with which he penetrated the designs of his enemies, and the electric
speed with which he met disasters with remedy and reparation, or, where
that was impossible, with relief; the extraordinary presence of mind
which he showed in turning adverse omens to his own advantage, as when,
upon stumbling in coming on shore (which was esteemed a capital omen of
evil), he transfigured as it were in one instant its whole meaning by
exclaiming, "Thus, and by this contact with the earth, do I take
possession of thee, O Africa!" in that way giving to an accident the
semblance of a symbolic purpose. Equally conspicuous was the grandeur of
fortitude with which he faced the whole extent of a calamity when
palliation could do no good, "non negando, minuendove, sed insuper
amplificando, _ementiendoque_"; as when, upon finding his soldiery
alarmed at the approach of Juba, with forces really great, but
exaggerated by their terrors, he addressed them in a military harangue
to the following effect:--"Know that within a few days the king will
come up with us, bringing with him sixty thousand legionaries, thirty
thousand cavalry, one hundred thousand light troops, besides three
hundred elephants. Such being the case, let me hear no more of
conjectures and opinions, for you have now my warrant for the fact,
whose information is past doubting. Therefore, be satisfied; otherwise,
I will put every man of you on board some crazy old fleet, and whistle
you down the tide--no matter under what winds, no matter towards what
shore." Finally, we might seek for _characteristic_ anecdotes of Caesar
in his unexampled liberalities and contempt of money.

Upon this last topic it is the just remark of Casaubon that some
instances of Caesar's munificence have been thought apocryphal, or to
rest upon false readings, simply from ignorance of the heroic scale upon
which the Roman splendours of that age proceeded. A forum which Caesar
built out of the products of his last campaign, by way of a present to