Page:The Commentaries of Caesar.djvu/68

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58
THE WAR IN GAUL.—THIRD BOOK.

—"legatos,"—a name that has always been held sacred and inviolate among all nations,—is very great, and makes him feel that he must really be in earnest. We are reminded of the injunctions, printed in Spanish, which the Spaniards distributed among the Indians of the continent, in the countries now called Venezuela and New Granada, explaining to the people, who knew nothing of Spanish or of printing, how they were bound to obey the orders of a distant king, who had the authority of a more distant Pope, who again,—so they claimed,—was delegated by a more distant God. The pain of history consists in the injustice of the wolf towards the lamb, joined to the conviction that thus, and no otherwise, could the lamb be brought to better than a sheepish mode of existence! But Cæsar was in earnest.[1] The following is a translation of the tenth section of this book; "There were these difficulties in carrying on the war which we have above shown."—He alludes to the maritime capacities of the people whom he desires to conquer.—"Many things, nevertheless, urged Cæsar on to this war;—the wrongs of those Roman knights who had been detained, rebellion set on foot after an agreed surrender,"—that any

  1. And Cæsar was no doubt indignant as well as earnest, though, perhaps, irrational in his indignation. We know how sacred was held to be the person of the Roman citizen, and remember Cicero's patriotic declaration, "Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum,—scelus verberari;" and again, the words which Horace puts into the mouth of Regulus when he asserts that the Roman soldier must be lost for ever in his shame, and useless, "Qui lora restrictis lacertis Sensit iners timuitque mortem."