I find a note scribbled by myself some years ago in a volume in which I had read this epistle, "Probably the most beautiful letter ever written." Reading it again subsequently, I added another note, "The language altogether different from that of his ordinary letters." I do not dissent now either from the enthusiastic praise or the more careful criticism. The letter was from the man's heart--true, affectionate, and full of anxious, brotherly duty--but written in studied language, befitting, as Cicero thought, the need and the dignity of the occasion.
The year following was that of Cæsar's first Consulship, which he held in conjunction with Bibulus, a man who was altogether opposed to him in thought, in character, and in action. So hostile were these two great officers to each other that the one attempted to undo whatever the other did. Bibulus was elected by bribery, on behalf of the Senate, in order that he might be a counterpoise to Cæsar. But Cæsar now was not only Cæsar: he was Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus united, with all their dependents, all their clients, all their greedy hangers-on. To give this compact something of the strength of family union, Pompey, who was now nearly fifty years of age, took in marriage Cæsar's daughter Julia, who was a quarter of a century his junior. But Pompey was a man who could endear himself to women, and the opinion seems to be general that had not Julia died in childbirth the friendship between the men would have been more lasting. But for Cæsar's purposes the duration of this year and the next was enough. Bibulus was a laughing-stock, the mere shadow of a Consul, when opposed to such an enemy. He tried to use all the old forms of the Republic with the object of stopping Cæsar in his career; but Cæsar only ridiculed him; and Pompey, though we can imagine that he did not laugh much, did as Cæsar would have him. Bibulus was an augur, and observed the heavens when political man[oe]uvres were going on which he wished to stop. This was the old Roman system for using religion as a drag upon progressive movements. No work of state could be carried on if the heavens were declared to be unpropitious; and an augur could always say that the heavens were unpropitious if he pleased. This was the recognized constitutional mode of obstruction, and was quite in accord with the feelings of the people. Pompey alone, or Crassus with him, would certainly have submitted to an augur; but Cæsar was above augurs. Whatever he chose to have carried he carried, with what approach he could to constitutional usage, but with whatever departure from constitutional usage he found to be necessary.