Page:The Commentaries of Caesar.djvu/191

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CONCLUSION.
181

tion of rewards,—keeping his promise, no doubt, to those veterans whom he won back to their military obedience by calling them "Quirites," or Roman citizens.[1] The sons of Pompey, Cnæus and Sextus, have collected together a great number of men to support their worn-out cause, and we are told that in the battle of Munda more than 30,000 men perished. But that was the end of it. Labienus and Varrus are killed; and the historian tells us that a funeral was made for them. One Scapula, of whom it is said that he was the promoter of all this Spanish rebellion, eats his supper, has himself anointed, and is killed on his funeral-pile. Cnæus, the elder son of Pompey, escapes wounded, but at last is caught in a cave, and is killed. Sextus, the younger, escapes, and becomes a leading rebel for some years longer, till at last he also is killed by one of Antony's officers.

This Commentary is ended, or rather is brought to an untimely close, in the middle of a speech which Cæsar makes to the inhabitants of Hipsala,—Seville,—in which he tells them in strong language how well he behaves to them, and how very badly they have be-

  1. Not in the Commentary, but elsewhere, we learn that he now triumphed four times, for four different victories, taking care to claim none for any victory won over Roman soldiers. On four different days he was carried through the city with his legions and his spoils and his captives. His first triumph was for the Gallic wars; and on that day Vercingetorix, the gallant Gaul whom we remember, and who had now been six years in prison, was strangled to do Cæsar honour. I think we hate Cæsar the more for his cruelty to those who were not Romans, because policy induced him to spare his countrymen.