As Sallust has obviously imitated, and, in fact, resembles Thucydides, so has
JULIUS CÆSAR,
in his historical works, been compared to Xenophon, the first memoir writer among the Greeks. Simplicity is the characteristic of both, but Xenophon has more rhetorical flow and sweetness of style, and he is sometimes, I think, a little mawkish; while the simplicity of Cæsar, on the other hand, borders, perhaps, on severity. Cæsar, too, though often circumstantial, is never diffuse, while Xenophon is frequently prolix, without being minute or accurate. “In the Latin work,” says Young, in his History of Athens, “we have the commentaries of a general vested with supreme command, and who felt no anxiety about the conduct or obedience of his army—in the Greek, we possess the journal of an officer in subordinate rank, though of high estimation. Hence the [pg 95]speeches of the one are replete with imperatorial dignity, those of the other are delivered with the conciliatory arts of argument and condescension. Hence, too, the mind of Xenophon was absorbed in the care and discipline of those under his command; but thence we are better acquainted with the Greek army than with that of Cæsar. Cæsar’s attention was ever directed to those he was to attack, to counteract, or to oppose—Xenophon’s to those he was to conduct. For the same reason, Xenophon is superficial with respect to any peculiarities of the nations he passed through; while in Cæsar we have a curious, and well authenticated detail, relative to the Gauls, the Britons, and every other enemy. The comparison, however, holds in this, that Cæsar, like Xenophon, was properly a writer of Memoirs. Like him, he aimed at nothing farther than communicating facts in a plain familiar manner; and the account of his campaign was only drawn up as materials for future history, not having leisure to bestow that ornament and dress which history requires.” In the opinion of his contemporaries, however, and all subsequent critics, he has rendered desperate any attempt to write the history of the wars of which he treats. “Dum voluit,” says Cicero, “alios habere parata, unde sumerent, qui vellent scribere historiam, sanos quidem homines a scribendo deterruit.” A similar opinion is given by his continuator Hirtius,—“Adeo probantur omnium judicio ut prærepta, non præbita, facultas scriptoribus videatur.”
Cæsar’s Commentaries consist of seven books of the Gallic, and three of the civil wars. Some critics, however, particularly Floridus Sabinus[196], deny that he was the author of the books on the latter war, while Carrio and Ludovicus Caduceus doubt of his being the author even of the Gallic war,—the last of these critics attributing the work to Suetonius. Hardouin, who believed that most of the works now termed classical, were forgeries of the monks in the thirteenth century, also tried to persuade the world, that the whole account of the Gallic campaigns was a fiction, and that Cæsar had never drawn a sword in Gaul in his life. The testimony, however, of Cicero and Hirtius, who were contemporary with Cæsar,—of many authentic writers, who lived after him, as Suetonius, Strabo, and Plutarch,—and of all the old grammarians, must be considered as settling the question; for if such evidence is not implicitly trusted, there seems to be an end of all reliance on ancient authority.
Though these Commentaries comprehend but a small extent [pg 96]of time, and are not the general history of a nation, they embrace events of the highest importance, and they detail, perhaps, the greatest military operations to be found in ancient story. We see in them all that is great and consummate in the art of war. The ablest commander of the most martial people on the globe records the history of his own campaigns. Placed at the head of the finest army ever formed in the world, and one devoted to his fortunes, but opposed by military skill and prowess only second to its own, he, and the soldiers he commanded, may be almost extolled in the words in which Nestor praised the heroes who had gone before him:—
“Καρτισοι δη κεινοι ἐπιχθονιων τραφεν ανδρων,
Καρτισοι μεν ἐσαν και καρτισοις ἐμαχοντο,” ——
for the Gauls and Germans were among the bravest and most warlike nations then on earth, and Pompey was accounted the most consummate general of his age. No commander, it is universally admitted, ever had such knowledge of the mechanical part of war: He possessed the complete empire of the sea, and was aided by all the influence derived from the constituted authority of the state.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole Commentaries, is the account of the campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius, in which Cæsar, being reduced to extremities for want of provisions and forage, (in consequence of the bridges over the rivers, between which he had encamped, being broken down,) extricated himself from this situation, after a variety of skilful manœuvres, and having pursued Pompey’s generals into Celtiberia, and back again to Lerida, forced their legions to surrender, by placing them in those very difficulties from which he had so ably relieved his own army.