Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in WordsUniversity of Texas Press, 01/07/2006 - 286 من الصفحات Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with Latin knows "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" ("All Gaul is divided into three parts"), the opening line of De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar's famous commentary on his campaigns against the Gauls in the 50s BC. But what did Caesar intend to accomplish by writing and publishing his commentaries, how did he go about it, and what potentially unforeseen consequences did his writing have? These are the questions that Andrew Riggsby pursues in this fresh interpretation of one of the masterworks of Latin prose. Riggsby uses contemporary literary methods to examine the historical impact that the commentaries had on the Roman reading public. In the first part of his study, Riggsby considers how Caesar defined Roman identity and its relationship to non-Roman others. He shows how Caesar opens up a possible vision of the political future in which the distinction between Roman and non-Roman becomes less important because of their joint submission to a Caesar-like leader. In the second part, Riggsby analyzes Caesar's political self-fashioning and the potential effects of his writing and publishing the Gallic War. He reveals how Caesar presents himself as a subtly new kind of Roman general who deserves credit not only for his own virtues, but for those of his soldiers as well. Riggsby uses case studies of key topics (spatial representation, ethnography, virtus and technology, genre, and the just war), augmented by more synthetic discussions that bring in evidence from other Roman and Greek texts, to offer a broad picture of the themes of national identity and Caesar's self-presentation. |
المحتوى
Introduction | 1 |
The Social Life of Texts The Composition of De Bello Gallico | 9 |
Reality and Representation | 15 |
حقوق النشر | |
27 من الأقسام الأخرى غير ظاهرة
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة
Aduatuci Aedui Alesia ancient Aquitani argued argument Ariovistus army audience Avaricum barbarians battle Belgae Bello Gallico bellum Caesar campaigns Celts century Chap Chapter character Cicero Cimbri claim commander commentarius conquest context contrast course Critognatus culture defeat described Diod Diodorus discourse discussion distinction enemy ethnography examples explicitly fact fetial fight Frontinus Gallic War Gauls and Germans Gell genre Germans Greek Helvetii important individual inscriptions instance justification land later Latin least legates Livy military moral narrative narrator Nervii nomadism Nonetheless noted opus Gallicum particular passage perhaps phrase Plin political Posidonius position precisely problem propaganda province question reader reference rhetoric Rhine river Roman Rome seems sense Sequani similar simply slavery soldiers specific speech Strabo strategy structure Suebi suggests tactical space territory Teutoni theory things tion tradition tribes troops Vercingetorix virtus wars word