But where he recognized that fate had spoken, he always obeyed.

Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at Moscow, turned back because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant at destiny for bestowing even on its favourites merely limited successes; Caesar turned back voluntarily on the Thames and on the Rhine; and thought of carrying into effect even at the Danube and the Euphrates not unbounded plans of world-conquest, but merely well-considered frontier-regulations.
Such was this unique man, whom it seems so easy and yet is so infinitely difficult to describe.

His whole nature is transparent clearness; and tradition preserves more copious and more vivid information about him than about any of his peers in the ancient world.
Of such a personage our conceptions may well vary in point of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, strictly speaking, different; to every not utterly perverted inquirer the grand figure has exhibited the same essential features, and yet no one has succeeded in reproducing it to the life.

The secret lies in its perfection.

In his character as a man as well as in his place in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts of existence meet and balance each other.