Word: caesare
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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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...
...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...
...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...
There is only one detail upon which Oxford still lacks reassurance. Disillusioning though it be, Oxford must find out before it is too late who wrote the scenario. The idea of Cambridge stooping to such subterfuge is almost absurd; still, Caesar had his Brutus, Harvard its Donald Ogden Stewart, and Oxford may profit by their example...
Rome she finds "a dirty little anthill of Italian filth." Caesar, her lover, "talks like a very king of kings, but acts like a delicatessen-storekeeper." He has a fit of epilepsy: "Fancy sharing your bed with a man who is in the habit of turning into a corpse." She meets Calpurnia, Caesar's wife. Calpurnia thanks her "for providing me with such an excellent excuse to exercise freely whatever poor talents I possess." The nature of these talents is reflected in Cleopatra's diary: "Received this morning a jar of preserved roses from Calpurnia...