Auctor is Latin for author. Julius Caesar is often portrayed in his later years as a dictator and a powerful military commander. However, we rarely see him as an author. And yet, he was. Caesar had honed his writing skills with many works of literature- most are lost, but some survived to be read even in this day.
The De Bello Gallico (The Gallic Wars) was written by Caesar regarding his nine years as Commander in the Gallic war. He wrote it in simple, direct Latin. Someone with his background could have written it in fancy Latin, but he didn't. Why? Back in days of the Roman Republic, much of the senate were wealthy patricians, and only they could understand the more complex forms of Latin. Caesar wanted the support of the plebeians, so he kept the language simple to be understood by the common people. This will be further discussed in a future post. The famous starting words of the book are "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...", meaning "All of Gaul is divided into three parts."
The Bellum Civile (The Civil War) was about the civil war against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey The Great), lasting from 49 BCE to 48 BCE. The book ends abruptly, meaning that either parts of the book are lost or the entire book had not been completed, and he was assassinated before he could.
The next few works are the lost writings of Caesar. They are mostly gone, but either some fragments have been found or they were mentioned by other famous authors. When Cato the younger died, Cicero wrote a pamphlet in praise of him. Since Caesar opposed Cato's political actions, he wrote the Anticato, which criticized that pamphlet. It is considered rude because he criticized a person after his death. The book Iter describes his route from Rome to Hispania.
The praises of Hercules, the Oedipus, were suppressed by Emperor Augustus for an unknown reason.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Works_by_Julius_Caesar
No comments:
Post a Comment