SOURCE: “Caesar and the War as Reflected in His Commentaries,” in Caesar, translated by David McLintock, BasicBooks, 1995, pp. 254-64.

[In the following excerpt, originally published in German in 1982, Meier explains how in De Bello Gallico Caesar triumphs by taking the offensive, presenting himself in total control, and purposely avoiding self-justification.]

Caesar's book on the Gallic War was in the tradition of reports by Roman military commanders, but at the same time quite novel in that it was composed in a style that matched the highest literary standards. Though ostensibly a campaign report, it is also a highly idiosyncratic expression of the author's personality.

Such a self-portrait naturally has an apologetic purpose. Hence, Caesar's memoir—as well as the conscious and unconscious wishes that guided it—misrepresents certain matters, passes over others in silence or treats them only cursorily, and gives a somewhat partial account of the whole. This is often hard to check, since for the most part Caesar's report is our only source. Where it is possible to check it, Caesar himself usually provides clues that help in unmasking him. For he leaves many contradictions unresolved, unlike a petty deceiver, who would have been consistent. And he reports many things that today seem discreditable—and probably did at the time. In view of Caesar's evident skill in trimming the facts to his own advantage, it seems all the more remarkable that in many cases he refrained from doing so—even where he was vulnerable on ethical grounds. This does not seem fortuitous. Strasburger speaks of a certain ‘immoralism’ in Caesar's writings.

Apart from its propagandist tendency, the work has a documentary purpose. Caesar records his deeds for posterity. For the Roman nobility, and for Caesar more than others, fame was a great spur. He sought to pit himself against transience. And while they had to enlist others to write about them, he could write about himself. Nor did he wish to draw a false picture of himself, since he was certain that he need not fear the judgement of posterity.

Caesar's account gives an impression of total objectivity. He always speaks of himself in the third person, using the first only in his authorial capacity, when admitting to ignorance or proffering a judgement. His language earned the admiration of Cicero, the most competent of his contemporaries, which is all the more noteworthy as Cicero favoured a quite different style. He found Caesar's commentaries ‘unadorned, straightforward and graceful; any oratorical devices are laid aside like a garment. But, wishing to provide only the material on which others might draw for their historical accounts, he perhaps did the foolish a favour by giving them something on which to practise their hair-waving arts, while deterring the wise from writing at all. For in historical writing nothing is more pleasing than pure, lucid brevity.’ Caesar's supporter Aulus Hirtius, who later wrote the eighth book of the Bellum Gallicum, refers to this judgement and then adds, ‘Our admiration is of course even greater than others'; for they know only how well and faultlessly he wrote, while we know with what ease and rapidity.’

The perfection of these reports may lie in their directness, their art in their artlessness, but, as Otto Seel observed, simplicity combines with subtlety of diction, cool detachment with vibrant intensity, elegance with a dryness that does not shun repetition, smooth transitions with abrupt breaks. No Latin author adheres as precisely as Caesar to the rules of grammar. ‘And yet, in spite of this, hardly any Latin style is so personal, so charged with individuality.’

Caesar's language is extremely economical. He uses less than thirteen hundred words, occasional technical terms apart. His vocabulary belongs to the language of everyday speech. As Fränkel put it, ‘an ordinary, almost spare language is used to capture extraordinary deeds, whose greatness lies not in any kind of originality, but in an instinctive grasp of what is right, in the intrepidity of total commitment, swift execution, and unflagging perseverance’.

What really interests us is Caesar's way of describing events and conditions and at the same time presenting himself. The skilful, yet at the same time artless character of Caesar's narrative argues a degree of stylization, to which of course he subjected himself too. For what we feel to be his greatness presumably has something to do with the fact that he was his own man—that his personality was shaped by his own will and that he found the sphere in which he could realize it. Will and destiny combined in him in a special way, and the former seems to have been the more potent of the two.

