I have called this work a "sketch" because the materials do not exist for
a portrait which shall be at once authentic and complete. The original
authorities which are now extant for the life of Caesar are his own
writings, the speeches and letters of Cicero, the eighth book of the
"Commentaries" on the wars in Gaul and the history of the Alexandrian war,
by Aulus Hirtius, the accounts of the African war and of the war in Spain,
composed by persons who were unquestionably present in those two
campaigns. To these must be added the "Leges Juliae" which are preserved
in the Corpus Juris Civilis. Sallust contributes a speech, and Catullus a
poem. A few hints can be gathered from the Epitome of Livy and the
fragments of Varro; and here the contemporary sources which can be
entirely depended upon are brought to an end.

The secondary group of authorities from which the popular histories of the
time have been chiefly taken are Appian, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Dion
Cassius. Of these the first three were divided from the period which they
describe by nearly a century and a half, Dion Cassius by more than two
centuries. They had means of knowledge which no longer exist--the
writings, for instance, of Asinius Pollio, who was one of Caesar's
officers. But Asinius Pollio's accounts of Caesar's actions, as reported
by Appian, cannot always be reconciled with the Commentaries; and all
these four writers relate incidents as facts which are sometimes
demonstrably false. Suetonius is apparently the most trustworthy. His
narrative, like those of his contemporaries, was colored by tradition. His
biographies of the earlier Caesars betray the same spirit of animosity
against them which taints the credibility of Tacitus, and prevailed for so
many years in aristocratic Roman society. But Suetonius shows nevertheless
an effort at veracity, an antiquarian curiosity and diligence, and a