Note 494 — LIFE OF C. CÆSAR.

Cæsar, iv. c. 12. Plutarch here calls the Commentaries ἐφημερίδες, which means a Diary or Day-book. The proper Greek word would be ὑπομνήματα. Kaltwasser accordingly concludes that Plutarah appears to have confounded the Ephemerides and the Commentarii, or at least to have used the word ἐφημερίδες improperly instead of ὑπομνήματα. There is no proof that Cæsar kept a diary. That kind of labour is suited to men of a different stamp from him. Plutarch means the Commentarii. It is true that Servius (Ad Æneid. xi. 743) speaks of a diary (Ephemeris) of Cæsar, which records his being once captured by the Gauls. But see the note of Davis on this passage (Cæsar, ed. Oudendorp, ii. 999). Suetonius, who enumerates Cæsar's writings (Cæsar, 55, 56), mentions no Ephemeris. There were abundant sources for anecdotes about Cæsar. The Roman himself wrote as an historian: he was not a diary keeper.