to do, this is an assumption which would not even be plausible were it not for Cæsar's towering eminence in practical ability, military and political, above all the other men of his day. His advocates, who usually delight in theoretic apologies for their practical hero, might almost quote Aristotle's remark that, if you can only find your god-like man, then clearly you ought to make him king.
This personal pre-eminence has in our day enlisted in Cæsar's cause three strains of sympathy, two of which are more or less respectable, while the third has had the prestige of success. The worshippers of heroic force have grovelled before him with all the humility of their strong hearts; those who believe that Providence is always to be found with the big battalions have recognised in Cæsar an instrument of Heaven; and the doctrine that a soldier of fortune is entitled to be a military autocrat, if he can, has paid Cæsar the compliment of distorting his name. Mommsen is a philosophic panegyrist of force, who appears to have the ambition of proving how completely a man of letters may be exempt from everything like weak sentiment. His adoration of victorious strength, more cynical than Carlyle's, is capable not only of idealising unscrupulous success, but also of spurning noble defeat; there is too much of væ victis in his way of describing the fall of the Commonwealth—the sword is hurled with too open bravado into the scale; and if his eloquent rhapsody on Cæsar has the excuse of a generous extravagance, common sense and fairness
