers, dismissed all his guards, and replaced them with Persians, whom he appointed as his body-guards and chamberlains. When the Macedonians saw him attended by these men, and found themselves shut out from his presence, they were greatly humbled, and after discussing the matter together they became nearly mad with rage and jealousy. At last they agreed to go to his tent without their arms, dressed only in their tunics, and there with weeping and lamentation offered themselves to him and bade him deal with them as with ungrateful and wicked men. Alexander, although he was now inclined to leniency, refused to receive them, but they would not go away, and remained for two days and nights at the door of his tent lamenting and calling him their sovereign. On the third day he came out, and when he saw them in such a pitiable state of abasement, he wept for some time. He then gently blamed them for their conduct, and spoke kindly to them. He gave splendid presents to all the invalids, and dismissed them, writing at the same time to Antipater with orders, that in every public spectacle these men should sit in the best places in the theatre or the circus with garlands on their heads. The orphan children of those who had fallen he took into his own service.

LXXII. After Alexander was come to the city of Ekbatana in Media, and had despatched the most weighty part of his business there, he gave himself up entirely to devising magnificent spectacles and entertainments, with the aid of three thousand workmen, whom he had sent for from Greece. During this time, Hephaestion fell sick of a fever, and being a young man, and accustomed to a soldier's life, did not put himself upon a strict diet and remain quiet as he ought to have done. As soon as Glaukus, his physician, left him to go to the theatre, he ate a boiled fowl for his breakfast, and drank a large jar of cooled wine. Upon this he was immediately taken worse, and very shortly afterwards died.

Alexander's grief for him exceeded all reasonable measure. He ordered the manes of all the horses and mules to be cut off in sign of mourning, he struck off the battlements of all the neighbouring cities, crucified the unhappy physician, and would not permit the flute or any other musical instrument to be played throughout his camp, until a response came from the oracle of Ammon bidding him honour Hephaestion and offer sacrifice to him as to a hero.[432] To assuage his grief he took to war, and found consolation in fighting and man-hunting. He conquered the tribe called Kossaei, and slew their entire male population, which passed for an acceptable offering to the manes of Hephaestion. He now determined to spend ten thousand talents[433] on the funeral and tomb of Hephaestion; and as he wished to exceed the cost by the ingenuity and brilliancy of invention shown in this spectacle, he chose Stasikrates out of all his mechanicians to arrange it, as he was thought to be able both to devise with grandeur and to execute with skill.

He on one occasion before this, when conversing with Alexander, told him that of all mountains in the world Mount Athos in Thrace was that which could most easily be carved into the figure of a man; and that, if Alexander would give him the order, he would form Athos into the most magnificent and durable monument of him that the world had ever seen, as he would represent him as holding in his left hand the city of Myriandrus, and with his right pouring, as a libation, a copious river into the sea. Alexander would not, indeed, adopt this suggestion, but was fond of discussing much more wonderful and costly designs than this with his engineers.

LXXIII. Just as Alexander was on the point of starting for Babylon, Nearchus, who had returned with his fleet up the Euphrates, met him, and informed him that some Chaldaeans had warned Alexander to avoid Babylon. He took no heed of this warning, but went his way. When he drew near the walls he saw many crows flying about and pecking at one another, some of whom fell to the ground close beside him. After this, as he heard that Apollodorus, the governor of Babylon, had sacrificed to the gods to know what would happen to Alexander, he sent for Pythagoras, the soothsayer, who had conducted the sacrifice, to know if this were true. The soothsayer admitted that it was, on which Alexander inquired what signs he had observed in the sacrifice. Pythagoras answered that the victim's liver wanted one lobe. "Indeed!" exclaimed Alexander, "that is a terrible omen." He did Pythagoras no hurt, but regretted that he had not listened to the warning of Nearchus, and spent most of his time in his camp outside the walls of Babylon, or in boats on the river Euphrates. Many unfavourable omens now depressed his spirit. A tame ass attacked and kicked to death the finest and largest lion that he kept; and one day, as he stripped to play at tennis, the young man with whom he played, when it was time to dress again, saw a man sitting on the king's throne, wearing his diadem and royal robe. For a long time this man refused to speak, but at length said that he was a citizen of Messene, named Dionysius, who had been brought to Babylon and imprisoned on some charge or other, and that now the god Serapis had appeared to him, loosed his chains, and had brought him thither, where he had bidden him to put on the king's diadem and robe, seat himself on his throne, and remain silent.

LXXIV. When Alexander heard this, he caused the man to be put to death, according to the advice of his soothsayers; but he himself was much cast down, and feared that the gods had forsaken him: he also grew suspicious of his friends. Above all he feared Antipater and his sons, one of whom, Iolas, was his chief cup-bearer, while the other, Kassander, had but recently arrived from Greece, and as he had been trained in the Greek fashion, and had never seen any Oriental customs before, he burst into a loud, insolent laugh, when he saw some of the natives doing homage to Alexander. Alexander was very angry, and seizing him by the hair with both hands, beat his head against the wall. Another time he stopped Kassander, when he was about to say something to some men who were accusing his father, Antipater. "Do you imagine" said he, "that these men would have journeyed so far merely in order to accuse a man falsely, if they had not been wronged by him?" When Kassander answered, that it looked very like a false accusation for a man to journey far from the place where his proofs lay, Alexander said with a laugh, "This is how Aristotle teaches his disciples to argue on either side of the question; but if any of you be proved to have wronged these men ever so little, you shall smart for it." It is related that after this, terror of Alexander became so rooted in the mind of Kassander, that many years afterwards, when Kassander was king of Macedonia, and lord of all Greece, he was walking about in Delphi looking at the statues, and that when he saw that of Alexander he was seized with a violent shuddering; his hair stood upright on his head, and his body quaked with fear, so that it was long before he regained his composure.

LXXV. After Alexander had once lost his confidence and become suspicious and easily alarmed, there was no circumstance so trivial that he did not make an omen of it, and the palace was full of sacrifices, lustrations, and soothsayers. So terrible a thing is disbelief in the gods and contempt for them on the one hand, while superstition and excessive reverence for them presses on men's guilty consciences like a torrent of water[434] poured upon them. Thus was Alexander's mind filled with base and cowardly alarms. However when the oracular responses of the gods about Hephaestion were reported to him, he laid aside his grief somewhat, and again indulged in feasts and drinking bouts. He entertained Nearchus and his friends magnificently, after which he took a bath, and then, just as he was going to sleep, Medius invited him to a revel at his house. He drank there the whole of the following day, when he began to feel feverish: though he did not drink up the cup of Herakles at a draught, or suddenly feel a pain as of a spear piercing his body, as some historians have thought it necessary to write, in order to give a dramatic fitness and dignity to the end of so important a personage. Aristobulus tells us that he became delirious through fever, and drank wine to quench his thirst, after which he became raving mad, and died on the thirtieth day of the month Daisius.

