To return to Caesar.  He grew, in time, more slow and more considerate, as his friend Oppius witnesses:  conceiving that he ought not lightly to hazard the glory of so many victories, which one blow of fortune might deprive him of.  ’Tis what the Italians say, when they would reproach the rashness and foolhardiness of young people, calling them Bisognosi d’onore, “necessitous of honour,” and that being in so great a want and dearth of reputation, they have reason to seek it at what price soever, which they ought not to do who have acquired enough already.  There may reasonably be some moderation, some satiety, in this thirst and appetite of glory, as well as in other things:  and there are enough people who practise it.

He was far remote from the religious scruples of the ancient Romans, who would never prevail in their wars but by dint of pure and simple valour; and yet he was more conscientious than we should be in these days, and did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory.  In the war against Ariovistus, whilst he was parleying with him, there happened some commotion between the horsemen, which was occasioned by the fault of Ariovistus’ light horse, wherein, though Caesar saw he had a very great advantage of the enemy, he would make no use on’t, lest he should have been reproached with a treacherous proceeding.

He was always wont to wear rich garments, and of a shining colour in battle, that he might be the more remarkable and better observed.

He always carried a stricter and tighter hand over his soldiers when near an enemy.  When the ancient Greeks would accuse any one of extreme insufficiency, they would say, in common proverb, that he could neither read nor swim; he was of the same opinion, that swimming was of great use in war, and himself found it so; for when he had to use diligence, he commonly swam over the rivers in his way; for he loved to march on foot, as also did Alexander the Great.  Being in Egypt forced, to save himself, to go into a little boat, and so many people leaping in with him that it was in danger of sinking, he chose rather to commit himself to the sea, and swam to his fleet, which lay two hundred paces off, holding in his left hand his tablets, and drawing his coatarmour in his teeth, that it might not fall into the enemy’s hand, and at this time he was of a pretty advanced age.

Never had any general so much credit with his soldiers:  in the beginning of the civil wars, his centurions offered him to find every one a man-at-arms at his own charge, and the foot soldiers to serve him at their own expense; those who were most at their ease, moreover, undertaking to defray the more necessitous.  The late Admiral Chastillon

     [Gaspard de Coligny, assassinated in the St. Bartholomew
     massacre, 24th August 1572.]