Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press Read Free

he lived in probably the best documented decades of Roman history, there are still many things we do not know about Caesar. Most of our evidence has been available for some time. Archaeological excavation continues to reveal more about the world in which Caesar lived – at the time of writing on-going work in, for instance, France and Egypt is likely to tell us a good deal more about Gaul in Caesar’s day and the Alexandria of Cleopatra. However, it is unlikely that any discoveries will radically alter our understanding of Caesar’s career and life. For this we are largely reliant on the literary sources in Latin and Greek that have survived from the ancient world, occasionally supplemented by inscriptions on bronze or in stone. Caesar’s own Commentaries on his campaigns survive and provide us with detailed accounts of his campaigns in Gaul and the first two years of the Civil War. They are supplemented by four extra books written after his death by his officers, which cover his remaining operations. In addition we have the letters, speeches and theoretical works of Cicero, which provide us with a wealth of detail for this period. Cicero’s correspondence, which includes letters written to him by many of the leading men of the Republic, was published after his death and contains a handful of short messages from Caesar himself. We know that complete books of correspondence between Cicero and Caesar, as well as another consisting of exchanges between Cicero and Pompey, were published, but sadly these have not survived. The same is true of Caesar’s other literary works and published speeches. It is always important to remind ourselves that only a tiny fraction of one per cent of the literature of the ancient world is available today. There are some deliberate omissions from Cicero’s published letters, most notably his letters to his friend Atticus in the first three months of 44 BC. Atticus was involved in the release of the correspondence, but this did not occur until Augustus was established as master of Rome. It is more than likely that the 5
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    missing letters contained something that might have implicated Atticus in involvement in the conspiracy against Caesar, or more probably suggested either knowledge of it or subsequent approval, and that these were deliberately suppressed to protect himself. Another nearly contemporary source is Sallust, who wrote several histories, including an account of Catiline’s conspiracy. During the Civil War Sallust had fought for Caesar and been reinstated to the Senate as a reward. Sent to govern Africa, he was subsequently condemned for extortion, but was let off by Caesar. More favourable to Caesar than Cicero, Sallust wrote with the benefit of hindsight and his opinion of the dictator seems to have become rather mixed. Ironically, given his own career – though he always strenuously denied any wrongdoing – his theme was that all of Rome’s ills were caused by a moral decline amongst the aristocracy, and so inevitably this coloured his narrative. Cicero, Sallust and Caesar were all active participants in public life. Caesar in particular wrote to celebrate his deeds and win support for his continuing career. Neither he nor the others were dispassionate observers keen only to report unvarnished fact. Most other sources are much later. Livy wrote during the reign of Augustus and so some events were still within living memory, but the books covering this period have been lost and only brief summaries survive. Velleius Paterculus wrote a little later and there is some useful material in his brief narrative of the period. However, a good deal of our evidence for Caesar was not written until the early second century AD, over one hundred and fifty years after the dictator’s murder. The Greek writer Appian produced a massive history of Rome, of which two books cover the civil wars and disturbances from 133 to 44 BC. Plutarch was also Greek, but his most important work for our