The opponents of Caesarism have not been silent, and it would be neither
uninteresting nor unprofitable, did time permit, to show how well they
have disposed of most of the arguments of their foes. The question is
not the old one, whether the party of Caesar or that of Pompeius was the
better one, for at bottom the two were very much the same, the struggle
being for supremacy over the whole Roman dominion; and it is certain
that there would have been no essential change of political procedure,
had the decision at Pharsalia been reversed. On that field Caesar was the
nominal champion of the liberal faction, and Pompeius was the nominal
champion of the _optimates_. Had Caesar lost the day, the plebeian
Pompeian house would have furnished an imperial line, instead of that
line proceeding from the patrician Julii. Pompeius would have been as
little inclined to abandon the fruits of his victory to the aristocrats
as Caesar showed himself to set up the rule of the Forum-populace, to
whose support he owed so much. It was to free himself from the weight of
his equals that Pompeius selected the East for the seat of war, when
there were so many strong military reasons why he should have proceeded
to the West, to Romanized Spain, where he had veteran legions that might
under his lead have been found the equals of Caesar's small, but most
efficient army.
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