LXXVI. In his own diary his last illness is described thus: "On the eighteenth day of Daisius he slept in the bath-room, because he was feverish. On the following day after bathing he came into his chamber and spent the day playing at dice with Medius. After this he bathed late in the evening, offered sacrifice to the gods, dined, and suffered from fever during the night. On the twentieth he bathed and sacrificed as usual, and while reclining in his bath-room he conversed with Nearchus and his friends, listening to their account of their voyage, and of the Great Ocean. On the twenty-first he did the same, but his fever grew much worse, so that he suffered much during the night, and next day was very ill. On rising from his bed he lay beside the great plunge-bath, and conversed with his generals about certain posts which were vacant in his army, bidding them choose suitable persons to fill them. On the twenty-fourth, although very ill, he rose and offered sacrifice; and he ordered his chief officers to remain near him, and the commanders of brigades and regiments to pass the night at his gate. On the twenty-fifth he was carried over the river to the other palace, and slept a little, but the fever did not leave him. When his generals came to see him he was speechless, and remained so during the twenty-fifth, so that the Macedonians thought that he was dead. They clamoured at his palace gates, and threatened the attendants until they forced their way in. When the gates were thrown open they all filed past his bed one by one, dressed only in their tunics. On this day Python and Seleukus, who had been to the temple of Serapis, enquired whether they should bring Alexander thither. The god answered that they must leave him alone. The eight and twentieth day of the month, towards evening, Alexander died."

LXXVII. Most of the above is copied, word for word, from Alexander's household diary. No one had any suspicion of poison at the time; but it is said that six years after there appeared clear proof that he was poisoned, and that Olympias put many men to death, and caused the ashes of Iolas, who had died in the mean time, to be cast to the winds, as though he had administered the poison to Alexander.

Some writers say that Antipater was advised by Aristotle to poison Alexander, and inform us that one Hagnothemis declared that he had been told as much by Antipater; and that the poison was as cold as ice, and was gathered like dew, from a certain rock near the city of Nonakris, and preserved in the hoof of an ass: for no other vessel could contain it, because it is so exceedingly cold and piercing. Most historians, however, think that the whole story of Alexander's being poisoned was a fiction; and this view is strongly supported by the fact, that as Alexander's generals began to fight one another immediately after his death, his body lay for many days unheeded, in hot and close rooms, and yet showed no signs of decay, but remained sweet and fresh. Roxana, who was pregnant, was regarded with great respect by the Macedonians, and being jealous of Statira, she sent her a forged letter, purporting to come from Alexander and asking her to come to him. When Statira came, Roxana killed both her and her sister, cast their bodies down a well, and filled up the well with earth. Her accomplice in this crime was Perdikkas, who on the death of Alexander at once became a very powerful man. He sheltered his authority under the name of Arrhidaeus, who became the nominal, while Perdikkas was the virtual king of Macedonia. This Arrhidaeus was the son of Philip by a low and disreputable woman named Philinna, and was half-witted in consequence of some bodily disorder with which he was afflicted. This disease was not congenital nor produced by natural causes, for he had been a fine boy and showed considerable ability, but Olympias endeavoured to poison him, and destroyed his intellect by her drugs.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 394: On the subject of serpent worship, see in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' art.: 'Serpent,' and 'Brazen Serpent.']

[Footnote 395: The Greek month Hekatombaeon answers to the last half of our July and the first half of August.]

[Footnote 396: Cf. Horace, Carm. iii. 22.]

[Footnote 397: Reciters of epic poems, the cantos of which were called 'rhapsodies.']

[Footnote 398: The same indifference to athletic sports, as practised in Greece, is mentioned in the Life of Philopoemen. The pankratium is sometimes called the pentathlum, and consisted of five contests, the foot-race, leaping, throwing the quoit, hurling the javelin, and wrestling. No one received the prize unless he was winner in all. In earlier times boxing was part of the pentathlum, but hurling the javelin was afterwards substituted for it.]

[Footnote 399: In Greek, this word is properly applied to the slave whose duty it was to attend a boy to and from school, and generally to keep him out of mischief. He was not supposed to teach him.]

[Footnote 400: The literal meaning of this word is "bull's head." It is conjectured that this refers to the mark with which the horse was branded, not to his appearance.]

[Footnote 401: I believe that the seal here mentioned was Philip's own, and in no sense the "great seal of the kingdom," although Strabo speaks of the public seal of a state.]

[Footnote 402: A tribe in the eastern part of Macedonia.]

[Footnote 403: Near Chaeronea.]

[Footnote 404: It must be remembered that the ancients, although they possessed chairs, always ate and drank reclining upon couches.]

[Footnote 405: The Karians, ever since the siege of Troy, were regarded by the Greeks with the greatest contempt Cf. Il. ix. 378.]

[Footnote 406: Bacchus. Compare the Bacchae of Euripides, passim.]

[Footnote 407: For a description of the Macedonian phalanx, see life of Titus Flaminius, ch. viii., note.]

[Footnote 408: This inscription was no doubt written over such spoils as were placed in the Greek temples. Compare Virgil's "AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma."]

[Footnote 409: When the wind blew from the south, this road was covered by such a depth of water as to be impracticable: for some time before he reached the spot the wind had blown strong from the south—but as he came near, the special providence of the gods (so he and his friends conceived it) brought on a change of wind to the north, so that the sea receded and left an available passage, though his soldiers had the water up to their waists. Grote's History of Greece, Part II. ch. xcii.]

[Footnote 410: See Smith's 'Biographical Dictionary' s.v.]

[Footnote 411: This dye was probably made from the murex or purple fish, caught in the Hermionic gulf, in Argolis, which produced a dye only second to that of Tyre.]

[Footnote 412: "No certainty is attainable about the ancient geography of these regions. Mr. Long's Map of Ancient Persia shows how little can be made out." (Grote's 'History of Greece,' part ii. chap. cxiii., note.)]

[Footnote 413: Lykus in Greek signifies a wolf.]

