• HAIL, CAESAR! By Fletcher Pratt
In the opening pages of this new life of Caesar (Williams and Norgate, 15s.) Mr. Pratt shows himself all too anxious to interest American readers by likening the party struggles of Republican Rome to those of the United States and by adopting the literary style of an in- different American detective story. But it is fair to add that, when once Mr. Pratt has embarked on Caesar's cam- paigns, he writes normally and sensibly. He describes the Gallic war, Pharsalia, and the rest in a spirited and attractive fashion. He emphasises Caesar's courage and contempt for danger, and the tolerant temper which distinguished him from most of his contemporaries as well as from later dictators. Mr. Pratt's unconventional treatment of the old problem of Caetar's aims is interesting, for him Caesar was essentially a Liberal, an earlier Cromwell, until at the end he fell under the influence of Cleopatra with her Oriental 'love of power for its own sake. His murder left the quesnon unsolved. . Mr. Pratt is at pains to blacken the record of those who k Oled Caesar, and especially of Brutus, whom
he designates as a shifty usurer as well as an ingrate. The small relief maps of the campaigns are useful, but one large map would have helped the average reader more.
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