Paměti o válce galské by Gaius Julius CaesarMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is over two thousand years old. It took me a while to wrap my head around it and it threw me into yet another existential crisis (or ten) about the nature of time and... mankind in general. I mean... my country did not exist two thousand years ago, hell, even the calendar that we use did not exist yet, nor did the language I read this thing in... and write this review in. I bet that Caesar felt pretty cool that he conquered the entire Gaul, but nowadays, not only that the Roman Empire is long gone and Latin dead, but the Gauls/French people are one of the few nations that have nuclear weapons and could blow up the planet with one push of a button. (Maybe the bombs are not strong enough yet, but give it a couple of years and I'm sure they will be.)
And what will the next two thousand years bring? Will people conquer planets and blow up entire solar systems? Will there be any French people left in France? Will my language still be spoken? Will anyone read my books thinking man... 21th century was wild.
...
Back to the review I guess. Surprise, surprise, I absolutely loved this book. This is a considerably old translation of The Gallic War, but I am glad that I did pick up this book before any of the more modern versions (if there are any). Because Czech has retained so many Latin grammar, it can mimic the original text really well. The spelling and sentence structure from the 1930s gave the text a nice old feel while it was not hard to read like some of the books from the turn of the century are. What I especially liked about this edition are the maps and notes inserted into the text, which makes it easier to visualise the depicted events and to put them into modern context and there is also a preface explaining Roman military techniques and equipment as well as there's a lexicon of all the weird names at the back of the book. Oh, and a full map of the Gaul with all the tribes and Caesar's journeys and battles mapped out. Heaven.
All that to say: this does not read like a two thousand year old book. And trust me, I have been obsessed with mythology and really old texts since I learnt how to read but this was super easy to get into. What I especially liked about this memoir is the fact that it was not intended for posterity at all: Caesar wrote all of this down so the Senate would shut up and stop criticising him. And with this level of eloquence I am not surprised at all, that Caesar... had the life... and the afterlife... that he had. Sure, there's a lot of talk about military tactics and one battle mostly follows another, but Caesar made time to stop and write about the culture, about common soldiers, about political intrigues and about... reindeer.
I'm not kidding. Caesar wrote about bunch of animals because he thought they were cool and therefore, all the noble families and powerful men in Rome should know about them.
This is what makes his memoir so special to me. All the Greek (and Roman and other really old) books about history usually retell legends and myths that were supposed to happen loooong time ago. But Caesar lived through this. He witnessed the majority of the things himself. With his very own eyes. And then sat down, and wrote it down. With his very own hands. (view spoiler)
I just have so many feelings about this. Granted, I am kinda biased, because Gaius Iulius Caesar is my first and favourite historical crush ever (view spoiler) and I would read absolutely ANYTHING that is somehow connected to his person, but this is hands down my favourite non-fiction book of the year. And if you have a soft spot for history, but not enough patience to go through tomes and painfully decipher every single sentence, give this a go. (And try to find a version of this book with added materials like the maps and stuff, because it makes the whole experience a lot better. But it can be easily read without it.)
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