The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #181 ｜ Pompey and Caesar： Part VI

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs. And if you remember last time we left off where Julius Caesar had just finished his consulship and was going off for his first five year spell in Gaul as pro-consul, as governor, as general of the legions in Gaul, both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.

00:00:22.360 And I'll be reading today from Caesar's own account of his conquest of Gaul. You can buy it just in Penguin paperback. It's quite a remarkable book. It's a really remarkable book. I mean, it's the only time in all of ancient history where we get a long account from a military commander, a successful military commander.

00:00:40.520 And although there's all sorts of issues around the text, whether Caesar's lying or exaggerating or leaving things out, lying by omission, or whether it's sort of just pure political propaganda or not, once you take all those sorts of things into account, which is the job of the modern historian, it's still an absolutely incredible source.

00:01:01.360 Remarkable. I mean, Caesar speaks of himself in the third person all the time, but it is Caesar writing it, or supposed to be. Probably actually dictated it to a slave or a freedman.

00:01:11.500 But nonetheless, still, it's an absolutely incredible thing that it survives, and it's the best source and bits of evidence we've got for Gaul in that period, because the Celts weren't writing things down, the Germans, the Britons, weren't really writing anything down at that point.

00:01:26.480 So it's absolutely valuable, incredibly valuable, in all sorts of different ways, not just for the life and career of Caesar. It's a fantastic thing, a wondrous thing, nearly, or in my opinion, it is.

00:01:38.800 So first of all, before we just dive straight into the events, I wanted to read a section from the introduction in the book.

00:01:45.820 Now, lots of books, lots of ancient texts, something like even the Iliad or something, you'll almost certainly find quite a long introduction, an essay-length, or sometimes even longer, introduction.

00:01:57.880 I do advise people, if you're not completely familiar with the thing that you're reading, usually do read those introductions, because they're by an expert, who knows everything that they're talking about,

00:02:07.060 and it will flesh out things that aren't explained within the text itself, and they're just worth reading, nearly always.

00:02:15.920 In this, I am actually reading literally a Penguin paperback, Penguin Classics.

00:02:20.120 In this, there's a really long introduction, but there's one section in it, a couple of pages, that I wanted to read out, because it just gives an overview of the whole thing.

00:02:28.420 So I assume that most people watching this, or listening to this, they'll have an idea of what happened when Caesar went to Gauln, but might not know it in any real detail.

00:02:37.880 I know I didn't until I studied it.

00:02:39.820 So if I give sort of an overview, first of all, just a very, very high-level overview of what goes on, and then we'll dive in.

00:02:46.900 I think that will help clear the mists of confusion about who's who and what's going on and things.

00:02:51.640 So, a little section from the introduction, and the introduction's by someone called Jane F. Gardner, and this is the section within the introduction, called The Course of the War, and she wrote this, quote,

00:03:01.440 It is not likely that when Caesar entered upon his provincial command, he entertained the intention of conquering the whole of Gaul.

00:03:08.580 Had that been so, he would hardly, in going first to Transalpine Gaul in 58 BC, have left three of his legions in northern Italy.

00:03:15.680 The province he had chosen for himself was Cisalpine Gaul, an Illyricum, firstly for its political value, since it kept him close to Italy,

00:03:23.900 secondly, because it nevertheless offered scope for military success in operations against the tribes bordering the north-eastern frontier.

00:03:30.860 That his first intention was an Illyrian campaign is indicated by his having based the three legions in Aquilia.

00:03:38.080 After the campaigning season of 57, he set out on a reconnaissance trip in Illyria.

00:03:42.780 He is perhaps attempting at this point to give the impression that he had still intended an Illyrian campaign in 56,

00:03:48.840 had the Venetic Revolt not intervened.

00:03:51.000 But, as we shall see, there are grounds for suspecting that, while not ruled out for the future, this was not then his first priority.

00:03:58.340 That Caesar himself had been instrumental in having Ariovistus declared friend of the Roman people in 59 BC,

00:04:05.880 suggests that he had hoped to delay the possible eruption of trouble for Rome's clients beyond the frontier of the Transalpine province.

