There are still some fragments remaining of the letters which Cæsar addressed to the Senate and his friends, and also of his orations, which were considered as inferior only to those of Cicero. Of his rhetorical talents, something may be hereafter said. It appears that his qualities as an orator and historian, were very different, since vehemence and the power of exciting emotion, (concitatio,) are mentioned as the characteristics of his harangues. Some of them were delivered in behalf of clients, and on real business, in the Forum; but the two orations entitled Anticatones were merely written in the form and manner of accusations before a judicial tribunal. These rhetorical declamations, which were composed about the time of the battle of Munda, were intended as an answer to the laudatory work of Cicero, called Laus Catonis. The author particularly considered in them the last act of Cato at Utica, and has raked up all the vices and defects of his character, whether real or imputed, public or private,—his ambition, affectation of singularity, churlishness, and avarice; but as the Anticatones were seasoned with lavish commendations of Cicero, whose panegyric on Cato they were intended to confute, the orator felt much flattered with the dictatorial incense, and greatly admired the performances in which it was offered,—“Collegit vitia Catonis, sed cum maximis laudibus meis[205].”
These two rival works were much celebrated at Rome; and both of them had their several admirers, as different parties and interests disposed men to favour the subject, or the author of each. It seems also certain, that they were the principal cause of establishing and promoting that veneration which posterity has since paid to the memory of Cato; for his name being thrown into controversy in that critical period of the [pg 103]fate of Rome, by the patron of liberty on one side, and its oppressor on the other, it became a kind of political test to all succeeding ages, and a perpetual argument of dispute between the friends of freedom, and the flatterers of power[206]. The controversy was taken up by Brutus, the nephew, and Fabius Gallus, an admirer of Cato: it was renewed by Augustus, who naturally espoused the royal side of the question, and by Thraseas Pætus, who ventured on this dangerous topic during the darkest days of imperial despotism.
Cæsar’s situation as Pontifex Maximus probably led him to write the Auguralia and Libri Auspiciorum, which, as their names import, were books explaining the different auguries and presages derived from the flight of birds. To the same circumstance we may attribute his work on the motions of the stars, De Motu Siderum, which explains what he had learned in Egypt on that subject from Sosigenes, a peripatetic philosopher of Alexandria, and in which, if we may credit the elder Pliny, he prognosticated his own death on the ides of March[207].
The composition of the works hitherto mentioned naturally enough suggested itself to a high-priest, warrior, and politician, who was also fond of literature, and had the same command of his pen as of his sword. But it appears singular, that one so much occupied with war, and with political schemes for the ruin of his country, should have seriously employed himself in writing formal and elaborate treatises on grammar. There is no doubt, however, that he composed a work, in two books, on the analogies of the Latin tongue, which was addressed to Cicero, and was entitled, like the preceding work of Varro on the same subject, De Analogia. It was written, as we are informed by Suetonius, while crossing the Alps, on his return to the army from Hither Gaul, where he had gone to attend the assemblies of that province[208]. In this book, the great principle established by him was, that the proper choice of words formed the foundation of eloquence[209]; and he cautioned authors and public speakers to avoid as a rock every unusual word or unwonted expression[210]. His declensions, however, of some nouns, appear, at least to us, not a little strange—as turbo, turbonis, instead of turbinis[211]; and likewise his inflections of verbs,—as, mordeo, memordi; pungo,, pepugi; spondeo, spepondi[212]. He also treated of derivatives; as we are informed, that he derived ens from the verb sum, es, est; and of rules of grammar,—as that the dative and ablative singular [pg 104]of neuters in e are the same, as also of neuters in ar, except far and jubar. It appears that he even descended to the most minute consideration of orthography and the formation of letters; Thus, he was of opinion, that the letter V should be formed like an inverted F,—thus Ⅎ,—because it has the force of the Æolic digamma. Cassiodorus farther mentions, that, in the question with regard to the use of the u or i in such words as maxumus or maximus, Cæsar gave the preference to i; and, from such high authority, this spelling was adopted in general practice.
It has been said, that Cæsar also made a collection of apophthegms and anecdotes, in the style of our modern Ana; but Augustus prevented these from being made public. That emperor likewise, in a letter to Pompeius Macrus, to whom he had given the charge of arranging his library, prohibited the publication of several poetical effusions of Cæsar’s youth. These are said to have consisted of a tragedy on the subject of Œdipus, and a poem in praise of Hercules[213]. Another poem, entitled Iter was written by him in maturer age. It is said, by Suetonius, to have been composed when he reached Farther Spain, on the twenty-fourth day after his departure from Rome[214]; and it may therefore be conjectured to have been a poetical relation of the incidents which occurred during that journey, embellished, perhaps, with descriptions of the most striking scenery through which he passed. Two epigrams, which are still extant, have also been frequently attributed to him; one on the dramatic character of Terence, already quoted[215], and another on a Thracian boy, who, while playing on the ice, fell into the river Hebrus,—
“Thrax puer, astricto glacie dum luderet Hebro,” &c.
But this last is, with more probability, supposed by many to have been the production of Cæsar Germanicus.
There were also several useful and important works accomplished under the eye and direction of Cæsar, such as the graphic survey of the whole Roman empire. Extensive as their conquests had been, the Romans hitherto had done almost nothing for geography, considered as a science. Their knowledge was confined to the countries they had subdued, and them they regarded only with a view to the levies they could furnish, and the taxations they could endure. Cæsar was the first who formed more exalted plans. Æthicus, a writer of the fourth century, informs us, in the preface to his Cosmographia, [pg 105]that this great man obtained a senatusconsultum, by which a geometrical survey and measurement of the whole Roman empire was enjoined to three geometers. Xenodoxus was charged with the eastern, Polycletus with the southern, and Theodotus with the northern provinces. Their scientific labour was immediately commenced, but was not completed till more than thirty years after the death of him with whom the undertaking had originated. The information which Cæsar had received from the astronomer Sosigenes in Egypt, enabled him to alter and amend the Roman calendar. It would be foreign from my purpose to enter into an examination of this system of the Julian year, but the computation he adopted has been explained, as is well known, by Scaliger and Gassendi[216]; and it has been since maintained, with little farther alteration than that introduced by Pope Gregory XIII. When we consider the imperfection of all mathematical instruments in the time of Cæsar, and the total want of telescopes, we cannot but view with admiration, not unmixed with astonishment, that comprehensive genius, which, in the infancy of science, could surmount such difficulties, and compute a system, that experienced but a trifling derangement in the course of sixteen centuries.
Although Cæsar wrote with his own hand only seven books of the Gallic campaigns, and the history of the civil wars till the death of his great rival, it seems highly probable, that he revised the last or eighth book of the Gallic war, and communicated information for the history of the Alexandrian and African expeditions, which are now usually published along with his own Commentaries, and may be considered as their supplement, or continuation. The author of these works, which nearly complete the interesting story of the campaigns of Cæsar, was Aulus Hirtius, one of his most zealous followers, and most confidential friends. He had been nominated Consul for the year following the death of his master; and, after that event, having espoused the cause of freedom, he was slain in the attack made by the forces of the republic on Antony’s camp, near Modena.
The eighth book of the Gallic war contains the account of the renewal of the contest by the states of Gaul, after the surrender of Alesia, and of the different battles which ensued, at most of which Hirtius was personally present, till the final pacification, when Cæsar, learning the designs which were forming against him at Rome, set out for Italy.