Coolidge wrote this book as a companion to Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. She gives here all that Caesar left out -- the background, the character, the description, the action of the war -- in a way that makes sense today. Using a fictitious narrator named Octavius, and drawing on archaeology and classical research, Coolidge has brought much-needed drama to this history and fleshed out the warrior chieftains, common soldiers, politicians, and of course, the supreme commander who made it.