[Footnote 414: In Persepolis, the capital of the district called Persis.]

[Footnote 415: The ancients, whose bodies were anointed with oil or unguents, used dust when wrestling, to enable them to hold one another.]

[Footnote 416: The Sea of Azof.]

[Footnote 417: Antipater had been left by Alexander as his viceroy in Macedonia.]

[Footnote 418: The word which I have translated 'striped' is mentioned by Xenophon in the Cyropaedia as one of the ensigns of royalty assumed by Cyrus.]

[Footnote 419: Probably Cabul or Ghuznee. The whole geography of Alexander's Asiatic campaigns will be found most exhaustively discussed in Grote's 'History of Greece,' part ii. ch. xcii., s. 99.]

[Footnote 420: The same name occurs in the Life of Sulla, c. 15, and Life of Lucullus, c. 26.]

[Footnote 421: The river Jhelum in the Punjaub.]

[Footnote 422: A cubit is the space from the point of the elbow to that of the little finger: a span is the space one can stretch over with the thumb and the little finger.]

[Footnote 423: As distinguished from the Mediterranean. The ancients gave the name of ocean to the sea by which they believed that their world was surrounded.]

[Footnote 424: [Greek: daktylos], the shortest Greek measure, a finger's breadth, about 7/20 of an inch. The modern Greek seamen measure the distance of the sun from the horizon by fingers' breadths. Newton's 'Halicarnassus.' (Liddell & Scott, s.v.)]

[Footnote 425: So called from their habit of going entirely naked. One of them is said by Arrian to have said to Alexander. "You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that you abandon your home like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardships yourself, and inflicting hardships on others." (Arrian, vii, 1, 8.)]

[Footnote 426: To recompense his soldiers for their recent distress, the king conducted them for seven days in drunken bacchanalian procession through Karmania, himself and all his friends taking part in the revelry; an imitation of the jovial festivity and triumph with which the god Dionysus had marched back from the conquest of India. (Grote's 'History of Greece,' part ii. ch. xciv.)]

[Footnote 427: The straits of Gibraltar.]

[Footnote 428: Her daughter, Alexander's sister.]

[Footnote 429: The district known to the ancients as Persis or Persia proper, corresponds roughly to the modern province of Fars. Its capital city was Persepolis, near the modern city of Schiraz.]

[Footnote 430: The capital of Macedonia, Alexander's native city.]

[Footnote 431: [Greek: chous] a liquid measure containing 12 [Greek: kotulai] of 5.46 pints apiece.]

[Footnote 432: The Greek word hero means a semi-divine personage, who was worshipped, though with less elaborate ritual than a god.]

[Footnote 433: L2,300,000. Grote, following Diodorus, raises the total even higher, to twelve thousand talents, or L2,760,000. "History of Greece," part ii. ch. xciv.]

[Footnote 434: The Greek text here is corrupt. I have endeavoured to give what appears to have been Plutarch's meaning.]



LIFE OF C. CAESAR.

I.[435] When Sulla got possession of the supreme power, he confiscated the marriage portion of Cornelia[436] the daughter of Cinna[437] who had once enjoyed the supremacy in Rome, because he could not either by promises or threats induce Caesar to part with her. The cause of the enmity between Caesar and Sulla was Caesar's relationship to Marius; for the elder Marius was the husband of Julia the sister of Caesar's father, and Julia was the mother of the younger Marius, who was consequently Caesar's cousin. Caesar was not content with being let alone by Sulla, who was at first fully occupied with the proscriptions and other matters, but he presented himself to the people as a candidate for a priesthood,[438] though he had hardly arrived at man's estate. But Sulla by his opposition contrived to exclude him from this office, and even thought of putting him to death; and when some observed that there was no reason in putting to death such a youth, Sulla observed, that they had no sense if they did not see many Marii in this boy. These words were conveyed to Caesar, who thereupon concealed himself by wandering about for some time in the Sabine country. On one occasion when he was changing his place of abode on account of sickness, he fell in by night with the soldiers of Sulla who were scouring those parts and seizing on those who were concealed. But Caesar got away by giving Cornelius,[439] who was in command of the soldiers, two talents, and going straightway down to the coast he took ship and sailed to Bithynia to King Nicomedes,[440] with whom he stayed no long time. On his voyage from Bithynia, he was captured near the island Pharmacusa[441] by pirates,[442] who at that time were in possession of the seas with a powerful force and numerous ships.

II. The pirates asked Caesar twenty talents for his ransom, on which he laughed at them for not knowing who their prize was, and he promised to give them fifty talents. While he dispatched those about him to various cities to raise the money, he was left with one friend and two attendants among these Cilician pirates, who were notorious for their cruelty, yet he treated them with such contempt that whenever he was lying down to rest, he would send to them and order them to be quiet. He spent eight and thirty days among them, not so much like a prisoner as a prince surrounded by his guards, and he joined in their sports and exercises with perfect unconcern. He also wrote poems and some speeches which he read to them, and those who did not approve of his compositions he would call to their faces illiterate fellows and barbarians, and he would often tell them with a laugh that he would hang them all. The pirates were pleased with his manners, and attributed this freedom of speech to simplicity and a mirthful disposition. As soon as the ransom came from Miletus and Caesar had paid it and was set at liberty, he manned some vessels in the port of Miletus and went after the pirates, whom he found still on the island, and he secured most of them. All their property he made his booty; but the pirates, he lodged in prison at Pergamum, and then went to Junius,[443] who, as governor of the provinces of Asia, was the proper person to punish the captives. But as the governor was casting a longing eye on the booty, which was valuable, and said he would take time to consider about the captives, Caesar without more ado, left him and going straight to Pergamum took all the pirates out of prison and crucified them, as he had often told them he would do in the island when they thought he was merely jesting.

III. Sulla's power was now declining, and Caesar's friends in Rome recommended him to return. However, he first made a voyage to Rhodus in order to have the instruction of Apollonius the son of Molon,[444] of whom Cicero also was a hearer. This Apollonius was a distinguished rhetorician, and had the reputation of being a man of a good disposition. Caesar is said to have had a great talent for the composition of discourses on political matters, and to have cultivated it most diligently, so as to obtain beyond dispute the second rank; his ambition to be first in power and arms, made him from want of leisure give up the first rank, to which his natural talents invited him, and consequently his attention to military matters and political affairs by which he got the supreme power, did not allow him to attain perfection in oratory. Accordingly at a later period, in his reply to Cicero about Cato,[445] he deprecates all comparison between the composition of a soldier and the eloquence of an accomplished orator who had plenty of leisure to prosecute his studies.

