Friday, October 23, 2009

October 23: When Caesar Turned the Tables (Vol. 12, pp. 264-273)

Plutarch is a great biographer, but this selection about Julius Caesar's early years isn't too interesting. The good stuff happens further along, which often happens in this format of little snippets and tastes of authors. Unless the writer is really compelling, you as a reader are left feeling unfulfilled.

The story is amusing, though. When he was a youth, Caesar was captured by pirates. He conned his captors into playing games and lulling them into a false sense of security. After he was freed, he later went back and captured his captors and exacted his revenge.

1 comment:

Sam said...

How can you claim that the story is "amusing" when the upshot of this exploit was really quite gruesome? Young Caesar, not merely satisfied with capturing his kidnappers, also ordered that the pirates should be crucified!