He was not by any means consistently a cruel man, and his kindness and magnanimity were often demonstrated. He shed tears, it will be remembered, upon seeing the signet-ring of his murdered enemy, Pompey; and in Rome he ordered that unfortunate soldier’s statues to be replaced upon the pedestals from which they had been thrown. In warfare, however, he was often ruthless, and had recourse to wholesale massacres which could hardly be regarded as necessary measures. At Uxellodunum and elsewhere he caused thousands of prisoners to be maimed by the hacking off of their right hands; and his slaughter of the members of the Senate of the Veneti seems to have been an unnecessary piece of brutality. His behaviour in regard to the Usipetes and Tencteri will always remain the chief stain upon his military reputation. After concluding peace with these unfortunate peoples, he attacked them when they were disarmed, and killed 430,000 of them--men, women, and children. For this barbarity Cato proposed that he should be put in chains and delivered over to the remnant of the massacred tribes, that they might wreak their vengeance upon him.
During his ten years’ campaigning in Gaul he took 800 towns by storm, subdued 300 states, killed a million men, and sent another million into slavery.[27] His cold-blooded execution of the brave Vercingetorix, after six years of captivity, seems more cruel to us, perhaps, than it did to his contemporaries; and it may be said in his favour that he treated the terrified remnant of the conquered peoples with justice and moderation. In spite of a kindly and even affable manner, his wit was caustic and his words often terribly biting. When a certain young man named Metellus, at that time tribune, had persistently questioned whether Cæsar had a right to appropriate treasury funds in the prosecution of his wars, Cæsar threatened to put him to death if any more was heard of his dissent. “And this you know, young man,” said he, “is more disagreeable for me to say than to do.” He associated freely with all manner of persons, and although so obviously an aristocrat, he was noted for his friendliness and tact in dealing with the lower classes. During his campaigns he shared all hardships with his men, and, consequently, was much beloved by them, in spite of their occasional objection to the heavy work or strenuous manœuvres which he required them to undertake. He was wont to travel in time of war at the rate of a hundred miles a day; and when a river or stream obstructed his progress he did not hesitate to dive straightway into the water and swim to the opposite shore. On the march he himself usually slept in his litter, or curled up on the floor of his chariot, and his food was of the coarsest description. At no time, indeed, was he a gourmet; and it is related how once he ate without a murmur some asparagus which had been treated with something very much like an ointment in mistake for sauce. In later life he drank no wine of any kind, an abstemiousness which was probably forced upon him by ill-health; and he who, in his early years, had been notorious for his dissipations and luxurious living, was, at the time with which we are now dealing, famous for his abstinence.