He shaped not only himself and his deeds, but also his account of them, in a manner at once so personal and so masterful that this account contains a special truth. To put it briefly: in the Bellum Gallicum Caesar presents himself in all innocence as a Roman governor who performs his multifarious tasks in a traditional fashion, conscientiously and circumspectly, as duty requires. He does not appear to be defending himself. Quite the contrary.

Naturally there is no mention of the fact that Caesar, as Sallust writes, ‘longed for a major command, an army, and a new war in which his energy could be brilliantly proven’. Nor do we read anything of the principle that Cicero found so laudable, even though it was quite at variance with previous practice—the principle of not merely reacting to attacks and defending the Roman province, but of bringing the whole of Gaul under Roman rule in the interest of a lasting peace. True, Caesar now and then allows us glimpses of a wider context, embracing the whole of Gaul, but he refrains from saying that he ever conceived such a grand design.

Rather, he at first lets it appear as if he proceeded step by step, adopting a fundamentally defensive stance, consonant with the principles of Rome's foreign policy. Allies must be protected and dangerous neighbours opposed. He protected Rome's allies selectively, as his interests required. And in taking preventive measures against the Helvetii he counted on the reader's lack of geographical knowledge, for the territory the Helvetii wished to conquer was nowhere contiguous with the Roman province. At first sight, then, it seems as though he moved from pure defence in isolated cases to the conquest of the whole territory—which, according to Cicero, was how things usually happened in the Roman empire. It might be said that Caesar concealed his intention to conquer. It would be more correct to say that he did not expressly state it.

For he makes no secret of it. Whatever the truth with regard to the Helvetii and Ariovistus, his intentions became clear by the first winter at the latest, when the legions took up quarters in conquered territory. According to his own account, the Belgae recognized this too. Moreover, there was no reason whatever for the conquest of Brittany and Normandy. In 56 his intention becomes quite obvious. In one of his typical sentences, in which the verb is delayed to the end, he writes: ‘At about the same time, although summer was almost spent, Caesar, seeing that after the whole of Gaul had been pacified the Morini and Menapii were still under arms and had sent no envoy to talk peace, and believing that he could quickly end this war, dispatched his army there.’ It is typical of Caesar's presentation that circumstances are introduced as motives and incorporated into the dynamic of the action, that the syntactic build-up draws the reader into the movement and that the tension is released only when the action begins. Yet this is a stylistic observation. Neither the Morini nor the Menapii had been involved in the fighting. The fact that they were ‘still under arms’ meant no more than that they were still free and had not yet surrendered to him.

Caesar's account makes it clear that he expected all the Gauls to submit. He gave them orders that they were expected to obey. Every tribe he encountered, with the exception of Rome's long-standing friends, had to submit. They all had to give hostages. If they did, Caesar usually treated them leniently. This was evidence of his clemency. Any prince or tribe who refused to submit was in the wrong and so gave Caesar a pretext for war.

All this was at odds with the Roman principle that only just wars might be waged. And a war was just only if its purpose was to right a wrong. Yet it could hardly be wrong for a foreign power to fail to do what Caesar demanded. And there was a good reason for Rome's defensive policy. After all, the Senate had instructed the governor to help the Haedui ‘if this is not detrimental to the interest of Rome’.

It is true that demands of the kind made by Caesar were sometimes addressed to Rome's neighbours, but they were not common—except in the course of a major war—and gave rise at most to minor wars. No one operated on a grand scale outside his own province as Caesar did, demanding universal obedience and submission.

Yet it is not only this demand that Caesar makes clear. More than once he reports that the Gauls wished to be free. On one occasion he states that ‘human nature is universally imbued with the desire for liberty and detests servitude.’ He understands the pride that caused brave tribes, accustomed to victory, to resist defeat. His description is generally fair and arouses the reader's sympathy for the Gauls—or at least the modern reader's. Yet it is clear that their pride and their desire for liberty were just one more reason for treating them with severity. Caesar proceeded from the premise that they must be subjugated, even if the Senate wished the Gauls to remain free.

