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Record Nr.

UNINA9910813097903321

Autore

Riggsby Andrew M

Titolo

Caesar in Gaul and Rome : war in words / / Andrew M. Riggsby

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Austin : , : University of Texas Press, , 2006

ISBN

0-292-79579-3

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (viii, 271 pages) : illustrations, map

Disciplina

936.4/02

Soggetti

Gaul History Gallic Wars, 58-51 B.C Political aspects

Rome History, Military 265-30 B.C

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-267) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Social Life of Texts -- The Composition of De Bello Gallico -- Reality and Representation -- 1. Where Was the Gallic War? -- Types of Space -- Geographic Space in De Bello Gallico -- Tactical Space, Surveying, and the Possession of Gaul -- 2. The "Other" and the Other "Other" -- The Ethnographic Tradition -- Caesar's Ethnography -- 3. Technology, Virtue, Victory -- Siegecraft in De Bello Gallico -- Virtus in De Bello Gallico -- The Gallic Assimilation of Virtus -- Conclusion -- 4. Alien Nation -- Playing the Cannibal -- Rhetorics of Empire -- What Is a Roman? -- 5. Formal Questions -- Who and What? -- To What End? -- Whose Voice? -- 6. Empire and the "Just War" -- The Theory of the Just War -- Just War Theory in the Real World -- Cicero's Textual Practice -- Caesar's Textual Practice -- 7. New and Improved, Sort Of -- Facing the Alternatives -- Comparanda -- How Does Caesar Compare? -- Propaganda -- Appendix A: Wars against "Barbarians" -- Appendix B: Generals' Inscriptions -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Appendix A -- Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

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.