Caesar as an Imperialist

Extract

So much is written nowadays about the propagandist element in Caesar's Commentaries, and his supposed misrepresentation of his own actions, that it is almost forgotten that he provides the only contemporary narrative of a major Roman imperialist war, and that by its principal agent. The obscure record of the wars of Augustus has been subjected to a severe scrutiny, and the most diverse and recondite theories propounded about his purposes. But this long and detailed account of the greatest single extension of the Roman Empire has hardly been examined seriously for the things that its author was not concerned to conceal—the springs and purposes and means of that new form of imperialism that under Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus converted the Roman dominion from a suzerainty over a maritime fringe of Mediterranean provinces into a solid and broad-based continental empire. Caesar is most valuable in his admissions, for he admits such actions,; methods, and objectives as were commonly approved by the opinion of the governing class, whether political friends or enemies.