Note 529 — LIFE OF C. CÆSAR.

This was the "sanctius ærarium" (Cæsar, Civil War, i. 13), which Lentulus had left open; in such alarm had he left the city. This money, which was kept in the temple of Saturn, was never touched except in cases of great emergency. Vossius remarks that to save his own character, Cæsar says that he found this treasury open. But Cæsar does not say that he found it open. He says that Lentulus left it open. There was time enough for Metellus to lock the door after Lentulus ran away. Cæsar would have been a fool not to take the money; and if he wanted it, he would of course break the door open, if he found it shut. But whether the door was open or shut was unimportant; the wrongful act, if there was any, consisted in taking the money, and he would not have been excused for taking it simply because the door was unlocked. I believe Cæsar broke it open (Cicero Ad Attic. x. 4; Dion Cassius, 41. c. 17; and the authorities quoted by Reimarus). I also believe Cæsar when he says that Lentulus left the door unlocked. The Senate had supplied Pompeius with money for the war out of the ordinary treasury. When Cæsar took Corfinium, he gave to Domitius all the money that he found there, which was to a large amount, though this was public money and had been given to Domitius by Pompeius to pay his soldiers with. (Appianus, ii. 28; Cæsar, Civil War, i. 23.) When "that man of greatest purity and integrity," as Cicero calls him, M. Terentius Varro, commanded for Pompeius in Spain (B.C. 48), he carried off the treasure from the temple of Hercules at Cadiz. That man, on whom Cicero vents every term of abuse that his fear and hatred could supply, restored the stolen money to the god. (Cæsar, Civil War, ii. 18, 21.)