Caesar had determined to go in person to bring them to their
senses as soon as he could leave Rome. Partly, it was said that he felt
his life would be safer with the troops; partly, he desired to leave the
administration free from his overpowering presence, that it might learn to
go alone; partly and chiefly, he wished to spend such time as might remain
to him where he could do most service to his country. But he was growing
weary of the thankless burden. He was heard often to say that he had lived
long enough. Men of high nature do not find the task of governing their
fellow-creatures particularly delightful.
The Senate meanwhile was occupied in showing the sincerity of their
conversion by inventing honors for their new master, and smothering him
with distinctions since they had failed to defeat him in the field. Few
recruits had yet joined them, and they were still substantially the old
body. They voted Caesar the name of Liberator. They struck medals for him,
in which he was described as Pater Patriae, an epithet which Cicero had
once with quickened pulse heard given to himself by Pompey. "Imperator"
had been a title conferred hitherto by soldiers in the field on a
successful general. It was now granted to Caesar in a special sense, and
was made hereditary in his family, with the command-in-chief of the army
for his life.
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