Caesar

We are told that, as he was crossing the Alps and passing by a barbarian village which had very few inhabitants and was a sorry sight, his companions asked with mirth and laughter, Can it be that here too there are ambitious strifes for office, struggles for primacy, and mutual jealousies of powerful men? Whereupon Caesar said to them in all seriousness, I would rather be first here than second at Rome.

In like manner we are told again that, in Spain, when he was at leisure and was reading from the history of Alexander, he was lost in thought for a long time, and then burst into tears. His friends were astonished, and asked the reason for his tears. Do you not think, said he, it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?[*](Suetonius (Div. Jul. 7) and Dio Cassius (xxxvii. 52, 2) connect this anecdote more properly with Caesar’s quaestorship in Spain (67 B.C.) when he was thirty-three years of age, the age at which Alexander died.)