00:04:13.620 Events, however, moved otherwise.

00:04:15.980 Campaigns beyond the frontier of a province needed justification, and this Caesar is at pains to provide for those in 58.

00:04:22.480 The Helveti had wronged Rome's allies.

00:04:25.720 They were a threat to the province.

00:04:27.600 The latter, not very plausible geographically, and they had committed as yet unavenged injuries on the Romans.

00:04:33.760 Since Ariovistus was actually a, quote, friend, unquote, the case against him is harder to establish.

00:04:40.180 In the end, Caesar lays most stress on, quote, the German menace, quote,

00:04:44.520 and on Ariovistus' truculence.

00:04:47.400 Yet, why not pursue the implications of friendship along the lines Ariovistus is made to suggest in book one?

00:04:53.960 The answer Caesar provides for his Roman audience, composed, let us remember, probably no earlier than 52 BC,

00:05:01.280 i.e. after it was nearly all over, is that Rome had the prior claim to the area, should she choose to exercise it.

00:05:07.240 As Caesar represents the matter, the Helvetic invasion had nothing to do with the Adewire, and another tribe, 0.56

00:05:14.200 but originated in the personal, treasonable ambitions of Domnorix and Orgetorix.

00:05:20.300 Yet the unmasking of Orgetorix apparently leaves Domnorix's position among the Adewire unaffected,

00:05:26.740 while not leading, either, to the abandonment of the Helvetic invasion.

00:05:30.420 One may suspect that the Adewire, finding themselves warned off Ariovistus by the Romans in 59,

00:05:37.340 rather than giving any practical help against him, themselves invited the Helvetic to come in, 0.95

00:05:42.500 on the pretext of merely passing through Celtic territory, to help them wage war on Ariovistus,

00:05:48.380 thus forcing Caesar to take sides in a war between two of the Roman allies.

00:05:52.740 So there already you can see some of the names that will be coming up.

00:05:56.020 The Helvetic, one of the big tribes, names like Domnorix and Orgetorix,

00:06:01.840 and how Caesar seems to be playing them off against each other.

00:06:05.320 Some are supposed to be allies, but they're fighting among themselves,

00:06:08.800 and Caesar gets involved and ends up fighting them all.

00:06:13.360 Okay, Jane Gardner continues in the introduction.

00:06:15.320 Quote,

00:06:15.440 In the second year, it is difficult to discern whether Caesar is reacting to events,

00:06:20.500 as he seems to be trying to suggest in book two,

00:06:23.200 or had himself deliberately created provocation to the Belgae, another tribe,

00:06:27.340 in order to justify further campaigning.

00:06:30.160 His legions had wintered at Bes Ancon, well outside the province,

00:06:34.840 but strategically justifiable to guard against renewed hostilities by the Suebi,

00:06:39.260 another tribe, the Suebi.

00:06:40.600 However, the effect, intentional or otherwise, was to provoke the Belgae,

00:06:45.400 whose bravery, furosity, and connections with some Germanic tribes are stressed in book two.

00:06:50.800 In passing, we are told that the peaceful submission of the Aramorican tribes had been achieved,

00:06:56.260 but not why Roman troops had been sent there.

00:06:58.700 So again, we don't have all the details.

00:07:01.000 Caesar does, he does lie by omission.

00:07:04.080 He leaves things out, which would be difficult to explain,

00:07:08.060 or would make him look really bad.

00:07:09.840 He does leave in details that make him look a little bit bad sometimes,

00:07:13.160 but big things, big things that might ruin his career or name back in Rome,

00:07:18.880 they're just either skated over or completely ignored and left out.

00:07:23.340 And it hasn't been lost on lots of people at the time,

00:07:26.880 and in modern times reading this.

00:07:29.540 You know, why did that happen?

00:07:30.960 Oh well, the true answer is that it was purely Caesar's ambition.

00:07:34.660 And so that's not a cool thing to say in the ancient world.

00:07:40.180 To be ambitious is sort of a bad, almost immoral thing,

00:07:44.540 especially when Caesar's constantly being accused of it.

