[Footnote 573:  Caesar was sole consul in the year B.C. 45.  He was still dictator.]

[Footnote 574:  Munda was in Baetica, west of Malaca (Malaga).  The battle was fought on the day of the Liberalia, the feast of Liber or Bacchus, the 17th of March.  Pompeius, B.C. 49, left Brundisium on the Ides of March, the 15th.

The Spanish campaign is contained in a book entitled “De Bello Hispaniensi,” which is printed with the “Commentaries of Caesar:”  thirty thousand men fell on the side of Pompeius, and three thousand equites (c. 31).  See also Dion Cassius, 43, c. 36; and Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 104.]

[Footnote 575:  Cneius Pompeius, the elder of the two sons of Pompeius Magnus, was overtaken after he had for some time eluded the pursuit of the enemy.  His head was carried to Hispalis (Seville) and exhibited in public.  Caesar, who was then at Gades (Cadiz), came shortly after to Hispalis, and addressed the people in a speech.  Sextus Pompeius was at Corduba during the battle, and he made his escape on hearing the news of his brother’s defeat.]

[Footnote 576:  C. Didius.  According to Dion, Cn.  Pompeius was killed by another set of pursuers, not by Didius.  The author of the Spanish War (c. 40) does not mention Didius as having carried the head of Pompeius to Hispalis.  After the death of Pompeius, Didius fell in a battle with some Lusitani who had escaped from Munda.]

[Footnote 577:  Caesar celebrated his Spanish triumph in October, B.C. 45.]

[Footnote 578:  Caesar was appointed Dictator for Life, and consul for ten years, (Appianus, ii. 106.)

Dictatorship was properly only a temporary office, and created in some great emergency, or for a particular purpose.  The first dictator was T. Lartius, who was appoined, B.C. 501.  The original period of office was only six months (Livius, ix. 34), and many dictators abdicated, that is, voluntarily resigned the dictatorship before the end of the six months.  The Dictator had that authority within the city which the consuls, when in office, only had without.  During his term of office there were no consuls.  Under the Dictator there was a Magister Equitum, who was sometimes appointed probably by the Dictator.  The whole question of the dictatorship is one of considerable difficulty.  No dictator had been appointed for one hundred and twenty years before the time when Sulla was appointed; and his dictatorship and that of Caesar must not be considered as the genuine office.  Caesar was the last Roman who had the title of Dictator.  The subject of the Dictatorship is discussed by Niebuhr, Roman History, vol. i. 552, English Transl.]

[Footnote 579:  The honours decreed to Caesar in the year before are mentioned by Dion Cassius (43. c. 14).  Among other things a large statue of him was made which was supported on a figure of the earth (probably a sphere); and there was the inscription—­“Semideus, Half-God.”  The further honours conferred on Caesar in this year are recorded by Dion Cassius (43. c. 44, &c.).  A statue of the Dictator was to be placed in the temple of Quirinus (Romulus), which was equivalent to calling Caesar a second founder of Rome.  Cicero (Ad Attic. xii. 45, and xiii. 28)