ABSTRACT
Twelve hundred and seventy-one years after Julius Caesar entered Gaul to conquer it for Rome, he reentered Gaul peacefully, thanks to the diligence of an anonymous clerical translator whose encyclopaedic translation Li Fet des Romains appeared in 1213. The medieval misconception concerning Caesar's identity was understandable. Caesar had written his so-called jottings in the third person, a deliberate ploy to give the appearance of objectivity to his military memoirs as he canvassed for the consulship. With Caesar's material, the translator is obviously comfortable and is at his most literal. It would be fascinating to know Philip Augustus's reactions to the work in which he figures as a potential Julius Caesar the Second. Continuing to muse on similarities between Caesar and Philip, the translator moves from his random sartorial reminiscence to more calculated observations. When working in the vernacular, however, new demands were operative and, since audience understanding was all-important, actual quotation from a Latin source was a dubious enterprise.
