His most
striking virtues, his magnanimity, his generosity, his mercy to the
vanquished, distinguished him among all the Romans of his period.
Caesar was a combination of bodily activity, intellectual power, of
literary acquirements, and administrative talent that has seldom
appeared. As a soldier he was not inferior in courage and endurance to
the hardiest veteran of his legions; and his military ability places
him in the first rank of commanders who have contended with and
overcome almost insurmountable obstacles. Cicero ranks him in the
first class of orators; and his own immortal work, his History of the
Gallic Campaign and the Civil War, is a literary monument which
distinguishes him among all other commanders. As a speaker and a
writer he had no superior among his contemporaries. His varied talents
are further shown by his numerous literary labours, of which some
small notices remain. His views were large and enlightened, his
schemes were vast and boundless. His genius deserved a better sphere
than the degenerate republic in which he lived. But the power which he
acquired did not die with him. A youth of tender age succeeded to the
name and the inheritance of Caesar, and by his great talents and a long
career of wonderful success consolidated that Monarchy which we call
the Roman Empire.
Shakspere has founded his play of Julius Caesar on Plutarch's Life of
Caesar and the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.
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