De bello civili
De bello civili ( Latin for "About the Civil War") or fully commentariorum libri tres de bello civili ("three books of records [commentaries] on the civil war") is a work of the Roman general and politician Gaius Iulius Caesar . After Caesar had previously described the war in Gaul in his work De bello Gallico , in this work he reports on the war he waged against the Senate majority under the leadership of his former ally Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in Italy , Hispania , North Africa and Macedonia .
There are different opinions about the time of writing: From 48/47 BC. BC (very often represented) up to the opinion that Caesar only began to write it down in the last months of his life.
The work comprises three books; it begins with a Senate meeting in Rome and ends with the decisive battle at Pharsalus in 48 BC. The beginning is not preserved. In addition, the book is not finished, it breaks off suddenly in the last sentence. Continuations of the work, which describe the course of the civil war up to Caesar's final victory ( Bellum Alexandrinum , Bellum Africum , Bellum Hispaniense ), come from other authors.
Editions, translations and commentaries
- C. Ivli Caesaris commentariorvm libri III de bello civili cvm libris incertorvm avctorvm de bello Alexandrino, Africo, Hispaniensi . Edited by Renatus LA Du Pontet ( Oxford Classical Texts ). Oxford 1901 (critical edition).
- C. Ivli Caesaris commentarii. Volume 2: Commentarii belli civilis. Ed. By Alfred Klotz , ed. Stereotypa corr. ed. alterius, addenda et corrigenda coll. et adiecit Winfried Trillitzsch ( Bibliotheca Teubneriana ). Teubner, Leipzig 1957 (critical edition).
- G. Iulius Caesar: The Civil Wars . Transl. And ext. by Gerhard Wirth . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1966.
- Gaius Julius Caesar: The Civil War . Translation, notes and epilogue by Marieluise Deißmann-Merten . Bibliographically amended edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1996.
- C. Julius Caesar: The civil war / De bello civili . Latin-German, ed. and over. by Otto Schönberger ( Tusculum Collection ). 5th, revised edition, Berlin 2012.
- C. July Caesaris commentariorvm libri III de bello civili. Edited by Cynthia Damon ( Oxford Classical Texts ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-965974-6 (critical edition).
- Caesar: Civil War. Latin – English, ed. & trans. by Cynthia Damon ( Loeb Classical Library ). Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2016.
literature
- Karl Barwick : Caesars Bellum civile (tendency, writing time and style) . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1951.
- Detlef Rasmussen (Ed.): Caesar . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1967.
- Fritz-Heiner Mutschler : Narrative Style and Propaganda in Caesar's Commentaries . Winter, Heidelberg 1975.
- Luca Grillo : The art of Caesar's Bellum civile. Literature, ideology, and community . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012.
