A pompous ass indeed! Yes, I would agree with that as well... yet, the pompous ass told stories of discovering foreign lands, their peoples and traditions, setting up camps in dark forests and of course those gory battles. Translating all of that was a fascinating to me, I felt as if I were establishing a unique link between the history of 2000 years ago and my own history. Having said that, some of the descriptions of the battles were graphic enough to make us all queasy in the classroom!