As he makes his intention clear without declaring it, he cannot advance any reasons for it. At most he can hint at a few. Occasionally he gives the reader to understand that there was much disorder in Gaul before he intervened. He also speaks of the danger posed by the Helvetii and the Germans, which he dutifully forestalled or contained. Yet he does not go beyond hints.

Naturally one must beware of viewing Caesar's desire for conquest with modern eyes. Thoroughly Roman and unused to being challenged, he was not plagued by doubts or the need to justify Roman expansion. To this extent he did not differ from his contemporaries. Yet he was not bound by the attitudes that had constantly inhibited such expansion or made it dependent on special circumstances. Above all, even if there was no need to justify oneself for the sake of the peoples involved, it was not self-evident that one might flout the rules enjoined upon a Roman governor.

Hence, what Caesar's book reveals, with little attempt at dissimulation, was an enormity even by contemporary standards: one man decided, without authority, to conquer the whole of Gaul, simply because he felt it ought to be conquered, employing an army of eight legions, only four of which were provided by the Roman Senate and people, the other four being raised by himself and supplemented later by two more.

Yet what was he to do? Was he to admit that all this was the outcome of his own arbitrary decision and give his reasons for deeming it right? Would that not have meant severing all his links with the Senate and people? He probably thought it best neither to acknowledge nor to deny his intention, but to imply that it was self-evident—at least after his battles against the Helvetii and Ariovistus, when he found himself more deeply involved in the affairs of Gaul. Anyone who demanded further justification could be indirectly likened to the officers at Vesontio: they had no reason to question the prudence and circumspection of their commander, so why should anyone else doubt his devotion to duty or the propriety of his conduct?

Against any questions and objections Caesar sets himself and his actions. It is through these that he hopes to convince. It is these that are at issue, and ultimately the subject of his book. And by speaking of them in his own way he imposes his own perspective. He never thought to convince his opponents. He addressed himself to those senators and knights who were still undecided, relatively open-minded and impressionable.

He thus defends himself not by justifying his actions, but by rehearsing them. In other words, he adopts an offensive stance. He shows how a responsible, prudent governor must conduct himself: he must not be constrained by petty restrictions, by the need to muddle through, tolerating much, turning a blind eye, and interventing only occasionally; he must not be bound by an attitude that was utterly unimpressive, but in keeping with the current mood. Having no governmental apparatus or sizeable military forces, and therefore unable to achieve much by coercion, Rome usually had to rely on numerous contacts, showing consideration to various parties and adopting a piecemeal approach to problems, though this often went with an excessive degree of carelessness and self-interest. This is what made Caesar so different: he set out to perform his tasks comprehensively and energetically. While seeming to act step by step, as the situation evolved, and to concentrate wholly on the present, he was not content merely to react to events, but took preventive action and never lost sight of the wider context. Aware of every problem and prepared for action whenever it was called for, he set new standards, and by matching up to these standards he was able to demonstrate his superiority.

This he regarded as the proper way to act; to show no consideration, to aim for total success, to behave with generosity and forbearance when necessary, but also with appalling severity and cruelty, as he did in the later campaigns. Yet even the later severity must have seemed to him consistent with his duty. In extreme situations any means was justified. Caesar certainly could not imagine that the way in which he discharged his office would strike any fair-minded Roman as improper. Otherwise he would have been bound to have doubts about himself. His high standards would have been wrong. Time and again he proudly asserts that this or that was intolerable to him and the Roman people and contrary to Roman custom. No compromises are made, no mitigation allowed: the demands of honour are paramount. According to a Greek historian, Caesar once said that this was how the ancestors had acted—boldly, making audacious plans and risking all in their execution. To them fortune meant nothing other than doing what was necessary; inactivity would have been regarded as misfortune.

By performing his duties in this way—which was alarmingly at variance with many well-founded rules, but contrasted agreeably with the negligence and indolence that were prevalent in Rome—Caesar justified himself in a way that could hardly fail to put any would-be critic to shame. Once again, as in so many of his speeches, but this time in a form that has come down to us, he demonstrated his superiority.

