He wished to get out of the Republican atmosphere, and
into a country where "the one-man power" was the recognized idea of
rule. He acted as a politician, not as a soldier, when he sailed from
Brundisium to the East, and the nobility were not blind to the fact, and
were not long in getting their revenge; for it was through their
political influence that Pompeius was forced to deliver battle at
Pharsalia, when there were strong military reasons for refusing to
fight. That they were involved in their chief's fall was only in
accordance with the usual course of things, there being nothing to equal
the besotted blindness of faction, as our current history but too
clearly proves.
As between Caesar and Pompeius, therefore, it is natural and just that
modern liberals should sympathize with the former, and contemplate his
triumph with pleasure, as he was by far the abler and better man, and
did not stain his success by bloodshed and plunder, things which the
Pompeians had promised themselves on a scale that would have astonished
Marius and Sulla, and which the Triumvirs never thought of equalling.
But when we are asked to behold as the result of the Roman Revolution
the deliverance of the provincials, and that as of purpose on the part
of the victor, we are inclined, in return, to ask of the Caesarians
whether they think mankind are such fools as not to be able to read and
to understand the Imperial history.
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