Though himself is his subject, his memoirs are not confessions. Not a record of a weakness appears, nor even of a defect, except that which the Romans would readily forgive, cruelty. His savage waste of human life he recounts with perfect self-complacency. Vanity was his crowning error in his career as a statesman; and though hidden by the reserve with which he speaks of himself, it sometimes discovers itself in the historian. The “Commentaries” of Cæsar have sometimes been compared with the work of the great soldier historian of Greece, Xenophon. Both are eminently simple and unaffected; but there the parallel ends. The severe contempt of ornament which characterizes the stern Roman is totally unlike the mellifluous sweetness of the Attic writer. The “Anticatones”[935] were two books in answer to Cicero’s panegyric of Cato, which he had written immediately after the philosopher’s death. Hirtius first, at the request of Cæsar, wrote a reply, and sent it to Cicero from Narbonne. Although he denied the justice of Cicero’s eulogium, he secured the good-will of the orator himself by liberal commendations.[936] This prepared the way for Cæsar’s own pamphlet. His philological work, _de Analogia_, or _de Ratione Latine Loquendi_, is commended by Cicero[937] for its extreme accuracy, and was held in high estimation by the Roman grammarians. Probably, in liveliness and originality, it was far superior to any of their works. Wonderful to say, it was written during the difficulties and occupations of a journey across the Alps. From the quotations from it, in the writings of the grammarians, we learn that he proposed that the letter V should be written Ⅎ, to mark its connexion with the Greek digamma; and that the new orthography, which substituted _lacrimæ_ for _lucrumæ_, _maximus_ for _maxumus_, &c., was established by his authority. The “_Apophthegmata_” is said to have been a collection of wise and witty sayings by himself and others, although it is remarkable not a single witty saying of Cæsar is on record.[938] He began it early in life, and was continually making additions to it. His poetical attempts consisted of a tragedy entitled “Œdipus;” a short piece, the subject of which was the praises of Hercules (both of these, as well as the Apophthegmata, were suppressed by Augustus;[939]) “Iter,” an account of his march into Spain; the astronomical poem already mentioned; and some epigrams, of which three are extant, although their authenticity is somewhat doubtful.[940]