I Would Rather Be First In

Reported by Plutarch in his Parallel Lives (Life of Caesar, Chapter 11), set during Caesar's journey over the Alps on his way to a provincial posting in Spain. As his party passed a small, poverty-stricken barbarian village, his companions laughed and asked if even there men competed for offices and power. Caesar replied in complete seriousness that he would rather be first in that village than second in Rome. Plutarch pairs the anecdote with a scene of Caesar weeping over a statue of Alexander the Great, lamenting that at the same age Alexander had conquered much of the known world.