IV. On his return to Rome he impeached[446] Dolabella[447] for maladministration in his province, and many of the cities of Greece gave evidence in support of the charge. Dolabella, indeed, was acquitted; but to make some return to the Greeks for their zeal in his behalf, Caesar assisted them in their prosecution of Publius Antonius[448] for corruption before Marcus Lucullus, the governor of Macedonia; and his aid was so effectual that Antonius appealed to the tribunes, alleging that he had not a fair trial in Greece with the Greeks for his accusers. At Rome Caesar got a brilliant popularity by aiding at trials with his eloquence; and he gained also much good will by his agreeable mode of saluting people and his pleasant manners, for he was more attentive to please than persons usually are at that age. He was also gradually acquiring political influence by the splendour of his entertainments and his table and of his general mode of living. At first those who envied him, thinking that when his resources failed his influence would soon go, did not concern themselves about his flourishing popularity: but at last when his political power had acquired strength and had become difficult to overthrow and was manifestly tending to bring about a complete revolution, they perceived that no beginnings should be considered too small to be capable of quickly becoming great by uninterrupted endurance and having no obstacle to their growth by reason of being despised. Cicero, who is considered to have been the first to suspect and to fear the smiling surface[449] of Caesar's policy, as a man would the smiling smoothness of a sea, and who observed the bold and determined character which was concealed under a friendly and joyous exterior, said that in all his designs and public measures he perceived a tyrannical purpose; "but on the other hand," said he, "when I look at his hair, which is arranged with so much care, and see him scratching his head with one finger,[450] I cannot think that such a wicked purpose will ever enter into this man's mind as the overthrow of the Roman State." This, however, belongs to a later period.

V. He received the first proof of the good will of the people towards him when he was a competitor against Caius Popilius for a military tribuneship,[451] and was proclaimed before him. He received a second and more conspicuous evidence of popular favour on the occasion of the death of Julia[452] the wife of Marius, when Caesar, who was her nephew, pronounced over her a splendid funeral oration in the Forum, and at the funeral ventured to exhibit the images[453] of Marius, which were then seen for the first time since the administration of Sulla, for Marius and his son had been adjudged enemies. Some voices were raised against Caesar on account of this display, but the people responded by loud shouts, and received him with clapping of hands, and admiration, that he was bringing back as from the regions of Hades, after so long an interval, the glories of Marius to the city. Now it was an ancient Roman usage to pronounce funeral orations[454] over elderly women, but it was not customary to do it in the case of young women, and Caesar set the first example by pronouncing a funeral oration over his deceased wife, which brought him some popularity and won the many by sympathy to consider him a man of a kind disposition and full of feeling. After the funeral of his wife he went to Iberia as quaestor to the Praetor Vetus,[455] for whom he always showed great respect, and whose son he made his own quaestor when he filled the office of Praetor. After his quaestorship he married for his third wife Pompeia[456] he had by his wife Cornelia a daughter, who afterwards married Pompeius Magnus. Owing to his profuse expenditure (and indeed men generally supposed that he was buying at a great cost a short-lived popularity, though in fact he was purchasing things of the highest value at a low price) it is said that before he attained any public office he was in debt to the amount of thirteen hundred talents. Upon being appointed curator of the Appian Road,[457] he laid out upon it a large sum of his own; and during his aedileship[458] he exhibited three hundred and twenty pair of gladiators, and by his liberality and expenditure on the theatrical exhibitions, the processions, and the public entertainments, he completely drowned all previous displays, and put the people in such a humour, that every man was seeking for new offices and new honours to requite him with.

VI. There were at this time two parties in the State, that of Sulla, which was all-powerful, and that of Marius, which was cowed and divided and very feeble. It was Caesar's object to strengthen and gain over the party of Marius, and accordingly, when the ambitious splendour of his aedileship was at its height, he had images of Marius secretly made, and triumphal Victories, which he took by night and set up on the Capitol. At daybreak the people seeing the images glittering with gold, and exquisitely laboured by art (and there were inscriptions also which declared the Cimbrian victories of Marius), were in admiration at the boldness of him who had placed them there, for it was no secret who it was, and the report quickly circulating through the city, brought everybody to the spot to see. Some exclaimed that Caesar had a design to make himself tyrant, which appeared by his reviving those testimonials of honour which had been buried in the earth by laws and decrees of the senate, and that it was done to try if the people, who were already tampered with, were tamed to his purpose by his splendid exhibitions, and would allow him to venture on such tricks and innovations. But the partisans of Marius, encouraging one another, soon collected in surprising numbers, and filled the Capitol with their noise. Many also shed tears of joy at seeing the likeness of Marius, and Caesar was highly extolled as the only man worthy to be a kinsman of Marius. The senate being assembled about these matters, Catulus Lutatius, who had at that time the greatest name of any man in Rome, got up, and charging Caesar, uttered that memorable expression: "Caesar, no longer are you taking the state by underground approaches, but by storming engines." Caesar spoke in reply to this charge, and satisfied the senate, on which his admirers were still more elated, and urged him not to abate of his pretensions for any one: with the favour of the people, they said, he would soon get the better of all, and be the first man in the State.

VII. About this time Metellus,[459] the Pontifex Maximus, died, and though Isauricus and Catulus were candidates for the priesthood, which was a great object of ambition, and were men of the highest rank and greatest influence in the senate, Caesar would not give way to them, but he presented himself to the people as a competitor. The favour of the people appearing equally divided, Catulus, as the more distinguished candidate, being more afraid of the uncertainty of the event, sent and offered Caesar a large sum of money if he would retire from his canvass; but Caesar replied that he would stand it out even if he had to borrow still more. On the day of the election, his mother, with tears, accompanied him to the door, when Caesar embracing her, said, "Mother, to-day you shall see your son either Pontifex Maximus, or an exile." After the voting was over, which was conducted with great spirit, Caesar prevailed, a circumstance which alarmed the senate and the nobles, who feared that he would lead on the people to the boldest measures. Accordingly, Piso and Catulus blamed Cicero for having spared Caesar, who, in the matter of Catiline's[460] conspiracy, had given him a handle. Now Catiline designed not only to alter the form of government, but to subvert the whole Commonwealth, and throw all into confusion, but he was ejected from the city on being convicted of some minor charges, and before the extent of his designs was discovered. He left behind him in the city Lentulus and Cethegus, to carry his plans into execution. It is uncertain if Caesar secretly lent them any countenance and aid, but when they were completely convicted in the senate, and Cicero the consul put it to each senator to give his opinion on their punishment, all who spoke declared for death till it came to Caesar's turn to speak. Caesar rose and delivered a studied oration, to the effect that it was not consistent with the constitution, nor was it just to put to death without a trial men distinguished for their high character and their family, unless there was the most urgent necessity; and he added that, if they were imprisoned in the Italian cities which Cicero himself might choose, until the war against Catiline was brought to an end, the senate might have time to deliberate on the case of each prisoner when peace was restored.

