30.4
The latter opinion is the more credible one in view of the assertion of Asinius Pollio, that when Caesar at the battle of Pharsalus saw his enemies slain or in flight, he said, word for word: They would have it so. Even I, Gaius Caesar, after so many great deeds, should have been found guilty, if I had not turned to my army for help.
30.5
Some think that habit had given him a love of power, and that weighing the strength of his adversaries against his own, he grasped the opportunity of usurping the despotism which had been his heart’s desire from early youth. Cicero too was seemingly of this opinion, when he wrote in the third book of his De Officiis3.82 that Caesar ever had upon his lips these lines of Euripides,Eur. Phoenissae 524-525. of which Cicero himself adds a version: If wrong may e’er be right, for a throne’s sakeWere wrong most right: — be God in all else feared. Way.
31.1
Accordingly, when word came that the veto of the tribunes had been set aside and they themselves had left the city, he at once sent on a few cohorts with all secrecy, and then, to disarm suspicion, concealed his purpose by appearing at a public show, inspecting the plans of a gladiatorial school which he intended building, and joining as usual in a banquet with a large company.