Caesar as Teacher

Caesar as Teacher

I’ve come to appreciate Caesar as teacher of Latin. I recently published an article highlighting Julius Caesar’s storytelling ability (“Caesar as Storyteller”).  He knows how to spin a lively yarn full of adventure.  And Caesar gives us more than just the ancient equivalent of an action movie.  He peoples his story with memorable characters to love, hate, and identify with.

I closed my earlier discussion with Lucretius’ image of the honey around the rim of the cup to sweeten bitter medicine.  As a philosopher of more recent vintage said, “a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.” I’m speaking as a Latin teacher here.  Once we get our students involved in Caesar’s story, we can use it to bring clarity to some of the nuts and bolts of the Latin language.  Examples and explications of grammar, mechanics, style, etc. will be more meaningful to them in the context of a gripping story.

A Man of Many Talents

And there is no shortage of examples of “Caesar as teacher” in his commentaries.  On top of success as a politician, general, reformer of the calendar, and storyteller, Caesar is an exceptional teacher of Latin. It’s not for nothing that his work has enjoyed such a prominent place in the secondary school curriculum. As an aside, I can’t tell you how many times over the past four decades that, as soon as someone found out that I was a Latin teacher, they would start reeling off Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres . . .

Anyway, let’s take a look at an example from the very beginning of Caesar’s Commentaries on the War in Gaul. At the beginning of the 2nd chapter of Book I Caesar has just introduced Orgetorix as “by far the noblest and the richest of the Helvetians (Apud Helvetios longe nobilissimus fuit et ditissimus). Orgetorix was also, apparently, one of the most persuasive as well. In fact, Caesar takes up the rest of the passage explaining what Orgetorix persuaded his fellow Helvetians to do, and why.  

A Conspiracy

Here is the key part of the passage. Orgetorix, our author tells us, has formed a conspiracy among the nobility.  Caesar then proceeds to say:

. . . et civitātī persuasit ut dē fīnibus suīs cum omnibus copiīs exīrent: perfacile esse, cum virtute omnibus praestarent, tōtius Galliae imperiō potīrī.

. . . and he persuaded the citizens [i.e., his fellow Helvetians] to depart from their territory with all their resources; that it would be very easy, since they surpassed all in courage, to gain the ruling power of all Gaul.

I have often used this brief excerpt to help students understand a surprisingly large number of grammatical points. Let’s start with persuasit, which is the word around which the entire passage revolves. There are two different ways in which we can persuade someone.  We can persuade them that something is the case.  That is, we can persuade them of the truth or falsity of an idea. Latin expresses this kind of persuading with an indirect statement. We can also persuade them to do something. This would be an indirect command in Latin.

Persuasit Does Double Duty

The two different meanings follow very different grammatical constructions.  Every time you see a form of persuadeo, then, you need to be on the lookout for one or the other.  Caesar has chosen to provide a ready-made lesson on indirect discourse by giving us both in one sentence. Both, in fact, follow the same occurrence of persuasit.

He starts with the indirect command:

. . . civitātī persuasit ut dē fīnibus suīs cum omnibus copiīs exīrent . . .

. . . he persuaded the citizens to depart from their territory with all their resources . . .

Indirect commands follow verbs of asking, advising, or commanding. I tell my students that we can think of these as verbs of “trying to get someone to do something.” Here Orgetorix is trying to get the Helvetians to migrate.  His command is “indirect” because Caesar is not quoting him directly; he’s explaining or paraphrasing.  Latin expresses indirect commands in a clause introduced by ut or ne, with the verb in the subjunctive mood. Here the clause begins with ut and ends with the imperfect subjunctive exīrent.

Verb of the Head

Persuadeo, however, can also be a verb a verb of mental action, sometimes called  a “verb of the head.”  It takes this role when we’re not urging a course of action, but urging someone to believe the truth or falsity of a given statement.  In cases such as this persuadeo is not followed by an indirect command, but by an indirect statement. Instead of a clause with the verb in the subjunctive, an indirect statement is an infinitive phrase with accusative subject. And so, immediately after the indirect command above, Caesar continues with: perfacile esse . . . tōtius Galliae imperiō potīrī. This phrase is dependent on the same persuasit 

. . . civitātī persuasit . . .  perfacile esse . . . tōtius Galliae imperiō potīrī.

. . . He persuaded the citizens that it would be easy to gain the ruling power of all Gaul. . .

I’m sure he wasn’t writing with Latin teachers millennia into the future in mind. Nevertheless, Caesar has given us put the two different constructions that persuasit can govern right next to each other so that our students can see and understand. When we persuade someone to do something it’s ut plus the subjunctive.  When we persuade something to believe something we use an infinitive phrase. Plurimus gratias agimus, Caesar.

There’s More!

Now, depending on how much you want to squeeze out of one sentence, there’s more here.  For instance, we don’t have a noun in the accusative as the subject of our indirect statement.  What is the subject, then? We can use the same method I learned to determine the subject of English sentences when I was a mere schoolboy.  Ask yourself, “What was easy?” To gain power, of course, potīrī. An infinitive used as a subject.

Not just any infinitive.  Here’s another lesson.  Potīrī looks passive (it ends in ī instead of ē), but it’s not: its meaning is active. So, here’s an opportunity to review deponent verbs.

Another funny thing about this infinitive. It’s object, imperiō, is not accusative but ablative.  Here’s a good example to remind your students that potiōr is one of a select few verbs (utōr is another) that take ablative objects.

And Even More . . .

There’s something for students learning the subjunctive mood as well. We already saw the subjunctive in the indirect command above. Well, If you’re looking for an example in context of a cum causal clause, you can’t ask for better than this:

. . . cum virtute omnibus praestarent . . .

. . . since they surpassed all in courage. . .

Along with it we even have an example of ablative of respect (or specification, if you prefer): virtute. “In what respect do the Helvetians surpass everyone?” Why, in respect to courage, of course.

See Also: “Caesar as Storyteller”

One last lesson: ask your students (or yourself) what case is omnibus, and why. It sounds like a direct object in English (“surpass all“). But the form omnibus can be only dative or ablative. If your students need a hint, you can tell them that one way to translate praestarent is “they were superior to.” In fact, translating the verb in this way helps them understand why some verbs have dative objects.

Care and Precision

Needless to say, learning grammar is not the purpose of reading Caesar or any other author.  But it’s a fact that we won’t really appreciate what Caesar the author is trying to do if we have only a vague grasp of how he’s doing it.  Style and execution were incredibly important to ancient writers. Caesar and his contemporaries, even when writing something as (apparently) mundane as military commentaries, crafted their language with a degree of care and precision that’s foreign even to many poets today.

In fact, Caesar might not even have understood what we mean by looking at content and style as separate categories.  The ripping good tale and well-crafted language were inseparable, all of one piece. And it can work that way for our students. The engrossing story helps the grammar take shape in the students’ minds. It’s not just an abstraction, they can see it at work.  Understanding the grammar helps them, in turn, to appreciate the story better.  And so on.

Caesar’s Co-Teachers

So, yes, with Caesar as teacher, we can be his co-teachers.  We can help our students see and feel the drama in his narrative.  I agree with my reading-based colleagues that students truly learn grammar and mechanics only in context.  I also agree with the traditionalists that if we don’t explain and guide them, most students won’t really master those things on their own. With Caesar as storyteller and teacher, we can do it all.

Featured image top of page: Julius Caesar on Horseback, Writing and Dictating Simultaneously to His Scribes, by Jaques de Gheyn II, 1629