00:07:47.920 So he just leaves it out.

00:07:50.040 Or perhaps makes up something else entirely.

00:07:52.140 We can never really know all these things for 100% certain.

00:07:55.120 Anyway, the introduction continues.

00:07:56.360 Caesar is at pains to imply that, as far as he was concerned,

00:08:00.720 Gaul was pacified by the end of the campaigning Caesar of 57.

00:08:03.900 It wasn't.

00:08:04.740 And Illyria was his next objective. 0.78

00:08:07.420 Most of the legions had wintered in central Gaul,

00:08:10.080 plausibly enough, in view of the recent fighting with the Belgae.

00:08:13.040 But in which direction had he intended moving them in the campaigning season of 56?

00:08:17.820 Events in Rome menaced his continued tenure of his command,

00:08:21.240 and Illyria could hardly be represented as an urgent priority.

00:08:25.480 In the event, suppression of the Venetic Revolt kept him in Gaul in 56.

00:08:30.180 But there is reason to believe that he had intended to invade Britain in that year.

00:08:34.660 Strabo, another ancient historian, often called a geographer,

00:08:38.040 Strabo says the reason for the Venetic Revolt was to hinder Caesar's voyage to Britain

00:08:42.860 and to protect their trade there.

00:08:45.460 An expedition to Britain could hardly be represented as an urgent necessity either.

00:08:49.500 Caesar piles up rather too many, not all mutually compatible,

00:08:53.920 excuses for his invasion of Britain at the end of the 55 campaigning season.

00:08:59.620 Again, as with the expedition across the Rhine in that year,

00:09:02.840 Caesar justifies the extension of his field of operations

00:09:05.620 by representing it as a punitive expedition

00:09:08.580 and by alleging the need to overawe the dubiously loyal, volatile Gauls.

00:09:14.720 So Caesar quite often says,

00:09:16.740 I've got to do this, I've got to keep fighting far beyond where I really should be,

00:09:21.160 far beyond where my legal jurisdiction is supposed to end.

00:09:24.280 I've got to keep fighting them, because if I don't,

00:09:26.620 we'll just eventually be attacked by them anyway.

00:09:29.640 I'm protecting the land we have got, like Trans-Alpine Gaul.

00:09:32.780 I'm protecting that by go up and fighting in modern-day Belgium and Holland 0.61

00:09:37.640 and in Switzerland.

00:09:39.240 And he even crosses the Rhine.

00:09:40.380 He crosses the Rhine twice, basically into Germany.

00:09:44.700 It's quite a long way from Trans-Alpine Gaul.

00:09:47.660 I'll put all sorts of maps up so people can see exactly what I'm talking about.

00:09:52.480 And even into Britain.

00:09:53.640 That's nowhere near his command in Trans-Alpine Gaul, really.

00:09:57.660 There's no need to do it at all.

00:10:01.080 No actual need.

00:10:02.420 But he says there is.

00:10:03.520 We've got to do it.

00:10:04.180 And, well, lots of people just simply didn't believe him, even at the time.

00:10:08.380 And, you know, in hindsight, it's a fairly shaky logic a lot of the time.

00:10:13.640 Not always.

00:10:14.980 Sometimes it does seem expedient.

00:10:16.740 It does seem prudent.

00:10:17.720 It probably was the best idea to attack some of these peoples, 1.00

00:10:21.860 because they keep sweeping down into southern-central France,

00:10:25.280 or even into Italy.

00:10:26.720 It had happened before.

00:10:27.820 But a lot of the time, most people agree that Caesar sort of

00:10:31.520 extending his command for the sake of his own glory.

00:10:34.620 Alexander style.

00:10:36.620 Okay, the last little bit from this section of the introduction.

00:10:40.080 We're told, quote,

00:10:41.140 The publicity value of the British expedition was enormous.

00:10:44.400 Their political value for Rome negligible.

00:10:47.780 Caesar, said Tacitus, in the Agricola,

00:10:50.680 had merely pointed the way to Britain, not acquired it.

