They contain the history of a great revolution
related by the principal actor in it; but no effort can be traced to set
his own side in a favorable light, or to abuse or depreciate his
adversaries. The coarse invectives which Cicero poured so freely upon
those who differed from him are conspicuously absent. Caesar does not
exult over his triumphs or parade the honesty of his motives. The facts
are left to tell their own story; and the gallantry and endurance of his
own troops are not related with more feeling than the contrast between the
confident hopes of the patrician leaders at Pharsalia and the luxury of
their camp with the overwhelming disaster which fell upon them. About
himself and his own exploits there is not one word of self-complacency or
self-admiration. In his writings, as in his life, Caesar is always the
same--direct, straightforward, unmoved save by occasional tenderness,
describing with unconscious simplicity how the work which had been forced
upon him was accomplished. He wrote with extreme rapidity in the intervals
of other labor; yet there is not a word misplaced, not a sign of haste
anywhere, save that the conclusion of the Gallic war was left to be
supplied by a weaker hand. The Commentaries, as an historical narrative,
are as far superior to any other Latin composition of the kind as the
person of Caesar himself stands out among the rest of his contemporaries.
Pages:
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678