Commentarii de bello gallico
This book is Julius Caesar's first-hand account of his military campaigns in Gaul (modern-day France), covering the period from 58 to 51 BC. The eight books provide a remarkable insight into the Roman military machine, the Germanic tribes of Gaul, and Caesar's own leadership and tactics. An indispensable primary source for historians and military scholars. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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20% recommend77% neutral3% critical
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What Hacker News says
- De Bello Gallico is much more intimidating than it is difficult. Caesar wrote using pretty simple language. Once you learn the main geographic and military terms it's a fun read!
- Modern historians have largely gone away with attempts to do works like Gibbon. Perhaps in part because of how his attempt ended up. So if you want to take a look at Roman history in general, you have to dip into popular history. And that is very uneven.
Alternatively, you can get books about specific periods, like say late republic, and read those in sequence. But that takes more time.
Finally, and this is my preferred approach, get things written by Romans. Yes, they were biased too, and often quite obviously. But at least they didn't have stake in modern society and politics. As long as you pay notice to fact that they are mostly recording either hearsay, or propaganda, you should be fine. In that course I would recommend Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (hearsay) and Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Caesar (propaganda).
It's not always true, but it gives you a good idea of how they were thinking, what was their morality like and their values.
- To be fair, Cesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War is masterclass writing and well worth the read. The way that he writes to three audiences at once is superb and the lessons he tries to impart are solid gold. It's a very rare and very useful look into the mind of one of the most famous people in history. Try to search for a good translation though.
- Yes! I recall reading "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars" (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) in Julius Caesar's original Latin in high school and being thrilled to be able to actually understand his account nearly 2000 years after he wrote it. 56 years after encountering it in Miss Shaw's Latin class, I can still recall the beginning of the first sentence:
>Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...
- I've read Caesar's Gallic War (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) and Civil War (Commentarii de Bello Civili) probably ~300 times but I don't have an exact count. They're relatively short texts.
I've re-read them non-stop for ~20 years any time I don't have something else I'm excited to read. I discovered them as a teenager but still find them fascinating. I find new things to think about every time I read them.
- Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar
By far my favorite example of any individual human's mental (and often physical) toughness. There's a thousand examples where he displayed herculean mental strength in the face over overwhelming situations.
Some that come to mind:
1. He took groups of cavalry out on attacks during a heavy winter, letting each group of soldiers take a turn resting, while he went out on every mission.
2. He grabbed a shield an went to the front of the lines when the Nervii were about to slaughter his entire force. Turning the tide in a situation almost no one else could have survived.
3. Instead of giving up the siege of Alesia when a massive relieving army was inbound, he went double or nothing by enclosing himself in a double wall investment.
4. He attacked a beach full of unknown numbers of enemy soldiers with chariots, in D-day style amphibious assault.
He did a hundred major things like this in his life, and a thousand minor ones we know about.
An excellent audiobook version is available free https://archive.org/details/Commentaries_Gaius_Julius_Caesar
