The Landmark Julius Caesar The complete works : Gallic War, Civil War, Alexandrian War, African War, and Spanish War : in one volume, with maps, annotations, appendices, and encyclopedic index

Review by Choice Review

The Landmark Julius Caesar is the fifth volume in the Landmark series of ancient histories. Like previous volumes in the series, it contains excellent new translations prepared by two leading Caesar scholars of the five works by Caesar found in manuscript, as listed in the title. A hallmark of the Landmark translations is the abundant reference material supporting the translation, and that is true of this volume also. Besides numerous illustrations, battle diagrams, sidebar notes, and footnotes, the translation is accompanied by an extensive introduction to Caesar's life and works, book and chapter summaries, an annotated list of ancient authors, glossary, detailed index, nine reference maps, and 47 appendixes divided into five groups: Caesar's life, his world, contemporary warfare, literary qualities of Caesar's commentaries, and highlights of his campaigns. There are two innovations in this work. For the first time, the editors treat the five books of the Corpus Caesarianum as a single work consisting of 14 books. Equally original, only four of the appendixes appear in the print volume. Forty-three of the appendixes are contained in an accompanying website (http://www.thelandmarkcaesar.com) as "web essays," where they can be freely accessed and downloaded. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Stanley M. Burstein, emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by New York Times Review

CUBA ON THE VERGE Edited by Leila Guerriero. (Ecco, $26.99.) Twelve writers explore this moment of transition in a post-Castro Cuba, as it manifests in music, art and even baseball, the landmark julius caesar Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub. (Pantheon, $50.) This tome brings together all the written works of the statesman and military commander, ft's mostly a series of accounts of wars he waged, from the Gallic War to the African War, which turned the Roman republic into an empire, should the tent be burning like that? By Bill Heavey. (Atlantic Monthly, $25.) A suburban dad who loves hunting and fishing, Heavey has been writing a column for Field & Stream for over two decades, and this collection ranges from a deer archery hunt to the time he crashed a 44-foot houseboat in Florida. Christopher hitchens: the last interview (Melville House, $15.99.) The always provocative Christopher Hitchens died six years ago, but his presence can still be felt. As part of its "Last Interview" series, Melville House pulls together some of Hitchens's greatest dialogues, each sparkling with intelligence and wit. three daughters of eve By Elif Shafak. (Bloomsbury, $27.) Shafak's novel takes place over the course of a dinner party in Istanbul on a night when terrorist attacks occur across the city. Through her main character, a wealthy socialite, Shafak, one of Turkey's most acclaimed authors, explores the many tensions that exist in a society struggling toward modernity. "I recently decided to read Cormac McCarthy's first three novels. This was, to understate it, an odd decision for this time of year. The world is bedecked in white lights, and my brain is filled with misshapen things. The books are by turns brilliant and exasperating, the orchard keeper, McCarthy's 1965 debut, involves two men, one of them a whiskey bootlegger, and a boy, connected in ways that are often willfully incomprehensible. The novel's who-what-when-where is a house deep in the woods with its lights out. His third book, child of god, is a far easier read; syntactically, at least. Its contents are grislier though, involving a deeply disturbed man-child who is described, on Page 4, as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." That sentence becomes the book's central provocation as the man misunderstands, murders and defiles several people along his life's blind path. I'm halfway through his second, outer dark, as I write this. It involves a woman's search for her lost newborn, the product of an incestuous relationship with her brother. Happy Holidays!" - JOHN WILLIAMS, DAILY BOOKS EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER, ON WHAT HE'S READING.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]

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Review by Library Journal Review

