Excerpt from The Commentaries of Caesar
It is almost equally difficult to do so in regard to the events of Rome and the Roman power before the time of C?sar. We cannot realize and bring home to ourselves the Punic Wars or the Social War, the Scipios and the Gracchi, or even the contest for power between Marius and Sulla, as we do the Gallic Wars and the invasion of Britain, by which the civilization of Rome was first carried westwards, or the great civil wars, - the "Bellum Civile," - by which was commenced a line of emperors continued almost down to our own days, and to which in some degree may be traced the origin and formation of almost every existing European nation. It is no doubt true that if we did but know the facts correctly, we could refer back every political and social condition of the present day to the remotest period of man's existence; but the interest fails us when the facts become doubtful, and when the mind begins to fear that history is mixed with romance. Herodotus is so mythic that what delight we have in his writings comes in a very slight degree from any desire on our part to form a continuous chain from the days of which he wrote down to our own. Between the marvels of Herodotus and the facts of Caesar there is a great interval, from which have come down to us the works of various noble historians; but with C?sar it seems that that certainty commences which we would wish to regard as the distinguishing characteristic of modern history.
It must he remembered from the beginning that Caesar wrote only of what he did or of what he caused to be done himself. At least he only so wrote in the two works of his which remain to us.
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