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THE ROMAN EMPERORS IN MARBLE 3
his being, changed a tedious campaign of many years into
a high-sounding epic for the grizzled warriors, who under
burden of armor and baggage had to follow him from
conflict to conflict, through all the lands of the Gauls and
Belgians, over the Rhine into the woods of Germany,
across the sea into unknown Britain ? The man who with
limbs wasting away by excesses, disease and vigils, went
bareheaded in the sun and beating rain in front of his
legions, and when a watercourse stopped the advance,
swam over first of all, and when a division weakened,
threw himself into the struggle, fighting in the ranks, after
as commander he had planned all for victory ?
If genius can be found in these features, it is that of
the calculator, who, out of the wants of the time, the
claims of society, the virtues, faults and vices of man-
kind, has put together an intricate problem, and solved
it with cool perseverance to his own advantage.
If conscience can be found, it expresses itself in the
mocking words of the Greek poet, which Caesar is said to
have often had on his lips : Hold sacred law and right !
but if thou break them, Then break them for a throne !
If passion there be, it is that of which the jolly soldiers
sang, as they followed the triumphal car of their com-
mander : Burgher, do thou mind thy helpmate / Moon-
shine-pate is coming on I
Worse things yet, they sang on the same occasion of
their idolized chief; but nothing that struck him on a
more sensitive place. Achilles’ tender spot was the heel,
Caesar’s the head. Before their time the locks so carefully
tended grew thin, and that was a fateful omen for Rome.
For more than Alexander’s statue, which he saw in Gades,
this spurred him on towards the goal to which he aspired
;
since he could not put his hand to his head without a
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