168 ROMAN HISTORY : 



Voltaire if we may thus profane the name of friendship 

 living close to the scene of the actions recorded in the 

 first book ; and Warnery, upon a minute survey of the same 

 localities, started grave scruples as to the operations by 

 which Caesar sought to stop the egress of the Helvetians from 

 their mountain territory.* Various passages in the other 

 campaigns have been the subject of like criticism, and doubts 

 even stated as to the authorship of the whole work. In these 

 doubts we cannot acquiesce. Without referring to those 

 other writers, Rohan, Guichard, &c., who have vindicated the 

 military narrative, we find in Caesar's Commentaries a perfect 

 reflection of the energy and intelligence of the man, and 

 an entire correspondence with the description which Cicero 

 gives of their style : Nudi sunt et recti et venusti, omni 

 ornatu orationis, tanquam veste, detracto. We cannot, 

 indeed, conceive any other or lesser artist to have thrown off 

 so completely all ornamental colouring from his narrative, 

 and to have preserved such entire unity throughout the 

 whole. And what record or note has there been left to us of 

 such other author? We may admit the recorded c iticism 

 of Asinius Pollio, that many things were written by Caesar 

 from the report of others long after the events, and still see 

 in these Commentaries the genuine work of Caesar himself, 

 and one of the most authentic and valuable records of ancient 

 warfare. 



But passing over this question of criticism, there is no 

 question as to the fact that, in eight or nine years, with a 

 force never exceeding sixty thousand legionary soldiers, 



* The great stumbling-block here is the fortified wall, reported to have been 

 built to bar this passage ; 19 miles in length and 16 feet in height, with ditch, 

 and all other appurtenances to such fortification. The length is deemed by 

 Warnery to be refuted by local circumstances. The execution of the work 

 by one legion, in the time indicated, is thought impossible by others. See on 

 this subject an interesting series of papers in the ' United Service Magazine ' 

 for 1850. 



