His other compositions have perished, in consequence, perhaps, of the
unforgiving republican sentiment which revived among men of letters after
the death of Augustus--which rose to a height in the "Pharsalia" of
Lucan--and which leaves so visible a mark in the writings of Tacitus and
Suetonius. There was a book "De Analogia," written by Caesar after the
conference at Lucca, during the passage of the Alps. There was a book on
the Auspices, which, coming from the head of the Roman religion, would
have thrown a light much to be desired on this curious subject. In
practice Caesar treated the auguries with contempt. He carried his laws in
open disregard of them. He fought his battles careless whether the sacred
chickens would eat or the calves' livers were of the proper color. His own
account of such things in his capacity of Pontifex would have had a
singular interest.
From the time of his boyhood he kept a common-place book, in which he
entered down any valuable or witty sayings, inquiring carefully, as Cicero
takes pains to tell us, after any smart observation of his own. Niebuhr
remarks that no pointed sentences of Caesar's can have come down to us.
Perhaps he had no gift that way, and admired in others what he did not
possess.
He left in verse "an account of the stars"--some practical almanac,
probably, in a shape to be easily remembered; and there was a journal in
verse also, written on the return from Munda.
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