Caesar's Civil War (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature)

Caesar's Civil War, the story of the general's contest with the Pompeian party through nineteen months of civil war, is an unfinished masterpiece. The author abandoned it when he found himself living in a different world than that which saw its commencement. The narrative ends after Pompey's death, amidst the preliminaries to the Alexandrian war that initiated the next phase of the fight for primacy of Rome. The work shows the brilliance for which Caesar's oratory, like his generalship, was known: it was a political judgment, not a literary one, that relegated the Civil War to the file drawer. The primary topics covered in this introductory book are the generic background of Caesar's commentarii or notebooks; his selection of material; the contemporary context of the civil war; the literary techniques that carry the story; and the work's characterization and structure. General aids to the reader include maps to accompany the particular narrative events discussed, a timeline of Caesar's life and the civil war, explanations of technical terms of Roman history, and a section on Roman names and prominent persons of Caesar's time.

Literature & Fiction

Batstone, William W.

Damon, Cynthia

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Caesar's Civil War, the story of the general's contest with the Pompeian party through nineteen months of civil war, is an unfinished masterpiece. The author abandoned it when he found himself living in a different world than that which saw its commencement. The narrative ends after Pompey's death, amidst the preliminaries to the Alexandrian war that initiated the next phase of the fight for primacy of Rome. The work shows the brilliance for which Caesar's oratory, like his generalship, was known: it was a political judgment, not a literary one, that relegated the Civil War to the file drawer. The primary topics covered in this introductory book are the generic background of Caesar's commentarii or notebooks; his selection of material; the contemporary context of the civil war; the literary techniques that carry the story; and the work's characterization and structure. General aids to the reader include maps to accompany the particular narrative events discussed, a timeline of Caesar's life and the civil war, explanations of technical terms of Roman history, and a section on Roman names and prominent persons of Caesar's time.

Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile is a companion volume to Damon's revised Oxford Classical Texts edition of Caesar's Bellum civile, his account of his civil war with Pompey. Comprising three parts, this volume investigates the detailed philological arguments that underpin the revised edition of the text. The first part supplements the preface of the Oxford Classical Texts edition, providing an expanded background on the history of the text and a more detailed argument for the shape of the stemma. The second part is a discussion of nature and the causes of the difficulties present in the text of the Bellum civile and their consequences for the revised edition. The third part presents a series of around 75 notes on different areas of the text, exploring in depth the contentions behind the various remedies suggested in the critical apparatus of the Oxford Classical Texts edition.

Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile

History

Ancient Civilizations

When Romans applied the term "parasite" to contemporaries in dependent circumstances, or clientes, they were evoking one of the stock characters of ancient Greek comedy. In the Roman world the parasite was moved out of his native genre into the literatures of invective and social criticism, where his Greek origins made him a uniquely useful transmitter of Roman perceptions. Whenever the figure of the parasite is used to mask a person in Roman society, we know that an effort of interpretation is underway. The fit between the mask and its wearer is in the eyes of the beholder, and in Rome the mask seemed to fit people in many different situations: entrepreneurs, tax-farmers, lawyers, female companions, philosophers, and poets.In The Mask of the Parasite, Cynthia Damon maintains that the parasite of Latin literature is a negative reflection of the cliens. In Part One she assembles a composite picture of the comic parasite using as evidence fragments of Greek comedy, works from Greek writers of the imperial period whose works reflect the comic tradition, and the ten complete plays of Roman comedy in which a parasite appears. In parts two and three she examines the ways in which Cicero and the satirists use the figure of the parasite: Cicero in belittling his opponents in court, Horace and Martial in creating a negative foil for the poeta cliens, Juvenal in painting contemporary patron/client relationships as morally and spiritually bankrupt. The Mask of the Parasite is a fascinating study of the intersection of literature and society in ancient Rome. However, neither the parasite nor patronage is confined to the Roman world. Students of classical studies as well as students of literature and cultural studies will find this to be a work of utmost importance in understanding these complex issues of human interaction.Cynthia Damon is Assistant Professor of Classics, Amherst College

The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage

University of Michigan Press

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Books by Damon, Cynthia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Damon, Cynthia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Caesar's Civil War (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature)

Caesar's Civil War (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature)

Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile

The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage