Caesar: Selections from his Commentarii De Bello Gallico

About the Author:

Hans-Friedrich Mueller, PhD, a.k.a. Molinarius, serves as the William D. Williams Professor and Chair of Classics at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He is a recipient of the American Philological Association's Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics as well as two awards for excellence in teaching at Florida State University. He developed a graduate distance program in classics for high school teachers and was himself a high school Latin teacher for six years. Mueller is the author of Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus (Routledge, 2002), the editor of an abridgment of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Modern Library, 2003), and the translator of Mehl's Roman Historiography (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). Molinarius's high school teaching experience (combined with insights gained from four school-age daughters) has served him well as author of this text and as co-author (with Rose Williams) of Caesar: A LEGAMUS Transitional Reader (Bolchazy-Carducci, 2012).

Review:

The De Bello Gallico of Julius Caesar has been a staple of second-year Latin programmes for many centuries. This work, however, is far too long to be covered entirely in one course, and it has always been the task of the professor to determine which books and chapters of the Gallic Wars were to be surveyed. The recent decision to set a syllabus for De Bello Gallico in the Advanced Placement Latin literature course has simplified this task immensely. This new students' edition of De Bello Gallico, prepared by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, has been issued to address the new AP syllabus.

It is a pleasure to say that Mueller succeeds admirably in this. The presentation of the text has been done according to the pattern of Clyde Pharr's classic edition of the Aeneid: the Latin text with vocabulary and notes on each page. Words in the text that the student has met previously are in italic font; the remainder of the words are to be found in the following vocabulary. There are also copious notes on a variety of subjects: linguistic, stylistic, military, and cultural. Furthermore, in addition to a complete glossary of the words found in De Bello Gallico, there is also a fold-out vocabulary sheet listing high-frequency vocabulary (which would be those words in italic font). This will prove quite worthwhile for the student who is reading along in the text, so that one will not lose his or her place in the text by having to stop and refer to the glossary or to a dictionary. This work includes, along with the Latin text, English translations of all chapters not presented in the original Latin; this, too, meets the requirements of the new AP Syllabus.

There is a very useful appendix containing the grammatical and rhetorical features used by Caesar in De Bello Gallico. This appendix supplements the references to these literary figures that are found in the various footnotes, and helps the student begin to understand the nature of Latin style. Finally, there is a quite complete and highly appropriate introduction containing biographical and literary information about Julius Caesar and his motivations for writing. There is, as well, an informative discussion of the nature and organisation of the Roman army. This helps to clarify for the student the nature and the importance of that institution.

Overall, one cannot recommend this text too highly. It should easily become the essential textbook for second year Latin. It will also be of use at the college level, and be useful for any and all interested amateurs. --Stephen Pearce, Benjamin Franklin High School, New Orleans

Written by Hans-Friedrich Mueller and edited by Donald Sprague, Caesar: Selections from his Commentarii De Bello Gallico is a 414-page compendium presenting unadapted Latin passages from the Commentarii De Bello Gallico: Book 1.1 7; Book 4.24 35 and the first sentence of Chapter 36; Book 5.24 48; Book 6.13 20 and the English of Books 1, 6, and 7. Caesar Selections from his Commentarii De Bello Gallico includes all the required English and Latin selections from Caesar's De Bello Gallico for the 2012-2013 AP* Curriculum. Features: Introduction includes historical context, an overview of the Roman army, and Caesar as General, Politician, and Writer Latin text accompanied by same-page notes (grammatical, literary, historical, contextual) Of special note is the 'same-page' running vocabulary, the 'pull-out' vocabulary, and the complete Latin-English glossary. Enhanced with the inclusion of an online grammatical appendix, a select bibliography, eight newly-created maps, 19 black-and-white illustrations, and an appendix (Figures of Speech), Caesar Selections from his Commentarii De Bello Gallico is an ideal, 'student friendly' text book and curriculum supplement for personal and academic library Latin Language Studies reference collections and instructional reading lists. --James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review

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