TO GAIUS TREBONIUS, IN ASIA1

(Fam. X., 28.)

ROME, B. C. 43.

How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March! 2 We should have had no leavings! While, as it is, we are having such a trouble with them, that the magnificent service which you men then did the state leaves room for some grumbling. In fact, for Antony's having been taken out of the way by you, the best of men, — and that it was by your kindness that this pest still survives, I sometimes do feel, though perhaps I have no right to do so, a little angry with you. For you have left behind an amount of trouble which is greater for me than for every one else put together.

For as soon as a meeting of the senate could be freely held, after Antony's very undignified departure, I returned to that old courage of mine, which along with that gallant citizen, your father, you ever had upon your lips and in your heart. For the tribunes having summoned the senate for the 20th of December, and having brought a different piece of business before it, I reviewed the situation as a whole, and spoke with the greatest fire, and tried all I could to recall the now languid and wearied senate to its ancient and traditional valor, more by an exhibition of high spirit than of eloquence.

1 Trebonius had taken a prominent part in the conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Caesar. He afterwards went as proconsul to the province of Asia.

2 The date of the assassination.

3 Cicero would have had Antony killed too. The speech alluded to is the third Philippic.

This day and this earnest appeal from me were the first things that inspired the Roman people with the hope of recovering its liberty. And had not I supposed that a gazette of the city and of all acts of the senate was transmitted to you, I would have written you out a copy with my own hand, though I have been overpowered with a multiplicity of business. But you will learn all that from others. From me you shall have a brief narrative, and that a mere summary. Our senate is courageous, but the consulars are partly timid, partly disaffected. We have had a great loss in Servius.1 Lucius Caesar entertains the most loyal sentiments, but, being Antony's uncle, he refrains from very strong language in the senate. The consuls are splendid. Decimus Brutus is covering himself with glory. The youthful Caesar 2 is behaving excellently, and I hope he will go on as he has begun. You may at any rate be sure of this that, had he not speedily enrolled the veterans, and had not the two legions transferred themselves from Antony's army to his command, and had not Antony been confronted with that danger, there is no crime or cruelty which he would have omitted to practise. Though I suppose these facts too have been told you, yet I wished you to know them still better. I will write more when I get more leisure.

1 Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who had died while on an embassy to Antony.

2 Afterwards Augustus.

8 Antony.

CAESAR

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

INDISPUTABLY the greatest personality in Roman history, Caesar, in addition to his epoch-making achievements as a statesman and as a general, showed throughout his career a keen interest in various branches of literature and science. His writings included commentaries on the Gallic and on the Civil War, a grammatical treatise on Analogy which is said to have been composed during a journey from Italy to Transalpine Gaul, a work dealing with some problems of astronomy, a pamphlet against Cato Minor, written in the camp at Munda in answer to the panegyric which Cicero had published shortly after Cato's suicide at Utica, some poems, and many letters and speeches. Of these the commentaries alone have come down to us, the others being known only through the testimony of contemporary or later authors or from a few fragments which have survived.

He was born in 100 B. C. The Julian gens, to which he belonged, was of patrician rank, and more than one of its members had already attained to the consulship. Of his early life and education, little is known, but one of his tutors is said to have been the Gaul M. Antonius Gnipho, a rhetorician of some repute. Through the marriage of his father's sister to Marius, he was during his boyhood and youth brought in close contact with the great popular leader, and this connection undoubtedly did much to develop in him the democratic spirit which helped to make him the idol of the Roman masses. His wife was Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, the famous adherent of Marius. He began his

military service under M. Minucius Thermus in Asia. On his return to Rome in 78, he came forward with an accusation of extortion against Cn. Dolabella, who had been proconsul of Macedonia. Although unsuccessful in this and in a similar attempt directed against Gaius Antonius, formerly proconsul in Greece, his speeches won high praise, and he was regarded as one of the best orators of the time. He subsequently pursued his rhetorical studies under Molon at Rhodes. After holding office as quaestor, aedile, and praetor, he went in 61 to Further Spain as propraetor. The year 60 saw the formation of the first triumvirate, which made him, together with Pompey and Crassus, supreme in the state. Consul in 59, he was in the following year appointed to the proconsulship of Gaul, where he spent the greater part of nine years, actively engaged in military and administrative work. In the mean time a rupture between him and Pompey had taken place. In the Civil War which followed, the victories at Pharsalus (48), Thapsus (46), and Munda (45) made him absolute master of the Roman world. His triumph, however, was short-lived; he was assassinated on the 15th of March, 44.

The commentaries on the Gallic War are a record of his career in Gaul during the years 58-52, and were in all probability written in 51. There are seven books, each giving an account of the events of a single year. The last two years of his command are treated by his lieutenant Hirtius in the eighth book. The gap between the Gallic War and the Civil War, that is, the years 51-49, is filled by the narratives of others of his lieutenants dealing with the Alexandrian, the African, and the Spanish wars. His commentaries on the Civil War consist of three books, the first two taking up the events of 49, the third those of 48. His aim in writing the account of the Gallic War seems to have been to impress the Roman people with the greatness of his services in extending the bounds of their empire. In his work on the Civil War he doubtless desired to show that he had done everything in his power to avert the War.

It is perhaps the element of restraint and reserve that contributes most to the effectiveness of Caesar's style. His narrative, moreover, is marked by a sustained objectivity : he writes as if he had been only a spectator of the events of which he was so great a part. Carefully avoiding all merely rhetorical devices, and using only the purest Latin, he tells his story with the utmost directness, simplicity, and clearness.

Taken from the narrative based on De Bello Gallico, VII., 69–89, in T. Rice Holmes' Caesar's Conquest of Gaul.

NEXT day the Romans arrived at Alesia, where Vercingetorix was preparing to make his final stand. The column descended a valley closed on the right and the left by the hills of Bussy and Pevenel. On their left front, connected with Pevenel by a broad neck of land, rose a hill, much lower than Gergovia,2 but still too steep to be taken by assault. The Gauls were swarming on the eastern slope, beneath the scarped rocks of the plateau, on which stood the town ; and Vercingetorix had made them build a wall and dig a ditch to protect their encampment. Just at their feet the legions saw a stream, the Oze, winding like a steely thread through the greenery that fringed the north of the hill; and beyond its southern side,

1 Alesia, the capital of the Mandubii, now Alise Ste. Reine on Mont Auxois, west of Dijon, was the scene of the last concerted attempt on the part of the Gauls to free themselves from Roman rule. That this rebellion of 52 B. C., which had begun in the country of the Arverni, the modern Auvergne, became a national one was due very largely to the enthusiastic patriotism and personal magnetism of the young Arvernian chieftain Vercingetorix. It was only after many months of fighting that Caesar forced the rebels to retreat to Alesia.

2 The capital of the Arverni, upon which Caesar had made an unsuccessful attack.