Caesar's Rome -- Ibanez' Madrid

FOR the past few years, biographies have enjoyed a steadily increasing vogue, and with this trend has sprung up a class of biographers depending for their fame and popularity more on their ability to write entertainingly than on their qualifications, if any, as scholars and historians. Their main purpose has been to entertain, and since the general public is more interested in people that are human, perhaps even a bit naughty, this new school of semi-historical writers has led to the exposing of one shibboleth aften another, the rendering of innumerable veils, the puncturing of bubbles, and the over-turning of practically all the figures which tradition, sentiment, patriotism, and whatnot, had caused to be raised on pedestals.

Starting with Washington, there is scarcely a notable figure of history that has not been, "treated" in the new manner by the modern biographers. Caesar, and more generally, the Roman tradition, is the latest subject for tabloid treatment in book form.

To the usual emphasis placed on the private life of the once great men. Mr. Thaddeus adds a certain vindictiveness that is not to be found in most authors. That the attempt to blacken the name of Rome is more or less intentional is shown clearly by the preface, and throughout the work there is a use of invective that would have shamed even Cicero in his bitterest mood.

"We see", says the author, "the hundred percent Romans brawling drunkenly in their Forum ... lying on the cushions of their litters caressing with obscene fingers their boy-favorites--gloating sadistically, in their amphitheatres and circuses, over the butchery of unhappy gladiators and starved wild animals. They are fat heavy-jowled men with cruel eyes. To make the picture perfect all they need is big cigars.," So much for the men who built one of the largest empires in the world, certainly the empire whose institutions had the most lasting historical influences.

Of Caesar, Mr. Thaddeus presents the following picture: "Sword in one hand, the incendiary torch in the other, he strides across Gaul, his thin-lipped mouth twisted into a smile as the eagles of his legions scream false promises to the natives.... But legend has chosen to whitewash the tawdry walls of Rome, so that it is Caesar, the far seeing statesman, rather than Caesar the bandit-adventurer, who is in the habit of stepping forward immaculate to take curtain calls as one of history's heroes and supermen."

These two brief quotations serve sufficiently to show the spirit and the style of the work. Not the least reason why this type of history gains such a large number of readers is its lucid, clean-cut style certainly easier reading than the classically ponderous works of the older school Gibbons and Mommsen for example. Here no foot-notes are to be found, no weighing of questionable points. The author asserts dogmatically that Caesar is a scoundrel, he cites his facts, such as they are, for so thinking, and dismisses all contrary evidence as not to be taken seriously. Mr. Thaddeus, even more than most of his colleagues, is possessed of an eye for the dramatic, and his style is rendered most vigorous by the frequent use of the present tense and very short sentences much after Caesar's own "I came, I saw, I conquered."

In other words, though this life is one that can easily be read at one sitting, it should be taken as a novel--not as an accurate estimate of Rome or Caesar. There are, it is true, very few actual misstatements of fact, but one whole side of the picture is totally omitted, the emphasis is misplaced, the significance distorted.

As is usual with the more pretentious books published by Brentano's, "Julius Caesar" is an excellent piece of bookmaking. The illustrations by W.D. White should also be mentioned, especially the graphic one showing the murder of Caesar.