I've been re-reading the Gallic Wars. Sheesh, what a resource. What I would give, for example, to have had Alexander write up his own campaigns!

It just goes to confirm that - Gaul MADE Caesar. He would never have had the opportunity or the funding to do any of the things he did if it were not for the Gallic Wars. The resource he left about it is surely one of the greatest documents in all ancient history.

One wonders, of course, in an alternate history . . . if Caesar had been sent anywhere BUT Gaul (like Illyricum in the initial plans), whether he would ever have been able to rise to the prominence these campaigns gave him, from which all else in his career and Rome's history derived!