The chief conspirator died in a less ignoble fashion.  He had contrived to collect about twelve thousand men; but only a fourth part of these were regularly armed; the rest carried hunting spears, pikes, sharpened stakes, any weapon that came to hand.  At first he avoided an engagement, hoping to hear news of something accomplished for his cause by the friends whom he had left behind him in Rome.  When the news of what had happened on the fifth of December reached him, he saw that his position was desperate.  Many who had joined the ranks took the first opportunity of deserting; with those that remained faithful he made a hurried march to the north-west, hoping to make his way across the Apennines into Hither Gaul.  But he found a force ready to bar his way, while Antonius, with the army from Rome, was pressing him from the south.  Nothing remained for him but to give battle.  Early in the year 62 B.C. the armies met.  The rebel leader showed himself that day at his best.  No soldier could have been braver, no general more skillful.  But the forces arrayed against him were overpowering.  When he saw that all was lost, he rushed into the thickest of the fight, and fell pierced with wounds.  He was found afterwards far in advance of his men, still breathing and with the same haughty expression on his face which had distinguished him in life.  And such was the contagious force of his example that not a single free man of all his followers was taken alive either in the battle or in the pursuit that followed it.  Such was the end of a GREAT CONSPIRACY.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAESAR.

At eight-and-twenty, Caesar, who not thirty years later was to die master of Rome, was chiefly known as a fop and a spendthrift.  “In all his schemes and all his policy,” said Cicero, “I discern the temper of a tyrant; but then when I see how carefully his hair is arranged, how delicately with a single finger he scratches his head, I cannot conceive him likely to entertain so monstrous a design as overthrowing the liberties of Rome.”  As for his debts they were enormous.  He had contrived to spend his own fortune and the fortune of his wife; and he was more than three hundred thousand pounds in debt.  This was before he had held any public office; and office, when he came to hold it, certainly did not improve his position.  He was appointed one of the guardians of the Appian Way (the great road that led southward from Rome, and was the route for travelers to Greece and the East).  He spent a great sum of money in repairs.  His next office of aedile was still more expensive.  Expensive it always was, for the aedile, besides keeping the temples and other public buildings in repair (the special business signified by his name), had the management of the public games.  An allowance was made to him for his expenses from the treasury, but he was expected, just as the Lord Mayor of London is expected, to spend a good deal of his own money.  Caesar