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For the victories obtained in the several wars, he triumphed five different times; after the defeat of Scipio four times in one month, each triumph succeeding the former by an interval of a few days; and once again after the conquest of Pompey's sons. His first and most glorious triumph was for the victories he gained in Gaul; the next for that of Alexandria, the third for the reduction of Pontus, the fourth for his African victory, and the last for that in Spain; and they all differed from each other in their varied pomp and pageantry.

On the day of the Gallic triumph, as he was proceeding along the street called Velabrum, after narrowly escaping a fall from his chariot by the breaking of an axle-tree, he ascended the Capitol by torch-light, forty elephants

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carrying torches on his right and left. Amongst the pageantry of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was carried before him: I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED;

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not signifying, as other mottos on the like occasion, what was done, so much as the dispatch with which it was done.