Caesar was himself now about thirty-five years of age, and it made him very sad to reflect that, though he had lived five years longer than Alexander, he had yet accomplished so little.

He was thus far only the second in a province, while he burned with an insatiable ambition to be the first in Rome.

The reflection made him so uneasy that he left his post before his time expired, and went back to Rome, forming, on the way, desperate projects for getting power there.
[Sidenote: Caesar accused of treason.] His rivals and enemies accused him of various schemes, more or less violent and treasonable in their nature, but how justly it is not now possible to ascertain.

They alleged that one of his plans was to join some of the neighboring colonies, whose inhabitants wished to be admitted to the freedom of the city, and, making common cause with them, to raise an armed force and take possession of Rome.

It was said that, to prevent the accomplishment of this design, an army which they had raised for the purpose of an expedition against the Cilician pirates was detained from its march, and that Caesar, seeing that the government were on their guard against him, abandoned the plan.
They also charged him with having formed, after this, a plan within the city for assassinating the senators in the senate house, and then usurping, with his fellow-conspirators, the supreme power.