00:10:54.780 They were only really punitive expeditions,

00:10:57.000 sort of reconnaissance in force.

00:10:58.100 It wasn't a full, it wasn't attempting to conquer Britain.

00:11:02.060 Anyway, we'll get to that in due course.

00:11:04.180 Gardiner goes on.

00:11:05.660 The major revolts in Gaul that occupied the rest of Caesar's time there

00:11:09.220 go some way to justify his frequently repeated statement

00:11:12.460 about the insecurity of the conquest.

00:11:15.300 In the end, Gaul was pacified,

00:11:17.480 and Caesar had the credit of adding a large new province to the Roman Empire.

00:11:21.500 Nothing succeeds like success.

00:11:23.100 But it does not necessarily follow that the ultimate conquest

00:11:26.260 proves Caesar's consistent brilliance as a strategist and tactician.

00:11:30.580 According to one military historian,

00:11:32.580 Caesar's great gift, apart from the invaluable ability to get the best out of his men,

00:11:36.920 was his swiftness to react to and extricate himself

00:11:40.100 from the consequences of his own errors.

00:11:42.960 End quote.

00:11:43.300 So the story of Caesar in Gaul is basically,

00:11:47.460 it takes him a couple of years to conquer, in inverted commas, Gaul,

00:11:52.200 all the way up to sort of modern day Holland,

00:11:54.840 but then it doesn't stay subdued.

00:11:58.040 The rest of the time, seven, eight years,

00:12:02.340 is dealing with revolt after revolt after revolt.

00:12:06.640 So it's one thing to sweep through a territory.

00:12:08.480 Napoleon could have told you this.

00:12:10.300 Many generals throughout the history could have told you this.

00:12:12.600 It's one thing to sweep through a territory,

00:12:14.280 even a giant territory,

00:12:15.940 and defeat any army that comes before you.

00:12:19.220 OK, that's one thing.

00:12:20.800 But it's another thing to prevent new armies from popping up,

00:12:24.820 to actually keep the people subdued

00:12:27.160 and happy and rich and well-fed enough

00:12:29.560 that they don't want to revolt against your new order.

00:12:33.060 And so that's the story of Caesar in Gaul, really,

00:12:36.560 is a fairly quick first phase of conquest,

00:12:41.140 but then wave after wave of revolt,

00:12:43.760 even German tribes coming down and getting involved in everything.

00:12:47.860 So if I quickly give you an overview of what's actually in the book,

00:12:50.740 and you'll see exactly what I mean.

00:12:52.080 So book one is the expulsion of intruders,

00:12:55.940 the repulse of the Helvetii,

00:12:57.560 in one of the first tribes he attacks and subdues.

00:13:00.100 This is in 58 BC.

00:13:01.300 And then the expulsion of Ariovistus from Gaul entirely. 0.61

00:13:05.420 In book two, we get the conquest of the Belgic tribes,

00:13:09.680 the collapse of the Belgic coalition,

00:13:12.480 piecemeal conquest of the Belgic tribes.

00:13:14.400 That's in 57 BC.

00:13:16.300 Then we get the first rebellions.

00:13:18.620 So he's already gone all the way as far as Belgium, right?

00:13:21.320 So he had hoped, as we were told in the introduction,

00:13:23.940 he'd hoped that was it, job done.

00:13:25.600 But no, of course not.

00:13:26.980 It's never that easy.

00:13:27.840 Also in 57, he had an unsuccessful campaign in the Alps.

00:13:32.140 So he doesn't completely omit that.

00:13:34.500 He does talk about things that are a bit too big to pretend never happened.

00:13:38.800 But as you'll see when we get to it,

00:13:40.540 he puts the best possible spin he can on those sorts of things.

00:13:43.920 Then into 56 BC, the fight on the Atlantic coast.

00:13:47.940 So he goes all the way out west.

00:13:49.920 And he has a victorious campaign in Aquitania,

00:13:53.040 more central southern France, really.

00:13:55.160 And still in 56, he has an indecisive campaign against the Morini, 0.98

00:13:59.880 yet another tribe.

00:14:00.700 In book four, we now talk about 55 BC.

