How to read Caesar

Latin Learning Latin
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Thanks, Barry. That is where I was headed. If we stipulate that Caesar is a good writer, the next question indeed is, what makes him a good writer. And depending on the answer to that, the next question would be … For me part of what makes him a good writer is exactly as you say, that he absorbs you into his point of view without your noticing. He provides such a detailed but precise and concise geopolitical background, absorbing in its own right, that when he gets to Caesari cum id nuntiatum esset, eos per provinciam nostram iter facere conari, maturat ab urbe proficisci …, I am right there with him. I find his account of the political situation among the Helvetii especially impressive on several levels, and I have no reason to doubt him. Caesar’s motives? They seem to me quite transparent: Qua in re Caesar non solum publicas sed etiam privatas iniurias ultus est, quod eius soceri L. Pisonis avum, L. Pisonem legatum, Tigurini eodem proelio quo Cassium interfecerant.

I at least cannot think of another political or military figure then or now who has given as clear-headed an account of his or her actions as Caesar. Maybe Churchill? Golda Meir? (At least as far as clarity is concerned, Thucydides certainly comes to mind. But he is not writing about his actions.) To me this is not a function of literary style but an important and consequential psychological fact that must be factored into any historical judgement about Caesar.

As for a moral judgement about Caesar? Personally, I don’t have one, because I do not feel confident enough in my understanding, from a Roman perspective as opposed to my own, of the day-to-day and year-to-year dynamics in the late Republic. When it comes to history I am in general skeptical of moralizing judgements except in obvious cases (Hitler, Stalin), because I am skeptical that we know enough to make the judgement and because to me it smacks of a smug self-satisfaction. Having said that, I am quite interested in others’ judgements about Caesar, but only if they derive from a convincing or plausible historical narrative of events, example, such as we got from Mommsen (but certainly the opposite case can be made), example, Ronald Syme’s judgement of Augustus as a proto-fascist.

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Randy. Yes I can speak for myself even though I rely a great deal on what I have read.

I dont think it is helpful to talk about a “good writer”. It certainly doesn’t make any sense to ask the question and then immediately consider “what makes him a good writer”. If you mean to ask what sort or writer is Caesar you might get a more interesting reply.

The way you and Barry have answered the question is that you assume you know what a good writer is and then proceed by example to tell us why he meets the unspoken criteria you have in mind. All seems very circular to me. Archer and many other authors of airport literature “absorb[s] you into his point of view without your noticing”. That is its appeal to millions of readers. Is this good writing? If you want to make money it is excellent writing. If Caesar is a “good writer” who are the “bad writers” which provide the comparator?

In truth it is very difficult to compare Caesar’s writing with his contemporaries as his comentarii "are the only surviving examples of the historiographical, or narrative, commentarius. They seem quite unlike the other examples of other types of commentarius but we have “no real purchase on this form as a genre”. (Christina S. Kraus Bellum Gallicum in Miriam Griffin ed. , A companion to Julius Caesar, Oxford, 2009).

Kraus believes the very roughness of his prose is nothing more than a stratagem. “Cicero’s own coyness about the adornment in his own commentarius (Att. 2.1.1) shows that the pose that Cicero, Hirtius, and subsequent readers have attributed to Caesar, that he wrote these texts to provide others with a basis from which to write a fuller, more ‘‘literary’’ history, is just that, a pose – not unlike the ‘‘unaccustomed as I am to public speaking’’ gesture that Cicero (of all people!) makes at the beginning of the Pro Archia (see further Raaflaub, chapter 13, pp. 179–80).” Kraus. p160-161.

Is Caesar in command of his material and us? Undoubtedly. Is he compelling? Of course. Is he a “Good writer”? I think this a question in reception theory. (Of course the other questions belong to reception theory too!). It is interesting to me who thought he was good writer and who not. I don’t think I have to answer that question myself because the answer will rely wholly on what I like. Quintilian thought Seneca had a pernicious influence and it was unwise for young men to adopt his style. He was thought a good writer in the renaissance, in the 19th century he was deprecated. In the last 20 years he has been taken seriously again. All these opinions tell us a lot about both those expressing these opinions and something too about Seneca. I dont know sufficient about the reception of Julius Caesar to give a similar list but I hope that this exemplum illustrates the hazards of making apparently simple judgements.

Incidentally the Cicero letter to Atticus is hilarious:

" Kal. Iun. eunti mihi Antium et gladiatores M. Metelli cupide relinquenti venit obviam tuus puer. is mihi litteras abs te et commentarium consulatus mei Graece scriptum reddidit. in quo laetatus sum me aliquanto ante de isdem rebus Graece item scriptum librum L. Cossinio ad te perferendum dedisse; nam si ego tuum ante legissem, furatum me abs te esse diceres. quamquam tua illa (legi enim libenter) horridula mihi atque incompta visa sunt, sed tamen erant ornata hoc ipso quod ornamenta neglexerant, et, ut mulieres, ideo bene olere quia nihil olebant videbantur. meus autem liber totum Isocrati myrothecium atque omnis eius discipulorum arculas ac non nihil etiam Aristotelia pigmenta consumpsit. quem tu Corcyrae, ut mihi aliis litteris significas, strictim attigisti, post autem, ut arbitror, a Cossinio accepisti. quem tibi ego non essem ausus mittere nisi eum lente ac fastidiose probavissem. quamquam ad me rescripsit iam Rhodo Posidonius se, nostrum illud ὑπóμνημα legere, quod ego ad eum ut ornatius de isdem rebus scriberet miseram, non modo non excitatum esse ad scribendum sed etiam plane deterritum.1 quid quaeris? conturbavi Graecam nationem. ita vulgo qui instabant ut darem sibi quod ornarent iam exhibere mihi molestiam destiterunt. tu, si tibi placuerit liber, curabis ut et Athenis sit et in ceteris oppidis Graeciae. videtur enim posse aliquid nostris rebus lucis adferre.

