I just found that in an old notebook from 1995.
I'm wondering where I found that characterization originally. In Horace's odes? In Juvenal's satires? In the histories of Tacitus or Livy? Could Virgil have composed such a characterization in The Aenied or The Georgics? Or, was it quoted in Barton on gladiators or in Sprawson on swimmers? Barton--where is that book--provides that other wonderful proverb: "The gladiator takes his counsel in the sand." Does Sprawson even cover the Romans? Horatio on the bridge? Cloelia across the Tiber? Or was that Macauley in those Latin lays?
In life, Julius Caesar was a strong swimmer, much stronger than in Shakespeare's version (though Cassius is probably lying anyway). Did Caesar pause in the assault on Gaul to offer such a thought?
