husbandry of forces, his ceaseless diligence, his intrepid courage, the confidence with which he inspired his soldiers, his brilliant successes (victory after victory), with the enormous number of captives by which he and the State became enriched,—­all these things dazzled his countrymen, and gave him a fame such as no general had ever earned before.  He conquered a population of warriors to be numbered by millions, with no aid from charts and maps, exposed perpetually to treachery and false information.  He had to please and content an army a thousand miles from home, without supplies, except such as were precarious,—­living on the plainest food, and doomed to infinite labors and drudgeries, besides attacking camps and assaulting fortresses, and fighting pitched battles.  Yet he won their love, their respect, and their admiration,—­and by an urbanity, a kindness, and a careful protection of their interests, such as no general ever showed before.  He was a hero performing perpetual wonders, as chivalrous as the knights of the Middle Ages.  No wonder he was adored, like a Moses in the wilderness, like a Napoleon in his early conquests.

This conquest of Gaul, during which he drove the Germans back to their forests, and inaugurated a policy of conciliation and moderation which made the Gauls the faithful allies of Rome, and their country its most fertile and important province, furnishing able men both for the Senate and the Army, was not only a great feat of genius, but a great service—­a transcendent service—­to the State, which entitled Caesar to a magnificent reward.  Had it been cordially rendered to him, he might have been contented with a sort of perpetual consulship, and with the eclat of being the foremost man of the Empire.  The people would have given him anything in their power to give, for he was as much an idol to them as Napoleon became to the Parisians after the conquest of Italy.  He had rendered services as brilliant as those of Scipio, of Marius, of Sulla, or of Pompey.  If he did not save Italy from being subsequently overrun by barbarians, he postponed their irruptions for two hundred years.  And he had partially civilized the country he had subdued, and introduced Roman institutions.  He had also created an army of disciplined veterans, such as never before was seen.  He perfected military mechanism, that which kept the Empire together after all vitality had fled.  He was the greatest master of the art of war known to antiquity.  Such transcendent military excellence and such great services entitled him to the gratitude and admiration of the whole Empire, although he enriched himself and his soldiers with the spoils of his ten years’ war, and did not, so far as I can see, bring great sums into the national treasury.