Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman imperial system . CHAPTER VIII. THE DEFENCE OF TRANSALPINE ROM the time when Caesartook possession of his pro-vinces in March, 58 , wehave a detailed record of hisactive life, with the exceptionof the few brief intervals whenhe was at Rome in the yearsof his supreme power. It istrue indeed that we knowhardly anything of the busi-ness and the studies in which he was engaged winterafter winter in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, while mili-tary operations were impracticable; it is true that themans real thoughts and aims, as well as his p
Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman imperial system . CHAPTER VIII. THE DEFENCE OF TRANSALPINE ROM the time when Caesartook possession of his pro-vinces in March, 58 , wehave a detailed record of hisactive life, with the exceptionof the few brief intervals whenhe was at Rome in the yearsof his supreme power. It istrue indeed that we knowhardly anything of the busi-ness and the studies in which he was engaged winterafter winter in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, while mili-tary operations were impracticable; it is true that themans real thoughts and aims, as well as his pursuitsand methods of government, are thus entirely hiddenfrom us. That inner life of the mind, which in thenineteenth century we fancy we ought to discoverin a biography, is in Caesars case not to be where Fortune has been singularly gracious to 126. 68 ] The Defence of Transalpine GauL 12 7 us in one particular, it is well not to call her nig-gard in another; the more so, as we are apt alto-gether to undervalue the gift we already takes a scholar,—one, that is, who knows howprecious is every fragment of the best authors ofantiquity, how great the perils attending the trans-mission of ancient books, and how vast and variedwere the writings that are now irrecoverabl} lost,—to appreciate the singular good luck that has pre-jserved all Caesars military writings to our own time!in a tolerably sound condition. And it is only whenwe have ranged freely over Latin literature, and arefamiliar with all the great Roman writers of prose,that we can turn back to Caesars Commentaries,which most of us forsake after our earliest boyhood,and feel the truth of Ciceros judgment, that no his-torical writing could surpass them in the charm ofjtheir pure and lucid brevity.^ I We may indeed with justice lament that in writing;his thre
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