Many experts believe that this recollection by Julius Caesar is one of the most important books of history. It surely is one of the basic sources for a great Shakespeare play. It details the military and civil accomplishments of one of the greatest of Roman leaders during the final moments of the republic. The imperial Rome of Augustus (and his successors) had been foreshadowed by the rise of powerful and dangerous men, such as Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Lucius Cornelius Cinna, among several dictators. These tyrants may have been bringing about the end of the republic from the time they appeared; therefore, the ascendance of Pompey and Caesar seems to provide only the final convulsions. The civil wars they initiated, or, even those they did not foresee, but, somehow, incidentally provoked, produced the concentration of power that resulted in imperial Rome. This account reflects on the history of Rome's violent and inflexible two-party political process that functioned, at least in part, because of a single evident flaw that seems to have spawned and nurtured it: A virtual cast system that divided Plebeians from Patricians along economic fault lines, apparently, could not be bridged (and these fault lines, themselves, were compromised by historic acts and behavior patterns that included the pedigrees of both those who admitted to aristocratic proclivities and also those who claimed to be commoner-party leaders).
All the greatest figures of one of the truly transitional periods in cultural history appear on virtually every page. We learn how Roman politics worked. We see how treacherous the great Julius Caesar might have been, despite his popular appeal, although he and his supporters inevitably managed to deny any culpability -- or even a disposition to behave improperly. He divorced his (second) wife, Pompeia, not because she ever had been faithless, but on the grounds that for her to stay married to him she had to be beyond suspicions of any (and all) moral fault. This highly publicized divorce took place after a young man was discovered in the lady's house during the celebration of a festival from which men were banned. He was in disguise and even Caesar did not claim his wife ever had any idea that he might be there. No intimate relationship between this man and Pompeia was ever shown to have taken place. Oddly, too, this very man later was supported by Julius Caesar for political office, but no quid pro quo was alleged to have occurred. The slogan requiring Caesar's wife to be "beyond suspicion" has been used so much throughout history that it has become a cliché.
However, the great and powerful general, although often attacked, was almost impervious to criticism; he defended himself against it, sometimes with bloodshed, but he did not yield to that barrage of charges his enemies constantly directed at him. He led his legions so successfully that no enemy ever overcame him -- until, not long after this book ends, a man he regarded as his son conspired with several others to assassinate him.
His greatest rivals included Pompey and were the most powerful of all during that time. Caesar is the man to whom Mark Anthony offered the crown. And it is this man, who may have remembered a tyrant among his recent (and still-feared) relatives (Gaius Marius), and, not wanting the memory of that man to taint his own career, dutifully refused it three times. The man who wrote this report about his own life as a warrior and as a politician -- and defended his actions in both spheres -- is one of the most successful generals in the history of the world; in this work, he tells how he overcame the rivals of his youth, then conquered the Helvetii, most of Gaul, the Belgae, the Aquitani, and many German tribes. In detailing so much of the politics involving his genetic and cultural ties to past dictators he also bares peculiarities of his own relentless campaigns; he displays a lot of the idiosyncrasies and some of the social issues that drove him to do what he did, and in making some of these statements he sometimes seems almost defiant of the reserve he clearly thinks necessary. He ends his work with a powerful challenge.
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Top reviews from other countries
David Seyboth
Interressant aber nicht was ich erwartet habe.
Reviewed in Germany on April 18, 2019
