or ovals, with other costly materials, wanted for the tessellated
flooring of his tent. Habits such as these will easily account for his
travelling in a carriage rather than on horseback.

The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were notorious; and both
were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations in
Rome. Dining on one occasion, as an invited guest, at a table where the
servants had inadvertently, for salad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse
lamp-oil, Caesar would not allow the rest of the company to point out
the mistake to their host, for fear of shocking him too much by exposing
what might have been construed into inhospitality. At another time,
whilst halting at a little _cabaret_, when one of his retinue was
suddenly taken ill, Caesar resigned to his use the sole bed which the
house afforded. Incidents as trifling as these express the urbanity of
Caesar's nature; and hence one is the more surprised to find the
alienation of the Senate charged, in no trifling degree, upon a gross
and most culpable failure in point of courtesy. Caesar, it is alleged--
but might we presume to call upon antiquity for its authority?--
neglected to rise from his seat, on their approaching him with an
address of congratulation. It is said, and we can believe it, that he
gave deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of ceremonial
observance than by all his substantial attacks upon their privileges.
What we find it difficult to believe is not that result from that
offence--this is no more than we should all anticipate--not _that_, but
the possibility of the offence itself, from one so little arrogant as
Caesar, and so entirely a man of the world. He was told of the disgust
which he had given; and we are bound to believe his apology, in which he
charged it upon sickness, that would not at the moment allow him to
maintain a standing attitude. Certainly the whole tenor of his life was
not courteous only, but kind, and to his enemies merciful in a degree