Abstract
Abstract All that remains of the literary work of the great general and statesman C. Julius Caesar (100-44 bc) is the set of Commentarii in which he records, first, his conquest of Gaul (de bello Gallico) and later his war against Pompeius (de bello civili) These are deliberately simple and magisterial in manner, unadorned by the literary trappings of history, but scrupulously pure in language: Caesar was an enthusiast for correct Latinity. Our first passage (de bello Gallico 1. 42-6) reports a meeting between Caesar and the German king Ariovistus in 58 BC. Ariovistus’ people had settled about 71 BC in what is now Alsace, having been invited into Gaul by the Sequani as allies against the rival Aedui. The Aedui have now sought and obtained Caesar’s help. Throughout the exchanges— here reported, as is usual in the Commentarii, in indirect speech, to give the impression of a faithful minute—Caesar represents himself as always willing to talk, and Ariovistus as haughty and insulting.
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