00:14:03.920 There's the massacre of the Eusippetes and the Tenktari, 1.00

00:14:07.780 his first crossing of the Rhine and his first invasion of Britain.

00:14:12.120 55 BC was a busy year.

00:14:14.720 Book five, we get the second invasion of Britain, 0.87

00:14:16.840 which is the next year in 54 BC.

00:14:19.080 The destruction of Sabinius' army.

00:14:21.440 Also the attack by the Nervi, another tribe, 0.99

00:14:23.940 on Cicero's winter camp.

00:14:25.220 And then throughout the remainder of 54 and into 53 BC,

00:14:28.700 there's just widespread revolts

00:14:30.180 in all of northern and central Gaul.

00:14:33.680 I mean, Caesar does do well to hold on to it all

00:14:36.460 and keep it all together

00:14:37.280 and not get completely defeated a number of times.

00:14:40.600 And it comes close.

00:14:41.880 It comes really close.

00:14:43.160 So in book six, it's all about operations on the Rhine, really.

00:14:47.160 The Trevery, another tribe, gets routed. 0.78

00:14:49.380 Caesar routes them in 53 BC.

00:14:51.680 And the second crossing of the Rhine in that same year,

00:14:54.220 then Caesar sort of takes time out in the narrative

00:14:57.520 to tell us about the customs and institutions of the Gauls

00:15:00.800 and then the customs and institutions of the Germans.

00:15:03.800 In book seven is the great set piece.

00:15:06.380 One of the most famous bits in the whole book

00:15:08.200 is the rebellion of Vercingetorix.

00:15:11.040 And we were in 52 BC here.

00:15:13.500 We get all sorts of details about the opening of that siege,

00:15:17.100 the siege and capture of Avaricum,

00:15:19.800 a big Roman reverse, a Gergovia.

00:15:22.000 And then finally, Vercingetorix's defeat in open warfare

00:15:26.080 and the siege and capture of Elysia.

00:15:29.000 And finally, in book eight, down to 51 BC,

00:15:32.460 there's just more stories and tales of all sorts of revolts

00:15:34.840 of yet more tribes,

00:15:36.820 the Briturgies, the Carnuates, 0.99

00:15:39.120 and the Bell of Ackie.

00:15:41.440 And finally, how Caesar just sort of wipes up all resistance,

00:15:44.740 essentially.

00:15:45.720 And that civil war impends.

00:15:47.480 That is the civil war where Caesar crosses the Rubicon

00:15:50.000 and starts a war against Pompey

00:15:52.420 to become sole ruler of Rome.

00:15:54.900 So it is about nine, ten years long, this.

00:15:57.260 It's a long period.

00:15:58.960 And actually, I read another couple of sides

00:16:00.680 from the introduction,

00:16:01.800 which is all about Caesar as a writer,

00:16:04.620 Caesar as an author.

00:16:05.460 And I think this is worth saying as well,

00:16:09.760 because it puts the text in better context.

00:16:13.600 I'll read it.

00:16:14.260 Let me read it.

00:16:15.140 Here we go.

00:16:16.040 Quote.

00:16:16.260 Caesar's Gallic War is divided into eight books,

00:16:19.680 of which only the first seven,

00:16:21.360 taking the narrative down to the autumn of 52 BC,

00:16:24.280 were written by Caesar.

00:16:25.260 The eighth was added shortly after Caesar's death

00:16:27.860 by his friend Hirtius,

00:16:30.620 who had served with him.

00:16:32.140 Whether Caesar himself had intended to add an account

00:16:34.520 of the relatively unimportant minor campaigns of 51,

00:16:37.700 we do not know.

00:16:39.340 Probably all seven were written together

00:16:41.100 in the winter of 52 to 51,

00:16:43.160 and they were perhaps intended as an aid

00:16:46.020 to his canvas for the consulship.

00:16:48.160 His Civil War falls into three books,

00:16:50.840 covering the period from the beginning of 49

00:16:52.640 down to the beginning of the Alexandrian War

00:16:55.100 in the autumn of 48 BC.