VIII. This proposal appeared so humane, and was supported by so powerful a speech, that not only those who rose after Caesar sided with, him, but many of those who had already spoken changed their opinions and went over to that of Caesar, till it came to the turn of Cato and Catulus to speak. After they had made a vigorous opposition, and Cato in his speech had also urged suspicious matter against Caesar and strongly argued against him, the conspirators were handed over to the executioner, and as Caesar was leaving the Senate many of the young men who then acted as a guard to Cicero, crowded together and threatened Caesar with their naked swords.[461] But Curio[462] is said to have thrown his toga round Caesar, and to have carried him off; and Cicero also, when the young men looked to him, is said to have checked them by a motion, either through fear of the people or because he thought that the death of Caesar would be most unjust and a violation of law. If this is true, I cannot conceive why Cicero said nothing about it in the book on his Consulship;[463] but Cicero was blamed afterwards for not having taken advantage of so favourable an opportunity to get rid of Caesar, and for having feared the people, who were extravagantly attached to Caesar. And indeed a few days after, when Caesar had gone to the Senate and defended himself in a speech against the imputations that had been cast on him, and his speech was received with loud marks of disapprobation and the sitting of the Senate was lasting longer than usual, the people came with loud cries and surrounded the Senate-house calling for Caesar and bidding the Senate let him go. Accordingly, Cato apprehending danger mainly from some movement of the needy part of the people, who were like a firebrand among the rest of the citizens, as they had all their hopes in Caesar, prevailed on the Senate to give them a monthly allowance of corn, which produced an addition to the rest of the expenditure of seven millions[464] five hundred thousands. However, the immediate alarm was manifestly quenched by this measure, which snapped off the best part of Caesar's influence and scattered it, at a time when he was going to enter on his office of Praetor which made him more formidable.

IX. No tumults occurred in Caesar's Praetorship,[465] but a disagreeable incident happened in his family. Publius Clodius,[466] a man of Patrician rank, was distinguished both by wealth and eloquence, but in arrogance and impudence he was not inferior to the most notorious scoundrels in Rome. Clodius was in love with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, and Pompeia was in no way averse to him. But a strict watch was kept over the woman's apartment, and Aurelia, Caesar's mother, who was a prudent woman, by always observing Pompeia, made it difficult and hazardous for the lovers to have an interview. Now the Romans have a goddess whom they call Bona, as the Greeks have a Gynaeceia. The Phrygians, who claim this goddess, say she was the mother of King Midas; the Romans say she was a Dryad and the wife of Faunus; but the Greeks say she is one of the mothers of Dionysus, whose name must not be uttered; and this is the reason why they cover the tents with vine-leaves during the celebration of her festival, and a sacred serpent sits by the goddess according to the mythus. No man is allowed to approach the festival, nor to be in the house during the celebration of the rites; but the women by themselves are said to perform many rites similar to the Orphic in the celebration. Accordingly when the season of the festival is come, the husband, if he be consul or praetor, leaves the house and every male also quits it; and the wife taking possession of the house makes all arrangements, and the chief ceremonies are celebrated by night, the evening festival being accompanied with mirth and much music.

X. While Pompeia[467] was now celebrating this festival, Clodius, who was not yet bearded, and for this reason thought that he should not be discovered, assumed the dress and equipment of a female lute-player and went to the house looking just like a young woman. Finding the door open, he was safely let in by a female slave who was in the secret, and who forthwith ran off to tell Pompeia. As there was some delay and Clodius was too impatient to wait where the woman had left him, but was rambling about the house, which was large, and trying to avoid the lights, Aurelia's waiting-woman, as was natural for one woman with another, challenged him to a little mirthful sport, and as he declined the invitations, she pulled him forward and asked who he was and where he came from. Clodius replied that he was waiting for Abra the maid of Pompeia, for that was the woman's name, but his voice betrayed him, and the waiting-woman ran with a loud cry to the lights and the rest of the company, calling out that she had discovered a man. All the women were in the greatest alarm, and Aurelia stopped the celebration of the rites and covered up the sacred things: she also ordered the doors to be closed and went about the house with the lights to look for Clodius. He was discovered lurking in the chamber of the girl who had let him in, and on being recognised by the women was turned out of doors. The women went straightway, though it was night, to their husbands to tell them what had happened; and as soon as it was day, the talk went through Rome of the desecration of the sacred rites by Clodius, and how he ought to be punished for his behaviour, not only to the persons whom he had insulted, but to the city and the gods. Accordingly one of the tribunes instituted a prosecution against Clodius for an offence against religion, and the most powerful of the senators combined against him, charging him, among other abominations, with adultery with his sister, who was the wife of Lucullus. The people set themselves in opposition to their exertions and supported Clodius, and were of great service to him with the judices, who were terror-struck and afraid of the people. Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia, and when he was summoned as a witness on the trial, he said he knew nothing about the matters that Clodius was charged with. This answer appearing strange, the accuser asked him, "Why have you put away your wife?" to which Caesar replied, "Because I considered that my wife ought not even to be suspected." Some say that this was the real expression of Caesar's opinion, but others affirm that it was done to please the people who were bent on saving Clodius. However this may be, Clodius was acquitted, for the majority of the judices gave in their votes[468] written confusedly, that they might run no risk from the populace by convicting Clodius nor lose the good opinion of the better sort by acquitting him.

