Caesar was considered during his lifetime to be one of the best orators and authors of prose in Rome. Even Cicero spoke highly of Caesar's rhetoric and style. These narratives were written and published annually during or just after the actual campaigns in Alexandria, Africa and Hispania, as a sort of "dispatches from the front." Apparently simple and direct in style—to the point that Caesar's Commentarii are commonly studied by first and second year Latin students—they are in fact highly sophisticated tracts, aimed most particularly at the middle-brow readership of minor aristocrats in Rome, Italy, and the provinces.