Introduction

INTRODUCTION

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY

The character of the First Caesar has perhaps never been worse
appreciated than by him who in one sense described it best; that is,
with most force and eloquence wherever he really _did_ comprehend it.
This was Lucan, who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor
wandered more from the truth, than in the contrasted portraits of Caesar
and Pompey. The famous line, _"Nil actum reputans si quid superesset
agendum,"_ is a fine feature of the real character, finely expressed.
But, if it had been Lucan's purpose (as possibly, with a view to
Pompey's benefit, in some respects it was) utterly and extravagantly to
falsify the character of the great Dictator, by no single trait could he
more effectually have fulfilled that purpose, nor in fewer words, than
by this expressive passage, _"Gaudensque viam fecisse ruina."_ Such a
trait would be almost extravagant applied even to Marius, who (though in
many respects a perfect model of Roman grandeur, massy, columnar,
imperturbable, and more perhaps than any one man recorded in History
capable of justifying the bold illustration of that character in Horace,
"_Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae_") had, however,
a ferocity in his character, and a touch of the devil in him, very
rarely united with the same tranquil intrepidity. But, for Caesar, the
all-accomplished statesman, the splendid orator, the man of elegant
habits and polished taste, the patron of the fine arts in a degree
transcending all example of his own or the previous age, and as a man of
general literature so much beyond his contemporaries, except Cicero,
that he looked down even upon the brilliant Sylla as an illiterate
person--to class such a man with the race of furious destroyers exulting
in the desolations they spread is to err not by an individual trait, but
by the whole genus. The Attilas and the Tamerlanes, who rejoice in
avowing themselves the scourges of God, and the special instruments of
his wrath, have no one feature of affinity to the polished and humane
Caesar, and would as little have comprehended his character as he could
have respected theirs. Even Cato, the unworthy hero of Lucan, might have
suggested to him a little more truth in this instance, by a celebrated
remark which he made on the characteristic distinction of Caesar, in
comparison with other revolutionary disturbers; for, said he, whereas
others had attempted the overthrow of the state in a continued paroxysm
of fury, and in a state of mind resembling the lunacy of intoxication,
Caesar, on the contrary, among that whole class of civil disturbers, was
the only one who had come to the task in a temper of sobriety and
moderation _(unum