XI. On the expiration of his Praetorship, Caesar received Iberia[469] for his province, but as he had a difficulty about arranging matters with his creditors, who put obstructions in the way of his leaving Rome, and were clamorous, he applied to Crassus, then the richest man in Rome, who stood in need of the vigour and impetuosity of Caesar to support him in his political hostility to Pompeius. Crassus undertook to satisfy the most importunate and unrelenting of the creditors, and having become security for Caesar to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, thus enabled him to set out for his province. There is a story that as Caesar was crossing the Alps, he passed by a small barbarian town which had very few inhabitants and was a miserable place, on which his companions jocosely observed, "They did not suppose there were any contests for honors in such a place as that, and struggles for the first rank and mutual jealousy of the chief persons:" on which Caesar earnestly remarked, "I would rather be the first man here than the second at Rome." Again in Spain, when he had some leisure and was reading the history of Alexander,[470] he was for a long time in deep thought, and at last burst into tears; and on his friends asking the reason of this, he said, "Don't you think it is a matter for sorrow, that Alexander was king of so many nations at such an early age, and I have as yet done nothing of note?"

XII. However, as soon as he entered Iberia, he commenced active operations and in a few days raised ten cohorts in addition to the twenty which were already there, and with this force marching against the Calaici[471] and Lusitani he defeated them, and advanced to the shores of the external sea, subduing the nations which hitherto had paid no obedience to Rome. After his military success, he was equally fortunate in settling the civil administration by establishing friendly relations among the different states, and particularly by healing the differences between debtors and creditors;[472] for which purpose he determined that the creditor should annually take two-thirds of the debtor's income, and that the owner should take the other third, which arrangement was to continue till the debt was paid. By these measures he gained a good reputation, and he retired from the province with the acquisition of a large fortune, having enriched his soldiers also by his campaigns and been saluted by them Imperator.

XIII. As it was the law at Rome that those who were soliciting a triumph should stay outside the city, and that those who were candidates for the consulship should be present in the city, Caesar finding himself in this difficulty, and having reached Rome just at the time of the consular elections, sent to the senate to request permission to offer himself to the consulship in his absence through the intervention of his friends. Cato at first urged the law in opposition to Caesar's request, but seeing that many of the senators had been gained over by Caesar, he attempted to elude the question by taking advantage of time and wasting the day in talking, till at last Caesar determined to give up the triumph and to secure the consulship. As soon as he entered the city, he adopted a policy which deceived everybody except Cato; and this was the bringing about of a reconciliation between Pompeius and Crassus, the two most powerful men in Rone, whom Caesar reconciled from their differences, and centering in himself the united strength of the two by an act that had a friendly appearance, changed the form of government without its being observed. For it was not, as most people suppose, the enmity of Caesar and Pompeius which produced the civil wars, but their friendship rather, inasmuch as they first combined to depress the nobility and then quarrelled with one another. Cato, who often predicted what would happen, at the time only got by it the character of being a morose, meddling fellow, though afterwards he was considered to be a wise, but not a fortunate adviser.

XIV. Caesar,[473] however, supported on both sides by the friendship of Crassus and Pompeius, was raised to the consulship and proclaimed triumphantly with Calpurnius Bibulus for his colleague. Immediately upon entering on his office he proposed enactments more suitable to the most turbulent tribune than a consul, for in order to please the populace he introduced measures for certain allotments and divisions of land.[474] But he met with opposition in the Senate from the good and honourable among them, and as he had long been looking for a pretext, he exclaimed with solemn adjurations, that he was driven against his will to court the favour of the people by the arrogance and obstinacy of the Senate, and accordingly he hurried to the popular assembly and placing Crassus on one side of him and Pompeius on the other, he asked them if they approved of his legislative measures. Upon their expressing their approbation, he entreated them to give him their aid against those who threatened to oppose him with their swords. Pompeius and Crassus promised their assistance, and Pompeius added, that he would oppose swords with sword and shield. The nobility were annoyed at hearing such mad, inconsiderate words drop from Pompeius, which were unbecoming his own character and the respect that he owed to the Senate; but the people were delighted. Caesar, whose secret design it was to secure the influence of Pompeius still more, gave him to wife his daughter Julia,[475] who was already betrothed to Servilius Caepio; and he promised Caepio that he should have the daughter of Pompeius, though she also was not disengaged, being betrothed to Faustus, the son of Sulla. Shortly after Caesar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and got Piso named consul for the next year, though Cato in this matter also strongly protested and exclaimed that it was an intolerable thing for the chief power to be prostituted by marriage bargains and that they should help one another by means of women, to provinces and armies and political power. Bibulus, Caesar's colleague, found it useless to oppose Caesar's measures, and he and Cato several times narrowly escaped with their lives in the Forum, whereupon Bibulus shut himself up at home for the remainder of his consulship. Immediately after his marriage Pompeius filled the Forum with armed men, and supported the people in passing Caesar's laws and in giving him for five years Gaul on both sides of the Alps with the addition of Illyricum and four legions. Upon Cato's venturing to speak against these measures, Caesar ordered him to be carried off to prison, thinking that he would appeal to the tribunes. But Cato went off without speaking a word; and Caesar observing that the nobles were much annoyed at this, and the people also through respect for Cato's virtue were following him in silence and with downcast eyes, secretly asked one of the tribunes to release Cato. Very few of the senators used to accompany Caesar to the Senate, but the majority not liking his measures stayed away. Considius,[476] who was a very old man, observed that the senators did not come because they were afraid of the arms and the soldiers. "Why don't you then stay at home for the same reason?" replied Caesar, to which Considius rejoined, "My age makes me fearless, for the little of life that remains for me is not worth much thought." The most scandalous public measure in Caesar's consulship was the election as tribune of that[477] Clodius who had dishonoured Caesar's wife and violated the mysterious nocturnal rites. But he was elected in order to ruin Cicero, and Caesar did not set out for his province till with the aid of Clodius he had put down Cicero by his cabals and driven him out of Italy.

XV. Such is said to have been the course of Caesar's life before his Gallic campaigns.[478] But the period of his wars which he afterwards fought and his expedition by which he subdued Gaul, is just like a new beginning in his career and the commencement of a new course of life and action, in which he showed himself as a soldier and a general inferior to none who have gained admiration as leaders and been the greatest men: for whether we compare Caesar's exploits with those of the Fabii, Scipios, and Metelli, or with those of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors, Sulla and Marius and both the Luculli or even Pompeius himself, whose fame, high as the heavens, was blossoming at that time in every kind of military virtue, Caesar will be found to surpass them all—his superiority over one appearing in the difficulties of the country in which he carried on his campaigns, over another in the extent of country subdued, over a third in the number and courage of the enemy whom he defeated, over another again in the savage manners and treacherous character of the nations that he brought to civility, over a fourth in his clemency and mildness to the conquered, over another again in his donations and liberality to his soldiers; and in fine his superiority over all other generals appears by the numbers of battles that he fought and of enemies that he slew. For in somewhat less than ten years during which he carried on his campaign in Gaul he took by storm above eight hundred cities, and subdued three hundred nations, and fought with three millions of men at different times, of whom he destroyed one million in battle and took as many prisoners.

