LOL - it's such a truism that Caesar wrote all of this as propaganda, but I was reading elsewhere about that. The summary I got was - Sir Ronald Syme, writing his massive The Roman Revolution in the '30's, did what any great writer would do - set the discussion in terms of realities re-learned in his own time. Hence, all the implicit comparisons with warlords like Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin . . . and other, lesser writers just took that and ran with it. Including the notion that some things were all propaganda . . . Augustus' relations with writers like Livy and Horace, Caesar presenting himself best foot forward in the Commentaries, etc., etc.

Whereas it was really all much more subtle than that.

I tend to agree. I think the BG is one of the great classic resources of ancient history, like the Parthenon. Yes, he was writing to impress the Senate - but the clarity and beauty of language, the ability to stand back and summarize complex actions, to highlight deep-seated conflicts, the lively interest in cultural phenomena, the constant ability to praise associates - all say a lot more about Caesar than just mere self-serving.