As I was on my way to Antium on the Kalends of June, eager to leave M. Metellus’ gladiator show behind me, your boy met me with a letter from you and a sketch of my Consulship in Greek. I was glad when I got it that I had given L. Cossinius a piece on the same topic, likewise in Greek, to take to you some time before. Otherwise, if I had read yours first, you would be accusing me of plagiary. Actually though, your piece, which I have read with pleasure, struck me as a trifle rough and unkempt, but it was embellished by its very neglect of ornament and seemed fragrant because odourless, as with the ladies. Now my book has used up Isocrates’ entire perfume cabinet along with all the little scent boxes of his pupils, and some of Aristotle’s rouge as well. You intimate in another letter that you gave it a cursory inspection at Corcyra, and later I suppose you received it from Cossinius. I shouldn’t have dared send it to you except after leisurely and fastidious revision. However, Posidonius has already written to me from Rhodes that when he read this ébauche of mine, which I had sent him with the idea that he might compose something more elaborate on the same theme, so far from being stimulated to composition he was effectively frightened away. The fact is, I have dumbfounded the whole Greek community, so that the folk who were pressing me on all sides to give them something to dress up are pestering me no longer. If you like the book, please see that it is made available at Athens and the other Greek towns. I think it may add some shine to my achievements."

Cicero. Letters to Atticus, Volume I. Edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library 7. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999 p 124-127

Finally I will end on a question do you really “have no reason to doubt him”? I doubt everything and assume all that he writes is self serving. From the very first sentence Caesar is mendacious. I don’t think that has the slightest influence on what I think of the literary merits of his work.

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Randy and Seneca, you both make excellent observations. I carefully guarded my statement as to one element that constitutes a good writer, and I don’t apologize for having subjective criteria. But as for Roman writers, we have quite a bit of reflection from various writers on what constitutes good Latin, rhetoric and writing (Quintillian comes to mind, but certainly a number of others). If we are really going to establish some framework to discuss this that’s surely where we have to start, with their own standards and criteria.

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The idea of judging a writer (or a musician or a painter or any artist) from a theory and a set of criteria strikes me as wrong from the start. It takes a sincere reading and to process the work through one’s own soul and experience, and then to make an expression of the effect that it had on you as an individual. A bad writer is one who doesn’t move the soul of his reader, and a bad critic is someone who doesn’t speak from his soul and who is not careful and sensitive about his experiences and who cannot express himself well. Perhaps a completely uneducated man can be a good critic of seeming trash as long as he’s sensitive and sincere and expressive.

One of Ceasar’s not inconsiderable advantages, I think, is that the early authors we read in language learning strike us when we are in an especially impressionable state. Was he a Machiavellian? Sure. As are men of action and power in all times and places. The idea that there was something special about classical rhetorical strikes me as unlikely. People trying to sell you on their persuasion systems nowadays are looking for suckers and everyone knows this. The real life especially persuasive individuals that I have encountered have always tended to have a strong combination of natural talent and real-world experience that was more important their their various legal or other types of training.

At the same time, I think that you could easily make too much of Caesar’s Machiavellianism. There is a very natural urge for older men writing their memoirs to tell people what they really think. They’ve led a life of persuasion and rhetoric, and have the ingrained habit, but it’s just not a primary motivation to influence the world by the completely unsuitable tool of a memoir. What Caesar had, I think, was unshakeable self-confidence, and that’s not even a little bit affected by him. It’s easy to mistake that for a sell, but it’s really just a natural expression of his own (we can’t even say “warped” – he was Caesar) self-conception.

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Seneca wrote:

Finally I will end on a question do you really “have no reason to doubt him”? I doubt everything and assume all that he writes is self serving. From the very first sentence Caesar is mendacious. I don’t think that has the slightest influence on what I think of the literary merits of his work.

Seneca, thanks for your interesting and well thought out reply (I too love that letter from Cicero, by the way! Thanks for taking the time to give it to us in full, Latin and English.). I think you are more interested in literary and reception theory than I am, and certainly more knowledgeable about it. My stance is more akin to what Joel expresses. Anyway, I think your final question to me sums up nicely where you and I simply see it differently. Because, to answer your question, no, I have no reason to doubt him!

I do have a follow-up question for you. You say “I doubt everything and assume all that he writes is self serving.” Interesting! When and how did you come to that conclusion? A general skepticism about what anybody says? Your own conclusion after reading the commentaries and studying the history? Some strand of literary or historical scholarship that you are following? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious.