Content area
Full Text
Caesar: Life of a Colossus. By Adrian Goldsworthy. New Haven, Conn.:YaleUniversity Press, 2006. 583 pages. $35.00.Reviewed by Dr. J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., Professor of Military History, US Army War College.
Adrian Goldsworthy has produced the definitive modern biography of Julius Caesar. It is an absorbing book about a fascinating personality. Julius Caesar is among the handful of ancients about whom there is widespread name recognition in the modern western world. He was one of the great captains Napoleon recommended studying. His conquest of Gaul arguably shaped the development of western Europe, although Goldsworthy points out that Gaul was ripe for colonization, and some other Roman would probably have conquered it had Caesar not.He lived an exciting life that had a distinct and recognizable effect on his own day and history. Few people can claim any such spectacular achievements. Doing such a life justice is a challenge for a biographer-Adrian Goldsworthy has proven himself up to the challenge.
Little is known about Caesar's childhood. Goldsworthy recounts what there is to tell and fills in the blanks with authoritative speculation based on our fairly extensive knowledge of childhood in the ancient Roman upper-class. He uses that discussion to introduce an important theme that runs through the biography-the importance of family to Roman social and political life. Family gave the...