XVI.[479] So great were the good-will and devotion of Caesar's soldiers to him, that those who under other generals were in no way superior to ordinary soldiers, were invincible and irresistible and ready to meet any danger for Caesar's glory. An instance of this is Acilius, who in the sea-fight of Massalia[480] boarded one of the enemy's ships and had his right hand cut off with a sword, but he still kept hold of his shield with the left hand and striking at the faces of the enemy drove all to flight and got possession of the vessel. Another instance was Cassius Scaeva,[481] who in the fight at Dyrrachium had one eye destroyed by an arrow, his shoulder transfixed with one javelin and his thigh with another, and on his shield he had received the blows of one hundred and thirty missiles. In this plight he called to the enemy as if he designed to surrender himself, and two of them accordingly approached him, but with his sword he lopped off one man's shoulder and wounding the other in the face, put him to flight, and finally he escaped himself with the aid of his friends. In Britannia on one occasion the natives had attacked the foremost centurions who had got into a marshy spot full of water, upon which, in the presence of Caesar who was viewing the contest, a soldier rushed into the midst of the enemy, and after performing many conspicuous acts of valour, rescued the centurions from the barbarians, who took to flight. The soldier, with difficulty attempting to cross after all the rest, plunged into the muddy stream, and with great trouble and the loss of his shield, sometimes swimming, sometimes walking, he got safe over. While those who were about Caesar were admiring his conduct and coming to receive him with congratulations and shouts, the soldier, with the greatest marks of dejection and tears in his eyes, fell down at Caesar's feet and begged pardon for the loss of his shield. Again, in Libya, Scipio's party having taken one of Caesar's ships in which was Granius Petro, who had been appointed quaestor, made booty of all the rest, but offered to give the quaestor his life; but he replying that it was the fashion with Caesar's soldiers to give and not to accept mercy, killed himself with his own sword.

XVII. This courage and emulation Caesar cherished and created, in the first place by distributing rewards and honours without stint, and thus showing that he did not get wealth from the enemy for his own enjoyment and pleasure, but that it was treasured up with him as the common reward of courage, and that he was rich only in proportion as he rewarded deserving soldiers; and in the next place by readily undergoing every danger and never shrinking from any toil. Now they did not so much admire Caesar's courage, knowing his love of glory; but his endurance of labour beyond his body's apparent power of sustaining it, was a matter of astonishment, for he was of a spare habit, and had a white and soft skin, and was subject to complaints in the head and to epileptic fits, which, as it is said, first attacked him at Corduba;[482] notwithstanding all this, he did not make his feeble health an excuse for indulgence, but he made military service the means of his cure, by unwearied journeying, frugal diet, and by constantly keeping in the open air and enduring fatigue, struggling with his malady and keeping his body proof against its attacks. He generally slept in chariots or in litters, making even his repose a kind of action; and in the daytime he used to ride in a vehicle to the garrisons, cities and camps, with a slave by his side, one of those who were expert at taking down what was dictated on a journey, and a single soldier behind him armed with a sword. He used to travel so quick that on his first journey from Rome he reached the Rhodanus[483] in eight days. From his boyhood he was a good horseman, for he had been accustomed to place his hands behind him and, holding them close together on his back, to put the horse to his full speed. In that campaign he also practised himself in dictating letters as he was riding and thus giving employment to two scribes, and as Oppius[484] says, to more. He is said also to have introduced the practice of communicating with his friends by letters, as there was no time for personal interviews on urgent affairs, owing to the amount of business and the size of the city. This anecdote also is cited as a proof of his indifference as to diet. On one occasion when he was entertained at supper by his host Valerius Leo[485] in Mediolanum, asparagus was served up with myrum poured on it instead of oil, which Caesar ate without taking any notice of it, and reproved his friends who were out of humour on the occasion. "You should be content," he said, "not to eat what you don't like; but to find fault with your host's ill-breeding is to be as ill-bred as himself." Once upon a journey he was compelled by a storm to take shelter in a poor man's hut, which contained only a single chamber and that hardly large enough for one person, on which he observed to his friends that the post of honour must be given to the worthiest and the place of safety to the weakest; and he bade Oppius lie down while he and the rest slept in the porch.

XVIII. Caesar's first Gallic campaign was against the Helvetii[486] and Tigurini, who had burnt their cities, twelve in number, and their villages, of which there were four hundred, and were advancing through that part of Gaul which was subject to the Romans, like the Cimbri and Teutones of old, to whom they were considered to be not inferior in courage and in numbers equal, being in all three hundred thousand, of whom one hundred and ninety thousand were fighting men. The Tigurini were not opposed by Caesar in person, but by Labienus, who was sent against them by Caesar and totally defeated them near the Arar. The Helvetii fell on Caesar unexpectedly as he was leading his forces to a friendly city, but he succeeded in making his way to a strong position, where he rallied his army and prepared for battle. A horse being brought to him, he said, "I shall want this for the pursuit after I have defeated the enemy; but let us now move on against them;" and accordingly he made the charge on foot. After a long and difficult contest, the Helvetian warriors were driven back, but the hardest struggle was about the chariots and the camp, for the Helvetians made a stand there and a desperate resistance, and also their wives and children, who fought till they were cut to pieces, and the battle was hardly over at midnight. This glorious deed of victory Caesar followed up by one still better, for he brought together those who had escaped from the battle and compelled them to re-occupy the tract which they had left and to rebuild the cities which they had destroyed; and the number of these was above one hundred thousand. His object in this measure was to prevent the Germans from crossing the Rhenus and occupying the vacant country.

