Meinhard-Wilhelm Schulz

"Labienus was undoubtedly Caesar's best officer in the Gallic Wars, but to describe him as Caesar's equal sounds improbable: who can really care much for him, this "traitor" who "defected" to Pompey ... The author has spent years studying and thoroughly re-evaluating all the commentaries, with surprising results: Caesar's own description of events in fact contradicts the image of him prevalent since the time of Mommsen. He was not the infallible commander, but allowed mistake after mistake. Without "his" Labienus, death and destruction would certainly have been his lot in the Gallic Wars, where Labienus was, in Caesar's own words, his equal, his superior even, as a commander. Caesar could not and would not accept this for long, and humiliatingly relegated Labienus to the general staff; in what we may assume were revisions to his commentaries he then cut back to a bare minimum the references to his officer's grand strategic achievements, and in the Civil War wrote only with hatred of his once closest comrade, thus founding a tradition poisoned against Labienus. The drama of this love-hate relationship ended at the Battle of Munda, but Caesar would outlive Labienus by only one year. In Caesar und Labienus, both commanders are given the justice they deserve."--Publisher's website.

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