Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC into one of the oldest patrician families in Rome — the Julii claimed descent from Venus through Aeneas — but one that had been politically marginal for generations. He changed that. Through a combination of military genius, political daring, personal magnetism, and ruthless ambition, he rose to become dictator of Rome and the most famous man in ancient history.

His literary works survive almost as a byproduct of his military career. The Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Gallic War), covering his conquest of Gaul from 58 to 50 BC, and the Commentarii de Bello Civili (Civil War), covering the first two years of his war against Pompey and the Senate, are military memoirs of the highest quality. Written in the third person with a deceptive simplicity, they are masterpieces of self-presentation: Caesar as the calm, rational, magnanimous commander, always acting in defence of his dignity and the Republic.

The prose style is legendary. Cicero praised its purity and directness; later critics took it as the model of plain Latin. Generations of Latin students have read Caesar first, and there is a reason for that: the sentences are clear, the vocabulary is controlled, the grammar is exemplary. Behind the simplicity, of course, lies supreme art — and supreme political calculation.

Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BC. He was fifty-five years old. The Republic he claimed to defend died with him.