We have reached the end of the Roman republic.  We have seen it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to ruin in politics and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy of Caesar.  There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all true delight in life.  It was indeed an old world; and even the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar could not make it young again.  The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in and run its course.  But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon; and when at length after a long historical night the new day dawned once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up, and which owed, as they still owe, to him their national individuality.

Notes for Chapter I

1.  IV.  VII.  Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts, 527

2.  It is a significant trait, that a distinguished teacher of literature, the freedman Staberius Eros, allowed the children of the proscribed to attend his course gratuitously.

3.  IV.  X. Proscription-Lists

4.  IV.  IX.  Pompeius

5.  IV.  IV.  Administration under the Restoration

6.  IV.  IV.  Livius Drusus

7.  IV.  IX.  Government of Cinna

8.  IV.  IX.  Pompeius

9.  IV.  IX.  Sertorius Embarks

10.  IV.  VII.  Strabo, iv.  IX.  Dubious Attitude of Strabo

11.  IV.  IX.  Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria

12.  IV.  VII.  Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation

13.  IV.  X. Reorganization of the Senate

14.  It is usual to set down the year 654 as that of Caesar’s birth, because according to Suetonius (Caes. 88), Plutarch (Caes. 69), and Appian (B.  C. ii. 149) he was at his death (15 March 710) in his 56th year; with which also the statement that he was 18 years old at the time of the Sullan proscription (672; Veil. ii. 41) nearly accords.  But this view is utterly inconsistent with the facts that Caesar filled the aedileship in 689, the praetorship in 692, and the consulship in 695, and that these offices could, according to the -leges annales-, be held at the very earliest in the 37th-38th, 40th-41st, and 43rd-44th years of a man’s life respectively.  We cannot conceive why Caesar should have filled all the curule offices two years before the legal time, and still less why there should be no mention anywhere of his having done so.  These facts rather suggest