With the same design he himself came forward eleven years afterwards as a condottiere.

It was done in both cases with a certain naivete--with good faith in the possibility of his being able to found a free commonwealth, if not by the swords of others, at any rate by his own.

We perceive without difficulty that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit into his service without becoming himself enslaved to it; but the greatest men are not those who err the least.
If we still after so many centuries bow in reverence before what Caesar willed and did, it is not because he desired and gained a crown (to do which is, abstractly, as little of a great thing as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal--of a free commonwealth under one ruler--never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch from sinking into vulgar royalty.
Caesar Consul The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without difficulty by the united parties.

The aristocracy had to rest content with giving to him--by means of a bribery, for which the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited surprise even in that period of deepest corruption--a colleague in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy was regarded in their circles as conservative energy, and whose good intentions at least were not at fault if the genteel lords did not get a fit return for their patriotic expenditure.
Caesar's Agrarian Law As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion the requests of his confederates, among which the assignation of land to the veterans of the Asiatic army was by far the most important.

The agrarian law projected for this purpose by Caesar adhered in general to the principles set forth in the project of law, which was introduced in the previous year at the suggestion of Pompeius but not carried.( 5) There was destined for distribution only the Italian domain-land, that is to say, substantially, the territory of Capua, and, if this should not suffice, other Italian estates were to be purchased out of the revenue of the new eastern provinces at the taxable value recorded in the censorial rolls; all existing rights of property and heritable possession thus remained unaffected.