In his reports, moreover, he always seems to be fully in control, circumspect and well organized. We repeatedly hear of his arranging for supplies to arrive at the right moment. Nothing disconcerts him; he always knows what is to be done. Admittedly there is much that he cannot foresee, yet he is aware of this and envisages various possibilities. He is therefore cautious, armed against contingency, able to react to any eventuality. Naturally he also has to rely on his junior commanders and his soldiers, whom he praises for doing their duty in exemplary fashion and sometimes fighting battles on their own initiative. Caesar and his soldiers—these are the special assets on Rome's balance sheet. Caesar does not obtrude his own part in military events.

It is certainly not wrong to discern, in his manner of presenting himself, the implication that, because Rome's governors normally acted differently, she needed a buffer against the Germans, her nearest and most dangerous opponents to the north.

The political isolation that forced him into his career of conquest corresponded to his dissatisfaction with the normal Roman tempo. Underlying both was Caesar's exceptional will to assert himself. His dissatisfaction gave an objective content to his determination to conquer. His weakness became his strength.

.....

It may be presumed that Caesar's way of describing events—which was no doubt essentially how he understood them—accorded with his conception of how political and military events arise. In an extremely concentrated—and restricted—manner he writes almost solely of the actions of various subjects and ignores the wide intermediate area that normally extends between the actors and conditions their actions. Caesar rarely gives an appreciation of the overall situation, of the tasks, the opportunities and the difficulties it entails, before turning to the actions of the subjects. Conditions and situations are usually presented as circumstances determining the action: Caesar sees that such and such is the case and does this or that. Even his descriptions of the landscape are bound up with the action: one follows Caesar's gaze as he surveys the terrain before deciding on the appropriate measures: the landscape is thus drawn into the action. Difficulties are presented as tasks. The less the actors are absorbed in the conditions, the greater they appear. So clearly and sharply are they projected on the screen that they seem to occupy it completely; everything in the background is blurred and unrecognizable. What he depicts is not a total configuration to which many factors contribute, but a limited number of interacting subjects.

Every sentence is trained on a target, an action conditioned by all the foregoing circumstances. There are scarcely any periods of rest. Everything is movement. The immense dynamism of Caesar's rapid, audacious and wide-ranging campaigns is directly mirrored in his narrative. Yet although the action is described baldly, with little plasticity or graphic detail, it is easy to take in. In all essentials the configurations are presented clearly, with the special ‘vividness that a game of chess has for the inner eye of an expert and that a clearly appreciated problem or an elegant method has for the mathematician’ (Klingner). One is not aware of the observer, only of the doer, proceeding step by step from situation to situation. The opponents too are drawn in Caesar's own likeness; they have reasonable, comprehensible motives and are credited with the most intelligent intentions. The actions of individuals on the opposing side are taken into account and seen to play a large part in determining the events.

Moreover, the régime that Caesar builds up is no more than the sum of interpersonal relations. How persons relate to one another is what counts. There is no talk of institutions, of attempts at persuasion or reconciliation, of administrative problems, of establishing a system of government. The state of affairs that his conquests were aimed at is described broadly as imperium in Gallia (‘command in Gaul’). General tendencies—processes at work under the surface, as it were—find no mention. The soldiers march, camps are built, demands are issued, battles fought and conquests made. Caesar gives orders; even security and food supplies are ensured by giving orders to those who are to provide them.

Klingner speaks of a ‘ruthlessly simplified approach to things, carried to extreme lengths. Whatever does not pertain to the planning and action of the commander and the politician is excluded.’ This accounts for the exceptional clarity and perspicuity of Caesar's account. ‘No half-distinct background elements obtrude. We see nothing but the matter Caesar had in hand at any given time.’

Everything is concentrated on action and consists in action; consequently, the fact that Caesar was never entrusted with the task that he mastered so consummately is consigned to the background. Caesar directly involved his readers, like his soldiers, in the accomplishment of an enterprise upon which he himself had resolved.

