Part 13 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Banners and paintings.]

In these triumphs of Caesar, a young sister of Cleopatra was in the line of the Egyptian procession. In that devoted to Asia Minor was a great banner containing the words already referred to, Veni, Vidi, Vici. There were great paintings, too, borne aloft, representing battles and other striking scenes. Of course, all Rome was in the highest state of excitement during the days of the exhibition of this pageantry. The whole surrounding country flocked to the capital to witness it, and Caesar's greatness and glory were signalized in the most conspicuous manner to all mankind.

[Sidenote: Public entertainments.]

[Sidenote: Various spectacles and amus.e.m.e.nts.]

[Sidenote: Naval combats.]

After these triumphs, a series of splendid public entertainments were given, over twenty thousand tables having been spread for the populace of the city Shows of every possible character and variety were exhibited. There were dramatic plays, and equestrian performances in the circus, and gladiatorial combats, and battles with wild beasts, and dances, and chariot races, and every other imaginable amus.e.m.e.nt which could be devised and carried into effect to gratify a population highly cultivated in all the arts of life, but barbarous and cruel in heart and character. Some of the accounts which have come down to us of the magnificence of the scale on which these entertainments were conducted are absolutely incredible. It is said, for example, that an immense basin was constructed near the Tiber, large enough to contain two fleets of galleys, which had on board two thousand rowers each, and one thousand fighting men. These fleets were then manned with captives, the one with Asiatics and the other with Egyptians, and when all was ready, they were compelled to fight a real battle for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators which thronged the sh.o.r.es, until vast numbers were killed, and the waters of the lake were dyed with blood. It is also said that the whole Forum, and some of the great streets in the neighborhood where the princ.i.p.al gladiatorial shows were held, were covered with silken awnings to protect the vast crowds of spectators from the sun, and thousands of tents were erected to accommodate the people from the surrounding country, whom the buildings of the city could not contain.

[Sidenote: Caesar's power.]

[Sidenote: Honors conferred upon him.]

All open opposition to Caesar's power and dominion now entirely disappeared. Even the Senate vied with the people in rendering him every possible honor. The supreme power had been hitherto lodged in the hands of two consuls, chosen annually, and the Roman people had been extremely jealous of any distinction for any one, higher than that of an _elective annual office,_ with a return to private life again when the brief period should have expired. They now, however, made Caesar, in the first place, consul for ten years, and then Perpetual Dictator. They conferred upon him the t.i.tle of the Father of his Country. The name of the month in which he was born was changed to Julius, from his praenomen, and we still retain the name. He was made, also, commander-in-chief of all the armies of the commonwealth, the t.i.tle to which vast military power was expressed in the Latin language by the word IMPERATOR.

[Sidenote: Statues of Caesar.]

Caesar was highly elated with all these substantial proofs of the greatness and glory to which he had attained, and was also very evidently gratified with smaller, but equally expressive proofs of the general regard. Statues representing his person were placed in the public edifices, and borne in processions like those of the G.o.ds.

Conspicuous and splendidly ornamented seats were constructed for him in all the places of public a.s.sembly, and on these he sat to listen to debates or witness spectacles, as if he were upon a throne He had, either by his influence or by his direct power, the control of all the appointments to office, and was, in fact, in every thing but the name, a sovereign and an absolute king.

[Sidenote: His plans of internal improvement.]

He began now to form great schemes of internal improvement for the general benefit of the empire. He wished to increase still more the great obligations which the Roman people were under to him for what he had already done. They really were under vast obligations to him; for, considering Rome as a community which was to subsist by governing the world, Caesar had immensely enlarged the means of its subsistence by establis.h.i.+ng its sway every where, and providing for an incalculable increase of its revenues from the tribute and the taxation of conquered provinces and kingdoms. Since this work of conquest was now completed, he turned his attention to the internal affairs of the empire, and made many improvements in the system of administration, looking carefully into every thing, and introducing every where those exact and systematic principles which such a mind as his seeks instinctively in every thing over which it has any control.

[Sidenote: Ancient division of time.]

[Sidenote: Change effected by Caesar.]

[Sidenote: The old and new styles.]

One great change which he effected continues in perfect operation throughout Europe to the present day. It related to the division of time. The system of months in use in his day corresponded so imperfectly with the annual circuit of the sun, that the months were moving continually along the year in such a manner that the winter months came at length in the summer, and the summer months in the winter. This led to great practical inconveniences; for whenever, for example, any thing was required by law to be done in certain months, intending to have them done in the summer, and the specified month came at length to be a winter month, the law would require the thing to be done in exactly the wrong season. Caesar remedied all this by adopting a new system of months, which should give three hundred and sixty-five days to the year for three years, and three hundred and sixty-six for the fourth; and so exact was the system which he thus introduced, that it went on unchanged for sixteen centuries. The months were then found to be eleven days out of the way, when a new correction was introduced,[4] and it will now go on three thousand years before the error will amount to a single day.

Caesar employed a Greek astronomer to arrange the system that he adopted; and it was in part on account of the improvement which he thus effected that one of the months, as has already been mentioned, was called July. Its name before was Quintilis.

[Footnote 4: By Pope Gregory XIII. at the time of the change from the old style to the new]

[Sidenote: Magnificent schemes.]

[Sidenote: Caesar collects the means to carry out his vast schemes.]

Caesar formed a great many other vast and magnificent schemes. He planned public buildings for the city, which were going to exceed in magnitude and splendor all the edifices of the world. He commenced the collection of vast libraries, formed plans for draining the Pontine Marshes, for bringing great supplies of water into the city by an aqueduct, for cutting a new pa.s.sage for the Tiber from Rome to the sea, and making an enormous artificial harbor at its mouth. He was going to make a road along the Apennines, and cut a ca.n.a.l through the Isthmus of Corinth, and construct other vast works, which were to make Rome the center of the commerce of the world. In a word, his head was filled with the grandest schemes, and he was gathering around him all the means and resources necessary for the execution of them.

CHAPTER XI

THE CONSPIRACY.

Caesar's greatness and glory came at last to a very sudden and violent end. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated. All the attendant circ.u.mstances of this deed, too, were of the most extraordinary character, and thus the dramatic interest which adorns all parts of the great conqueror's history marks strikingly its end.

[Sidenote: Jealousies awakened by Caesar's power.]

[Sidenote: The Roman Const.i.tution.]

[Sidenote: Struggles and Conflicts.]