This comprehensive collection of Julius Caesar's works incorporates Caesar's Gallic War, Civil War, and other writings into a single volume. Translated by Raaflaub (classics, Brown Univ.; Companion to Archaic Greece), the texts are accompanied by information-rich footnotes and annotations. Especially helpful are the many maps presented throughout. Photographs of Roman artifacts, including coins, reliefs, landscapes, and statuary, provide readers with a well-rounded perspective of Roman history. Latin students will find the translations helpful for difficult passages. In addition, this volume succeeds as a wonderful reference to the late Roman Republic. The appendixes include a "Who's Who in Caesar," documenting informative yet quick references to the many people connected to Caesar. Other appendixes supply listings of Roman currency values, calendar systems, and military organization. Raaflaub and Cynthia Damon's (classics, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Caesar's Civil War) introduction fleshes out their subject's life and career. VERDICT An excellent corpus collection and reference for classicists and historians. Highly recommended for classical departments.-Jeffrey Meyer, Mt. Pleasant P.L., IA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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GALLIC WAR I Gaul, if you take all of it into account, is divided into three regions.The Belgae live in one, the Aquitani in the second, and in the third a people called Celts in their own language but Gauls in ours.[2] These three peoples are all different from one another in their languages, institutions, and laws. The Garumna River separates the Aquitani from the Gauls, and the Matrona and Sequana Rivers separate the Gauls from the Belgae.[3] Of all these groups, the most warlike are the Belgae, because they are the farthest from the civilized sophistication of the Province;merchants come to them least often with imports that foster an effeminate disposition;they are also the closest to the Germans living across the Rhine River, and they are constantly at war with them. [4] This is, moreover, the reason the Helvetiisurpass all the Gauls except the Belgae in bravery: they struggle with the Germans in almost daily battles, either trying to keep them out of their own country or else actually waging war in the Germans' territory.   [5] [The region that, as stated above, the Gauls occupy starts at the Rhône River, and its other boundaries are the Garumna River, the Atlantic Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae. One part of it, where the Sequani and the Helvetii are found, touches the Rhine River. But its general direction is to the north. [6] The Belgae are found starting from the farthest borders of the Gauls, and then all of the way to the lower part of the Rhine, in a region verging toward the north and east.[7] Aquitania goes from the Garumna River to the Pyrenees Mountains and the part of the Atlantic Ocean next to Spain.It stretches northwest from the Province.]   [1] Among the Helvetii, by far the most noble and wealthy person was Orgetorix.In the consulship of Marcus Messalla and Marcus Piso, he was tempted by desire for kingship to conspire with the aristocracy, and he persuaded his nation to leave their own territory with all their forces.[2] He told them that, because they excelled above all others in bravery, it would be very easy to take over the whole of Gaul and rule it.[3] What helped to persuade them was that the Helvetii are closed in on all sides by natural boundaries. On one side is the Rhine River, extremely wide and deep, which divides the Helvetian territories from the Germans. On another side is the Jura, a very high mountain range between the Sequani and the Helvetii. Separating them from our Province on the third side are Lake Lemannus and the Rhône River.[4] This situation limited their ability to move far and wide and hampered them in attacking their neighbors. This galled them enormously, since they were a people keen to wage war. [5] In proportion to their large population and the glory they had acquired through war and brave fighting, they thought their territory was too limited, since it was only 240 miles long and 180 wide.   [1] Influenced by these factors and enticed by the prestige of Orgetorix, they decided to prepare all they needed for setting out. That meant buying up as many draft animals and wagons as they could, sowing crops as widely as possible--so that the supply of grain would last during the journey--and establishing peace and friendship with the nations closest to them.[2] To carry out these plans, they thought two years would be sufficient, and they committed themselves by a formal decree to setting out in the third year.[3] Orgetorix was chosen [to complete these tasks].[4] He took on the assignment of going as an emissary to the neighboring peoples. During this mission he persuaded Casticus--whose father, Catamantaloedes, had held the kingship over the Sequanifor many years and had been given the title Friend of the Roman People by the Senate--to take over his nation's kingship, which had belonged to his father.[5] Orgetorix likewise persuaded Dumnorix of the Aedui, the brother of Diviciacus (who at the time held a position of leadership in his state and was hugely popular with the common people), to try the same, and gave him his daughter in marriage.[6] Orgetorix made a convincing case to these men that such plans could be realized very easily, because he himself was about to take over the rule of his own state. [7] There was no doubt, he stated, that the Helvetii were the most powerful people in the whole of Gaul; he would use his own resources and his army to help consolidate their control of their kingship. [8] This speech induced them to pledge loyalty to each other and bind themselves by oath. They hoped that once they had seized their kingship, they could establish control over Gaul in its entirety through their three most powerful and staunch nations.   [1] An informer made this known to the Helvetii, who, according to their custom, forced Orgetorix to stand trial in chains. Had he been convicted, his punishment would inevitably have been to be burned alive.[2] On the day set for the case to be heard, Orgetorix summoned to the place of judgment all his slaves and freedmen from everywhere, amounting to ten thousand people. In addition, he had a great number of clients and persons indebted to him, and he assembled them at the same place. He then used this crowd to escape from having to defend himself at trial. [3] The nation was roused by all this to enforce its rights with arms, but while officials were collecting a large band of men from the countryside, Orgetorix died. [4] There was a certain suspicion, according to what the Helvetii believe, that he killed himself.   [1] After Orgetorix' death, the Helvetii did not give up their efforts to realize their intention to migrate from their country.[2] When they thought they were ready to go, they set fire to all their towns, around twelve of them, as well as their roughly four hundred villages, and all their other private buildings; [3] furthermore, they burned up all the grain beyond what they were going to carry with them--all this in order to eliminate any hope of returning home, so that they would be more fully committed to undergo all dangers;finally, they ordered every person to take with him three months' worth of already-groundup rations from his home.[4] They persuaded their neighbors, the Rauraci, the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, to adopt the same plan, burn down their towns and villages and emigrate with them. Also, they welcomed in their territory and adopted as their allies the Boii, who had settled across the Rhine but then crossed over into the territory of Noricum and attacked the town of Noreia.   [1] There were, in all, only two suitable routes by which they could leave their home territory. The route through the territory of the Sequani, between the Jura mountain range and the Rhône River, was narrow and difficult. Wagons in single file could scarcely be driven along it. Worse, an extremely high mountain range looms above it, so that a tiny force could easily prevent their advance.[2] The other route was through our Province, and there they could travel much faster and more easily; the course of the Rhône forms the border between the Helvetii and the Allobroges, who had recently been pacified, and in some places it is shallow enough to ford it. [3] Genavais the most remote town of the Allobroges, and the closest to the Helvetian borders. From this town, a bridge extends over the river to Helvetian territory. The Helvetii thought that they could persuade--or else force--the Allobroges, who did not yet appear to be well-disposed to the Roman people, to let them pass through their territory.   [4] When everything was ready for setting out, they named a day for the whole expedition to gather on the bank of the Rhône. This was March 28, during the consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius. Excerpted from The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Gallic Wars and the Civil War All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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