De Bello Gallico

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries by Caius Julius Caesar
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Title: "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries
Author: Caius Julius Caesar
Release Date: January 9, 2004 [EBook #10657]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Transcriber's Note:
Typographical errors in the original have been corrected and noted using the notation ** .
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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
CLASSICAL

CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES
TRANSLATED BY W. A. MACDEVITT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
THIS IS NO. 702 OF _EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY_. THE PUBLISHERS WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED VOLUMES ARRANGED UNDER THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS:
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TRAVEL--SCIENCE--FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY--CLASSICAL
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
ESSAYS--ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
REFERENCE
ROMANCE
* * * * *
THE ORDINARY EDITION IS BOUND IN CLOTH WITH GILT DESIGN AND COLOURED TOP. THERE IS ALSO A LIBRARY EDITION IN REINFORCED CLOTH

THE SAGES OF OLD LIVE AGAIN IN US
GLANVILL

"DE BELLO GALLICO" & OTHER COMMENTARIES: OF CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THIS EDITION, 1915 REPRINTED 1923, 1929

INTRODUCTION
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY
The character of the First Caesar has perhaps never been worse appreciated than by him who in one sense described it best; that is, with most force and eloquence wherever he really did comprehend it. This was Lucan, who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor wandered more from the truth, than in the contrasted portraits of Caesar and Pompey. The famous line, _"Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum,"_ is a fine feature of the real character, finely expressed. But, if it had been Lucan's purpose (as possibly, with a view to Pompey's benefit, in some respects it was) utterly and extravagantly to falsify the character of the great Dictator, by no single trait could he more effectually have fulfilled that purpose, nor in fewer words, than by this expressive passage, _"Gaudensque viam fecisse ruina."_ Such a trait would be almost extravagant applied even to Marius, who (though in many respects a perfect model of Roman grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more perhaps than any one man recorded in History capable of justifying the bold illustration of that character in Horace, "_Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae_") had, however, a ferocity in his character, and a touch of the devil in him, very rarely united with the same tranquil intrepidity. But, for Caesar, the all-accomplished statesman, the splendid orator, the man of elegant habits and polished taste, the patron of the fine arts in a degree transcending all example of his own or the previous age, and as a man of general literature so much beyond his contemporaries, except Cicero, that he looked down even upon the brilliant Sylla as an illiterate person--to class such a man with the race of furious destroyers exulting in the desolations they spread is to err not by an individual trait, but by the whole genus. The Attilas and the Tamerlanes, who rejoice in avowing themselves the scourges of God, and the special instruments of his wrath, have no one feature of affinity to the polished and humane Caesar, and would as little have comprehended his character as he could have respected theirs. Even Cato, the unworthy hero of Lucan, might have suggested to him a little more truth in this instance, by a celebrated remark which he made on the characteristic distinction of Caesar, in comparison with other revolutionary disturbers; for, said he, whereas others had attempted the overthrow of the state in a continued paroxysm of fury, and in a state of mind resembling the lunacy of intoxication, Caesar, on the contrary, among that whole class of civil disturbers, was the only one who had come to the task in a temper of sobriety and moderation _(unum accessisse sobrium ad rempublicam delendam)_....
Great as Caesar was by the benefit of his original nature, there can be no doubt that he, like others, owed something to circumstances; and perhaps amongst those which were most favourable to the premature development of great self-dependence we must reckon the early death of his father. It is, or it is not, according to the nature of men, an advantage