00:16:57.360 The rest of the Civil War is covered

00:16:58.700 in three separate works by other hands,

00:17:01.100 the Alexandrian War, the African War,

00:17:03.060 and the Spanish War,

00:17:04.000 of which the first may again be by Hirtius.

00:17:07.160 The Civil War itself is apparently unfinished,

00:17:09.460 but whether it was actually written during the Civil War

00:17:12.400 as self-justifying propaganda,

00:17:14.740 or in the short time after his return to Rome,

00:17:17.060 we do not know.

00:17:18.180 The Gallic War and the Civil War

00:17:19.680 are Caesar's only surviving works.

00:17:22.100 He called both commentaries,

00:17:24.100 and as the word originally meant something

00:17:25.660 like memoirs or reports,

00:17:28.060 his intention may have been to suggest

00:17:30.160 that they were unvarnished,

00:17:32.780 objective reportage.

00:17:34.260 The title also incidentally disclaims for them

00:17:37.940 the status of literary works.

00:17:40.140 Rather, they are source material

00:17:41.500 for working up into a historical narrative

00:17:44.260 conformable to current ideas of literature.

00:17:47.460 Cicero, however, writing in 46 BC,

00:17:50.320 and echoed by Hirtius in his preface to Book 8

00:17:53.060 of the Gallic War, says,

00:17:55.240 quote,

00:17:55.920 He's talking about Caesar's writing, his text here.

00:18:00.400 They are like nude figures,

00:18:02.080 upright and beautiful,

00:18:03.560 stripped of all ornament of style,

00:18:05.480 as if they had removed a garment.

00:18:07.480 His aim was to provide source material

00:18:09.240 for others who might wish to write a history,

00:18:12.280 and perhaps he was gratified and insensitive

00:18:14.540 who may wish to use their curling tongs on his work.

00:18:17.920 But men of good sense he has deterred from writing,

00:18:20.660 end of quote.

00:18:21.600 The introduction by Gardner continues,

00:18:23.640 That is, these bold reports

00:18:25.280 are so elegantly and lucidly written

00:18:27.560 that they compel our admiration

00:18:29.600 even without the addition of further ornament.

00:18:32.600 Nevertheless, the Civil War

00:18:34.020 bears many signs of being intended as propaganda,

00:18:37.440 and, as has been suggested,

00:18:39.720 the Gallic War,

00:18:40.480 that is, the book, the Gallic War,

00:18:42.320 is perhaps not altogether

00:18:43.820 a straightforward account of events.

00:18:46.220 Moreover, certain matters,

00:18:47.640 the part played by personal ambition

00:18:49.100 in determining Caesar's course of action

00:18:50.940 and the large personal fortunes

00:18:52.740 that he and some of his associates made

00:18:54.680 from his conquests,

00:18:56.100 are discreetly unmentioned,

00:18:57.560 while he sometimes seems

00:18:58.860 to dissimulate his real intentions

00:19:00.760 to conceal their relative failure.

00:19:03.420 So, for example,

00:19:04.480 the narrative of the Gergovia campaign.

00:19:06.900 In particular, no indication is given

00:19:08.680 that the expeditions into Germany and Britain

00:19:11.100 achieved no lasting result.

00:19:13.440 However, even if a judicious subtraction

00:19:16.120 is made for possible distortion

00:19:17.640 of his own and others' motives,

00:19:19.660 the body of fact that is left is invaluable.

00:19:22.480 The Gallic War is our only direct source

00:19:24.840 on the history and institutions

00:19:26.240 of the Gauls in that period,

00:19:28.040 and it is also the only narrative

00:19:29.700 actually written by a great general of antiquity

00:19:32.000 about his own campaigns.

00:19:34.140 Like all Romans engaged in public life, 0.96

00:19:36.580 Caesar had from time to time

00:19:37.860 to practise the art of oratory.

00:19:40.540 Quintilian, in his treatise

00:19:41.960 on rhetorical training,

00:19:43.740 written in the first century AD,

00:19:45.540 went so far as to say that,

00:19:46.880 had Caesar been able to devote himself

00:19:48.560 to forensic oratory,

00:19:50.480 he and he alone of his time

00:19:52.460 could have rivalled Cicero.

