For the truth of all which, humanity has a sure instinct.  When there is a crisis we say, Look for the Man. Rome thought (for the most part) that she had found him when Caesar, having conquered Pompey, came home master of the world.  If this phoenix and phenomenon in time, now with no competitor above the horizons, could not settle affairs, only Omnipotence could.  Every thinking (or sane) Roman knew that what Rome needed was a head; and now at last she had got one.  Pompey, the only possible alternative, was dead; Caesar was lord of all things.  Pharsalus, the deciding battle, was fought in 48; he returned home in 46.  From the year between, in which he put the finishing touches to his supremacy, you may count the full manvantara of Imperial Rome:  fifteen centuries until 1453 and the fall of the Eastern Empire.

All opinion since has been divided as to the character of Caesar.  To those whose religion is democracy, he is the grand Destroyer of Freedom; to the worshipers of the Superman, he is the chief avatar of their god.  Mr. Stobart,* who deals with him sanely, but leaning to the favorable view, says he was “not a bad man, for he preferred justice and mercy to tyranny and cruelty, and had a passion for logic and order”; and adds, “he was a man without beliefs or illusions or scruples.”  He began by being a fop and ultra-extravagant; and was always, if we may believe accounts, a libertine of the first water.  He was, of course, an epileptic.  In short, there is nothing in history to give an absolutely sure clue to his real self.  But there is that passage in Madame Blavatsky, which I have quoted before, to the effect that he was an agent of the dark forces, and conquered Gaul for them, to abolish the last effective Mysteries; and I think in the light of that, his character, and a great deal of history besides, becomes intelligible enough.—­I will be remembered that he stood at the head of the Roman religion, as Potifex Maximus.

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* On whose book, The Grandeur that was Rome, this paper also
largely leans.
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But it was not the evil that he did that (obviously) brought about his downfall.  Caesar was fortified against Karma by the immensity of his genius.  Whom should he fear, who had conquered Pompeius Magnus?  None in the roman world could reach so high as to his elbow;—­for sheer largeness of mind, quickness and daring, he stoood absolutely the Superman among pygmies.  He knew his aim, and could make or wait for it; and it was big and real.  Other men crowed or fumbled after petty and pinch-beck ends; impossible rhetorical republicanisms; vain senatorial prestiges; —­or pleasure pure and simple—­say rather, very complex and impure.  Let them clack, let them fumble!  Caesar would do things and get things done.  He wore the whole armor of his greatness, and could see no chink or joint in it through which a hostile dagger might pierce.  Even his military victories were won by some greater than mere military greatness.—­Karma, perhaps, remembering the Mysteries at Gaulish Bibracte, and the world left now quite lightless, might have a word to say; might even be looking round for shafts to speed.  But what, against a man so golden-panoplied?  “Tush!” saith Caesar, “there are no arrows now but straws.”