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Essay on Historical Significance
Julius Caesar is probably the most famous Roman of all. As dictator, he paved the way for the establishment of the Roman Empire under his great-nephew Augustus, more infamously, had a love affair with Cleopatra of Egypt, and even invented the leap year, before being assassinated by friends and colleagues who had previously supported him. But before his dictatorship he had conquered a vast area of Europe in an incredibly short time. The provinces of Gaul invaded by Caesar (Aquitania, Gallia Belgica and Gallia Lugdunensis) relate to modern-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the west of the Rhine, an area of over 300,000 square miles. The political map of much of modern Europe can be traced back to Julius Caesar's nine years of campaigning. During his battles in Gaul, Caesar also became the first Roman to cross the Rhine at the head of an army, and to cross the Channel to Britain, an island that contemporaries considered a mysterious, frightful and possibly even mythical place.
There is only one detailed account surviving of this extraordinary war, and that is by Caesar himself. As well as being a great (and exceptionally fortunate) general and an inspirational leader of men, Caesar was an astute politician fully aware of the importance of self-presentation; in today's terms, he was his own, extremely able spin-doctor. Caesar's De Bello Gallico (Gallic War) is the most detailed eye-witness account of war that survives from the Greek or Roman world.
He wrote up his Commentaries annually and had them published in Rome every year. Everyone in the capital was hungry for news of events in Gaul and there was great excitement at the progress of the war. Caesar made sure they got a one-sided version of events that stressed the magnitude of the Roman victories (and his part in them), and underplayed the size and significance of the reverses......
