Taking the step which was now before him would necessarily end either in his realizing the loftiest aspirations of his ambition, or in his utter and irreparable ruin.

There were vast public interests, too, at stake, of which, however he probably thought but little.

It proved, in the end, that the history of the whole Roman world, for several centuries, was depending upon the manner in which the question new in Caesar's mind should turn.
[Sidenote: Story of the shepherd trumpeter.] There was a little bridge across the Rubicon at the point where Caesar was surveying it.

While he was standing there, the story is, a peasant or shepherd came from the neighboring fields with a shepherd's pipe--a simple musical instrument, made of a reed, and used much by the rustic musicians of those days.

The soldiers and some of the officers gathered around him to hear him play.