Marius had
saved Italy then from destruction, as it were, by the hair of its head.
The annihilation of those hordes had given Rome a passing respite. But
fresh generations had grown up. Fresh multitudes were streaming out of
the North. Germans in hundreds of thousands were again passing the Upper
Rhine, rooting themselves in Burgundy, and coming in collision with tribes
which Rome protected. There were uneasy movements among the Gauls
themselves, whole nations of them breaking up from their homes and again
adrift upon the world. Gaul and Germany were like a volcano giving signs
of approaching eruption; and at any moment, and hardly with warning,
another lava-stream might be pouring down into Venetia and Lombardy.
To deal with this danger was the work marked out for Caesar. It is the
fashion to say that he sought a military command that he might have an
army behind him to overthrow the constitution. If this was his object,
ambition never chose a more dangerous or less promising route for itself.
Men of genius who accomplish great things in this world do not trouble
themselves with remote and visionary aims. They encounter emergencies as
they rise, and leave the future to shape itself as it may. It would seem
that at first the defence of Italy was all that was thought of. "The woods
and forests" were set aside, and Caesar, by a vote of the people, was
given the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria for five years; but either
he himself desired, or especial circumstances which were taking place
beyond the mountains recommended, that a wider scope should be allowed
him.
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