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.