XIX. His next contest was with the Germans and for the immediate defence of the Gauls, although he had before this made an alliance with their king Ariovistus[487] in Rome. But the Germans were intolerable neighbours to Caesar's subjects, and if opportunity offered, it was supposed that they would not remain satisfied with what they had, but would invade and occupy Gaul. Caesar observing his officers afraid of the approaching contest, and particularly the men of rank and the youths who had joined him in the expectation of finding a campaign with Caesar a matter of pleasure and profit, called them to a public assembly and bade them leave him and not fight against their inclination since they were so cowardly and effeminate: as for himself he said he would take the tenth legion by itself and lead it against the enemy, knowing that he should not have to deal with a braver enemy than the Cimbri, and that he was not a worse general than Marius. Upon this the tenth legion sent a deputation of their body to thank him, but the rest of the legions abused their own officers, and the whole army, full of impetuosity and eagerness, all followed Caesar, marching for many days, till they encamped within two hundred stadia of the enemy. The courage of Ariovistus was somewhat broken by the bare approach of the Romans; for as he had supposed that the Romans would not stand the attack of the Germans, and he never expected that they would turn assailants, he was amazed at Caesar's daring and he also saw that his own army was disturbed. The spirit of the Germans was still more blunted by the predictions of their wise women, who observing the eddies in the rivers and drawing signs from the whirlings and noise of the waters, foreboded the future and declared that the army ought not to fight before it was new moon. Caesar hearing of this and perceiving that the Germans were inactive, thought it a good opportunity for engaging with them, while they were out of spirits instead of sitting still and waiting for their time. By attacking their fortifications and the hills on which they were encamped, he irritated the Germans and provoked them to come down in passion and fight. The Germans were completely routed and pursued to the Rhenus a distance of four hundred stadia, and the whole of this space was strewed with dead bodies and arms. Ariovistus with a few escaped across the river. The dead are said to have been eighty thousand in number.

XX. After these exploits he left his forces among the Sequani[488] to winter, and with the view of attending to what was going on at Rome, came down to Gaul about the Padus, which was a part of his province; for the river Rubico separates the rest of Italy from Gaul beneath the Alps. Fixing his residence there, he carried on his political intrigues, and many persons came to visit him to whom he gave what they asked for; and he dismissed all either with their wishes satisfied, or with hopes. During the whole period of his government in Gaul, he conducted his operations without attracting any attention from Pompeius, though at one time he was subduing the enemy by the arms of the citizens, and at another capturing and subjecting the citizens by the money which he got from the enemy. Hearing that the Belgae[489] had risen in arms, who were the most powerful nation of the Gauls and in possession of a third part of all Gaul, and that they had assembled many ten thousands of armed men, he immediately turned about and went against them with all possible expedition; and falling upon the enemy while they were plundering the Gauls who were in alliance with the Romans, he put to flight and destroyed those who were collected in greatest numbers and the chief part of them after an unsuccessful resistance, and such was the slaughter that the Romans crossed the lakes and deep rivers over the dead bodies. Of the rebels all who dwelt near the ocean surrendered without resistance; but against the fiercest and most warlike of those in these parts, the Nervii,[490] Caesar led his forces. The Nervii, who inhabited the dense thickets and had placed their families and property in a deep recess of the forest as far as possible from the enemy, suddenly, to the number of sixty thousand, attacked Caesar while he was fortifying his camp and not expecting a battle, and they put the Roman cavalry to flight, and surrounding the twelfth and seventh legions, killed all the centurions. If Caesar had not seized a shield and, making his way through the first ranks, charged the barbarians, and if the tenth legion had not run down from the heights to support him when he was in danger of being overpowered, and broken the ranks of the enemy, it is supposed that not a single Roman would have escaped. Encouraged by Caesar's intrepidity, the Romans fought, as the saying is, beyond their strength, but yet they could not put the Nervii to flight, who defended themselves till they were cut to pieces. Out of sixty thousand only five hundred are said to have escaped; and three senators out of four hundred.

XXI. The Senate on receiving intelligence of this victory, decreed that for fifteen days[491] there should be sacrifices to the gods and cessation from all business, with feasting, which had never been done before, for so long a time. For the danger was considered to have been great, so many nations having broken out at once; and because Caesar was the conqueror, the good will of the many towards him made the victory more splendid. And accordingly, having settled affairs in Gaul, he again spent the winter in the plain of the Padus, and employed himself in intriguing at Rome. Not only the candidates for the offices of the State carried their election by Caesar supplying them with money which they spent in bribing the people, and directed all their measures to the increase of Caesar's power, but the greater part of the Romans most distinguished for rank and political power, came to see him at Luca,[492] Pompeius and Crassus, and Appius, the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos, proconsul of Iberia, so that there were a hundred and twenty lictors there, and more than two hundred senators. Their deliberations resulted in this: it was agreed that Pompeius and Crassus should be made consuls, and that Caesar should have an allowance of money and five additional years in his province, which to all reflecting people seemed the most extravagant thing of all. For those who were receiving so much from Caesar, urged the Senate to grant him money as if he had none, or rather compelled the Senate to do it, groaning as it were over its own decrees. Cato, indeed, was not present, for he had been purposely sent out of the way on a mission to Cyprus; and Favonius, who affected to imitate Cato, finding he could do nothing by his opposition, hastily left the Senate and began to clamour to the people. But nobody attended to him, some from fear of displeasing Pompeius and Crassus, but the greater part kept quiet to please Caesar, living on hopes from him.

XXII. Caesar again returned to his troops in Gaul where he found much war in the country, for two great German nations had just crossed the Rhenus for the purpose of getting land; the one nation was called Usipes,[493] and the other Tenteritae. Respecting the battle with them, Caesar says in his Commentaries,[494] that the barbarians, while they were treating with him during a truce, attacked on their march and so put to flight his own cavalry to the number of five thousand with eight hundred of their own, for his men were not expecting an attack; that they then sent other ambassadors to him intending to deceive him again, whom he detained, and then led his army against the barbarians, considering all faith towards such faithless men and violators of truces to be folly. But Tanusius[495] says that while the senate were decreeing festivals and sacrifices for the victory, Cato delivered it as his opinion, that they ought to give up Caesar to the barbarians, and so purge themselves of the violation of the truce on behalf of the city, and turn the curse on the guilty man. Of those who had crossed the river there were slaughtered to the number of four hundred thousand, and the few who recrossed the river were received by the Sugambri[496] a German tribe. Caesar laying hold of this ground of complaint against the Germans, and being also greedy of glory and desirous to be the first man to cross the Rhenus with an army, began to build a bridge over the river, which was very broad, and in this part of the bed spread out widest, and was rough, and ran with a strong current so as to drive the trunks of trees that were carried down and logs of wood against the supports of the bridge,[497] and tear them asunder. But Caesar planted large timbers across the bed of the river above the bridge to receive the trees that floated down, and thus bridling the descending current, beyond all expectation he accomplished the completion of the bridge in ten days.