Caesar is often claimed as a cynic or a rationalist (e. g. Lateiner 2005: 49), but the full picture from our ancient sources is different. Regarding his attitudes to religion there is a significant difference of emphasis between what the man himself reveals in his own words and what the other ancient sources say, but a coherent overall picture is discernible. His commentarii reveal very little (cf. Le Bohec 2003: 543-8), although there is an interesting progression between the Bellum Gallicum and the Bellum Civile. The former reveals Caesar as an effective student of the religious practices of his enemies: his description of the Druids and the gods worshiped by the Gauls (BG 6.13-18) is an informative piece of ethnographic writing;3 the standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion prayed before committing himself to the waters of the English Channel (4.25), and religious celebrations were a part of the general celebration of his final victory (8.51); and he used intelligently information received about German divin-atory prophecies (1.51). On only two occasions does Caesar himself mention the gods - and then only in speeches to the Helvetii (1.15) and to his own troops (5.52); nor does he indisputably attribute success or failure to divine intervention (1.12). In the Bellum Civile, Caesar describes the religious fervor of the Massiliotes under siege (2.5) and draws a stark contrast between the Pompeians’ disregard for the sanctity of temples and their treasures and his own scrupulous preservation and restoration of them (1.6, 2.21, 3.36, 72, 105); he gives a psychologically shrewd speech to soldiers unsettled by setbacks, which plays heavily on the theme of fortune (3.73). Caesar argues for the illegitimacy of the Republican government on the grounds that the consuls had not made their vows properly, and, as a consequence, the Feriae Latinae had been celebrated incorrectly (1.6-7; Stewart 1997: 178). As a total surprise comes a lengthy paragraph (3.105) enumerating the portents experienced across the eastern Mediterranean, from Elis to Ptolemais, by which Caesar’s victory at Pharsalus was announced. This must be considered an interpolation, on the grounds of both nonCaesarian language and content (Reggi 2002: 216-26). So, while he does not indulge in the traditional historiographical taste for the supernatural, in the Bellum Civile Caesar carefully presents himself as a defender of traditional attitudes towards the gods, learning from the charges that were leveled against him for his desecration of Gallic temples (cf. Suet. lul. 54.2).
His continuators in the Bellum Alexandrinum include generalizations on the fickleness of fate (25) and the kindness of the gods who intervene in all the circumstances of war, especially those in which rational calculation is impossible (75). In the Bellum Africanum we are told that the gods were clearly indicating victory (82) and that Caesar took the auspices before holding a contio and dismissing his troops (86). This last passage, which reveals that Caesar observed the traditional practice, is a reasonable basis for assuming that this was Caesar’s regular practice, rather than a unique example (cf. Plut. Caes. 43.2); indeed, any failure to follow custom would certainly have caused comment. As a military commander in the field, conscious of the superstitions of the soldiery, Caesar was not openly dismissive or skeptical of the most Roman of the public divinatory practices, augury, or of haruspical activity.
World History