00:19:54.200 Among the qualities he ascribes to him

00:19:55.980 is elegance of language,

00:19:57.740 something by which Caesar himself

00:19:59.220 set great store.

00:20:00.540 He went so far as to write a work

00:20:02.180 in two volumes dedicated to Cicero

00:20:04.420 called De Analogia,

00:20:07.060 on selection of words.

00:20:08.680 From such references as survives,

00:20:10.580 it seems that Caesar advocated

00:20:12.100 that the orator should, on the other hand,

00:20:14.480 avoid the use of foreign coinages

00:20:16.100 and colloquialisms.

00:20:17.980 On the other hand,

00:20:18.860 he should avoid bizarre

00:20:19.980 and unfamiliar words.

00:20:21.660 His aim should be a lucid,

00:20:23.320 pure Latinity use of the Latin language.

00:20:26.620 Caesar's own commentaries

00:20:27.800 go a long way to fulfil this aim.

00:20:30.360 They are simply written

00:20:31.280 without being dull or repetitive.

00:20:34.020 Other lost works of which we hear

00:20:35.540 include Anti-Cato,

00:20:37.680 an answer to Cicero's eulogy of Cato,

00:20:40.160 who Caesar hated Cato.

00:20:42.340 After Caesar had,

00:20:43.980 if you remember,

00:20:44.400 the Epochs episodes on Cato,

00:20:46.740 after Caesar had beaten

00:20:48.040 and cornered Cato,

00:20:49.980 Cato commits suicide,

00:20:51.460 and Cicero, his old friend,

00:20:53.400 wrote a shining,

00:20:55.000 ringing eulogy for Cato.

00:20:57.880 And Caesar wrote a riposte,

00:20:59.520 which apparently was very rude.

00:21:00.920 Well, Gardner goes on here.

00:21:02.700 An answer to Cicero's eulogy of Cato,

00:21:04.840 which appears to have been

00:21:05.740 somewhat ungenerous in spirit,

00:21:07.580 yeah,

00:21:08.600 and to have done the dictator

00:21:10.080 little credit.

00:21:10.820 He also wrote a work on astronomy,

00:21:14.220 perhaps connected with his

00:21:15.680 reform of the calendar,

00:21:17.180 and a poem called The Journey,

00:21:18.800 allegedly written on a journey to Spain,

00:21:20.520 which took 24 days.

00:21:22.120 Six lines survive of his poetry,

00:21:24.340 hexameter,

00:21:25.100 which lament the lack of comic force

00:21:27.360 of the dramatist Terence,

00:21:29.300 but praise him specifically

00:21:30.540 as a lover of pure speech.

00:21:32.240 End quote.

00:21:32.500 So,

00:21:33.300 Caesar was a writer,

00:21:35.140 or he wrote multiple different things,

00:21:37.680 and was a great orator,

00:21:40.080 among the best of his time.

00:21:42.080 So,

00:21:42.380 a literary man,

00:21:43.340 really,

00:21:43.620 just another feather to his bow.

00:21:45.320 He's something like a polymath,

00:21:47.000 really,

00:21:47.360 what in later times

00:21:48.860 you might call a polymath,

00:21:50.560 a Renaissance man.

00:21:51.860 He could turn his hand

00:21:52.780 to anything,

00:21:53.500 really,

00:21:53.980 and would be probably

00:21:54.800 quite good at it.

00:21:56.200 You know,

00:21:56.400 he's a great politician,

00:21:57.840 a great general,

00:21:58.840 great strategician,

00:21:59.640 tactician,

00:22:00.340 great orator,

00:22:00.860 a very personable,

00:22:02.380 likeable person,

00:22:03.280 if he wanted to be.

00:22:05.520 Great at parties.

00:22:06.960 To watch the full video,

00:22:08.320 please become a premium member

00:22:09.480 at lotusedus.com.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 20, 2024

PREVIEW： Epochs #181 ｜ Pompey and Caesar： Part VI

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