Plutarch.—­Minos does not esteem anything frivolous that affects the morals of mankind.  He punishes authors as guilty of every fault they have countenanced and every crime they have encouraged, and denounces heavy vengeance for the injuries which virtue or the virtuous have suffered in consequence of their writings.

DIALOGUE XXIX.

PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO AFRICANUS—­CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR.

Scipio.—­Alas, Caesar! how unhappily did you end a life made illustrious by the greatest exploits in war and most various civil talents!

Caesar.—­Can Scipio wonder at the ingratitude of Rome to her generals?  Did not he reproach her with it in the epitaph he ordered to be inscribed upon his tomb at Liternum, that mean village in Campania, to which she had driven the conqueror of Hannibal and of Carthage?  I also, after subduing her most dangerous enemies, the Helvetians, the Gauls, and the Germans, after raising her name to the highest pitch of glory, should have been deprived of my province, reduced to live as a private man under the power of my enemies and the enviers of my greatness; nay, brought to a trial and condemned by the judgment of a faction, if I had not led my victorious troops to Rome, and by their assistance, after all my offers of peace had been iniquitously rejected, made myself master of a State which knew so ill how to recompense superior merit.  Resentment of this, together with the secret machinations of envy, produced not long afterwards a conspiracy of senators, and even of some whom I had most obliged and loved, against my life, which they basely took away by assassination.

Scipio.—­You say you led your victorious troops to Rome.  How were they your troops?  I thought the Roman armies had belonged to the Republic, not to their generals.

Caesar.—­They did so in your time.  But before I came to command them, Marius and Sylla had taught them that they belonged to their generals.  And I taught the senate that a veteran army, affectionately attached to its leader, could give him all the treasures and honours of the State without asking their leave.

Scipio.—­Just gods! did I then deliver my country from the invading Carthaginian, did I exalt it by my victories above all other nations, that it might become a richer prey to its own rebel soldiers and their ambitious commanders?

Caesar.—­How could it be otherwise?  Was it possible that the conquerors of Europe, Asia, and Africa could tamely submit to descend from their triumphal chariots and become subject to the authority of praetors and consuls elected by a populace corrupted by bribes, or enslaved to a confederacy of factious nobles, who, without regard to merit, considered all the offices and dignities of the State as hereditary possessions belonging to their families?