Only at one point does he break out of the narrow narrative confines. This is in the sixth book, where he gives a comparative ethnology of the Gauls and the Germans. At first sight these chapters seem to have no function. By implication, however, they explain why Caesar broke off his campaign against the Germans without subjugating them: for here one reads that Germany, contrary to current opinion, is quite unlike Gaul. To conquer it would be both difficult and unrewarding. Again Caesar refrains from going beyond implication. Yet should he have said in so many words that he really wanted to conquer Germany too? He neither admits it nor denies it.

A special feature of Caesar's account is the almost total exclusion of emotion. Only the soldiers are allowed to feel fear. Caesar is seemingly immune to it. It has been said that Caesar's commentaries owe their formal assurance to the same strength that produced his actions. There is certainly much truth in this, even if this strength is unlikely to have been as effective in reality as it appears in his account. He cannot have possessed the superhuman superiority that his writings suggest.

Historians familiar with the sources can point to a difficult situation in the civil war for which we have a parallel account, probably based on a report by a member of Caesar's staff. We learn that after suffering a defeat, Caesar spent a sleepless night, tormented by dark thoughts and by the realization that his planning had been wrong. At first he believed the situation hopeless, but after much mental turmoil he finally arrived at a decision. Caesar's own account states: ‘Caesar gave up his previous plans, believing that he must change his whole strategy.’ This suggests that he was merely adapting himself to a new situation. Similarly, we learn of the doubts and scruples that assailed him before he crossed the Rubicon, but these find no place in his own account.

Yet it runs counter to all human experience to take such a self-presentation, with all its abbreviations, at face value. That such doubts are justified, even with regard to the great figures of history, is amply demonstrated by what we know of various situations in which Frederick the Great or Napoleon found themselves.

We may presume that Caesar enveloped himself in a cloak of outward serenity and superiority. One of his officers tells how on one occasion, in an almost hopeless situation, the soldiers found encouragement ‘in the expression of their commander's face, in his freshness and wonderful cheerfulness. For he appeared full of assurance and confidence.’ And this was certainly the rule rather than the exception. Caesar's superiority and serenity fascinated simple spirits, but to others they made him inscrutable and sinister, especially as they went with immense concentration. And the outward image he displayed may in large measure have determined his inner attitude. His essentially playful temperament, his wilfulness, and his faith in the fortune conferred by Venus, may have played a part too.

Yet behind this there was doubtless a degree of sensitivity, insecurity, doubt and vacillation; there must have been times when all seemed hopeless and he found himself staring spellbound at disaster. In the seventh book, which describes the great crisis of the Gallic war, he even hints that on occasion he came close to abandoning everything, lest even the old Roman province should fall victim to the Gallic onslaught. Indeed, towards the end of his book he reveals a good deal more of himself and writes with rather more freedom.

There was one question that he could hardly suppress entirely: What was the point of his unremitting activity, his subjugation of Gaul, and perhaps of the sacrifices his soldiers had to make in order to achieve it?

However, it could hardly prevail over the joy he felt at so conspicuously proving his worth: ultimately his strength and the possibilities open to him were equal to the immense task he had set himself. Overcoming all the complexities in his character, he always reverted to action, in which he found concentration and attained an effectiveness that increasingly built up a real world of his own, in which he could enjoy a multitude of opportunities and accomplish great feats, even though they might eventually cut him off from other worlds, especially the one inhabited by his peers, Rome's ruling class, including Pompey. But he would have to wait and see what happened. In 57 the real test still lay ahead, both politically and militarily.

‘I often marvel,’ wrote Stifter, ‘when I come to ponder whether to award the prize to Caesar's deeds or to his writings, how much I vacillate and how impossible I find it to decide. Both are so clear, so powerful, so assured, that we probably have little to compare with them.’ And both are presented to us in the commentaries with a naturalness that, on closer inspection, seems positively unreal, yet in a style that suggests the ultimate in objectivity.