Notes for Preface



1. It has, I believe, been largely in use at Oxford for the last
thirty years; but it has not apparently had the good fortune to
have come to the knowledge of the writer of an article on "Roman
History" published in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1886, which at
least makes no mention of its existence, or yet of Mr. Baring-Gould,
who in his Tragedy of the Caesars (vol. 1. p. 104f.) has presented
Dr. Mommsen's well-known "character" of Caesar in an independent
version. His rendering is often more spirited than accurate. While
in several cases important words, clauses, or even sentences, are
omitted, in others the meaning is loosely or imperfectly conveyed--e.g.
in "Hellenistic" for "Hellenic"; "success" for "plenitude of power";
"attempts" or "operations" for "achievements"; "prompt to recover"
for "ready to strike"; "swashbuckler" for "brilliant"; "many" for
"unyielding"; "accessible to all" for "complaisant towards every
one"; "smallest fibre" for "Inmost core"; "ideas" for "ideals";
"unstained with blood" for "as bloodless as possible"; "described"
for "apprehended"; "purity" for "clearness"; "smug" for "plain"
(or homely); "avoid" for "avert"; "taking his dark course" for
"stealing towards his aim by paths of darkness"; "rose" for "transformed
himself"; "checked everything like a praetorian domination" for
"allowed no hierarchy of marshals or government of praetorians
to come into existence"; and in one case the meaning is exactly
reversed, when "never sought to soothe, where he could not cure,
intractable evils" stands for "never disdained at least to mitigate