CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.--Cæsar was detained at Alexandria nine months in settling a dispute respecting the throne of Egypt. After a severe contest he overthrew the reigning Ptolemy, and secured the kingdom to the celebrated Cleopatra and a younger brother. Intelligence was now brought from Asia Minor that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Cæsar met the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate, announcing his victory, is famous. It ran thus: _Veni, vidi, vici_,--"I came, I saw, I conquered."
Cæsar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to Africa, which the friends of the old republic had made their last chief rallying-place. At the great battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) they were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to outlive the republic, took his own life.
CÆSAR'S TRIUMPH.--Cæsar was now virtually lord of the Roman world. Although he refrained from assuming the title of king, no Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, or surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. He was invested with all the offices and dignities of the state. The Senate made him perpetual dictator, and conferred upon him the powers of censor, consul, and tribune, with the titles of Pontifex Maximus and Imperator (whence Emperor). "He was to sit in a golden chair in the Senate-house, his image was to be borne in the procession of the gods, and the seventh month of the year was changed in his honor from Quintilis to Julius [whence our July]."
His triumph celebrating his many victories far eclipsed in magnificence anything that Rome had before witnessed. In the procession were led captive princes from all parts of the world. Beneath his standards marched soldiers gathered out of almost every country beneath the heavens. Seventy-five million dollars of treasure were displayed. Splendid games and tables attested the liberality of the conqueror. Sixty thousand couches were set for the multitudes. The shows of the theatre and the combats of the arena followed one another in an endless round. "Above the combats of the amphitheatre floated for the first time the awning of silk, the immense velarium of a thousand colors, woven from the rarest and richest products of the East, to protect the people from the sun" (Gibbon).