Cinematizing the epic gaze: Julius Caesar and Pompey in Lucan and in the HBO/BBC television series Rome1

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna A Novokhatko
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Television Series

Abstract In this article I argue that a gaze-oriented analysis of the representations of the protagonists Caesar and Pompey in Lucan’s epic The Civil War (written 62–65 ce) and in the recent television series Rome (broadcast by HBO, BBC Two and Rai 2 between 2005 and 2007) opens new opportunities both for interpreting Lucan’s text and for comprehending its reception in the television series. Lucan deliberately employs intensive vocabulary and narrative of vision and visuality when his protagonists appear. In Lucan, Caesar and Pompey are represented, zoomed in upon, and put into action in a cinematic way. The manner in which they see and are seen is crucial for their distinctiveness and determine their function in epic. In the television series, these patterns are taken over and reused within the new technical medium.

Julius Caesar: The Civil War, Books I & II

1992 ◽  
Vol 85 (6) ◽  
pp. 715
Author(s):  
Mary Ann T. Natunewicz ◽  
J. M. Carter ◽  
Julius Caesar
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Julius Caesar

The Memory of Jesus' Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord

1998 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Koester
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
New Period ◽  
The One

On the Ides of March of the year 44 BCE, the dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, was assassinated. Nobody knew whether this would reconstitute the Roman Republic of old or would only usher in a new period of civil war like the one that had devastated not only Rome and Italy but also the provinces for many decades before Caesar's ascendancy to sole power.

scholarly journals Lucretius, Epicurean and Poet

1908 ◽  
Vol 54 (225) ◽  
pp. 138-141
Author(s):  
John Masson ◽  
William W. Ireland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Victor Hugo ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Stepping Stones ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
Wide Reading ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
The Times

Lucretius was a contemporary of Julius Cæsar, as Epicurus was a contemporary of Alexander. Dr. Masson has read all about Lucretius and everyone else who lived in those stirring times. In going through such critical disquisitions it is difficult to avoid the attraction or the recoil from a host of commentators. In this respect it is to be wished that Dr. Masson had less modesty or more self-reliance. In quoting the “opinions of the highest living authorities” on Cicero and Cæsar, he in many places gives us a set of stepping-stones instead of a bridge. While we wish to get into the times of Lucretius, the notes entering into small controversies continually drag us down to the mediocrities of the present age. We know not whether Dr. Masson's wide reading, wandering from Plato to Shelley and Victor Hugo, will add interest to the book with the readers of the twentieth century. We hope, however, that in another edition Dr. Masson may have the courage to sweep away most of his footnotes, as a carpenter, having finished his work, sweeps away his shavings. At the same time it would be unfair to deny that this excursive part of the work is often well written. At any rate our review will be confined to Lucretius and his philosophy. Of the poet himself we know scarcely anything save a few traditions loosely gathered by Eusebius. He was said to have become insane by a philtre given by his wife or mistress, and to have written his wonderful poem at sane intervals, and to have died by his own hand at the age of forty-four. His poem De Rerum Natura is dedicated to Memmius, who gained the rank of tribune and praetor, and took side against Cæsar in the civil war.

Popularity and the Art of Rhetoric

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markku Peltonen
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Control ◽  
Destructive Potential

This chapter demonstrates the social depth of politics in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, focusing the theory and practice of the ars rhetorica. Central to political (in)stability in both classical Rome and Tudor England, the rhetorical virtuosity of the elite sought to constrain and control the restive commons and the potency of popularity. Since commoners were its intended primary audience, Cicero argued for ‘the ultimately popular nature of eloquence’. Julius Caesar sets two types of orator into a rhetorical contest: the nobleman who pacifies the volatile masses, and the ‘people pleaser’, a widely feared figure, who inflames them to insurgence. Different modes of rhetoric unfold: whereas Brutus’s speech violates the precept of adaptation to an audience, in Mark Anthony’s rhetoric, popularity pays off. Shakespeare’s bleak play departs from its sources to magnify the destructive potential of popular orators: unhistorically, Shakespeare renders the incitements of Anthony’s eloquence the trigger of the civil war.

Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 47 B.C.

1995 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn E. Welch
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
Correct Number ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Urban Disorder ◽  
Better Than

The creation of a political image based at best on a tenuous reality is a fragile and delicate process. None knew it better than Gaius Julius Caesar. Early in his career, he had fostered the belief that he was the heir of the ‘true’ Marian/popularis tradition with some credibility and lasting success. He presented himself as the great general in the Gallic commentaries and for good reasons this image too gained widespread popularity. There were other important but sometimes less convincing messages to follow. The commentarii on the civil war sought passionately to justify his part in the outbreak of hostilities: this was the published form of a process his intermediaries had begun in the first months of hostilities whereby they stressed his respect for peace and the traditional order, even when he himself was busy ignoring both. In an effort to reinforce this ‘constitutional’ regard, Caesar returned to Rome from Spain in 49 to establish a ‘properly elected’ government with himself and P. Servilius Isauricus as consuls; the correct number of praetors (all eligible to hold the office), aediles, and quaestors. The dictatorship was cast aside after a mere eleven days; Rome was to function as it always had. The uprising of Marcus Caelius Rufus and Titus Annius Milo in 48 B.C. ruined this admirable picture and brought home to Caesar the realities of attempting to dominate Rome by leaving the constitution in its traditional form and hoping for the best from the supporters he had entrusted with office. Moreover, the chaos of civil war and urban disorder combined to allow others to project their own policies and power struggles.

„Urbanes” Mietrecht? Der römische Wohnungsmarkt zwischen Preismechanismus und Intervention

2019 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-270
Author(s):  
Constantin Willems
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Price Mechanism ◽  
Contract Negotiations ◽  
Rental Market ◽  
External Interventions ◽  
The City

Abstract 'Urban' tenancy law? The Roman rental market between price mechanism and intervention. Renting a flat in Roman times did not come cheap. The Roman jurists left the determination of the merces up to the parties to the locatio conductio and permitted them to circumvent each other in the course of the contract negotiations (se invicem circumscribere) – a rule that at first glance seems to privilege the landlord. In this paper, it is suggested that the system of sub-rent of insulae and the standardized Roman rental year, starting each year at the calends of July, contributed to a reduction in asymmetry of bargaining power between landlord and tenant. Only in exceptional cases there were external interventions in the price mechanism: In the perils of the civil war, Julius Caesar and Octavian issued laws remitting the annual rent below 500 sesterces for the inhabitants of Italy and below 2,000 sesterces for those of the city of Rome. In conclusion, these structures and rules show that in this regard, Roman tenancy law was specifically designed with a view to the inhabitants of the city of Rome and thus can be qualified as 'urban' law.

Caesar and the Mutiny of 47 B.C.

2001 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan G. Chrissanthos
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Foregone Conclusion

In 47 B.C., despite victory at the Battle of Pharsalus and the subsequent death of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, the Civil War continued for C. Julius Caesar. He faced hostile Roman armies in Spain and North Africa. Rumours circulated that the African army was preparing to invade Italy. Order was kept in Rome only through the force employed by Caesar's lieutenant M. Antonius. Contemporaries certainly did not believe Caesar's victory was a foregone conclusion. In the midst of these crises, Caesar faced a mutiny amongst his veteran Gallic legions billeted in Campania. These troops refused his orders to move from Italy to Africa to fight the Pompeian army that had gathered there. Instead they marched to Rome to demand back pay, discharge, and promised bonuses of money and land. Caesar's power, and his very survival, were hanging in the balance.

The state we’re in

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lake
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The State ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Roman World ◽  
History Play ◽  
Political Scene

This chapter argues that Henry V was not the only history play that Shakespeare wrote in 1599. Also dateable to that year is Julius Caesar. There the politics of popularity, honour and legitimacy are again in play, in a political scene in which men of the highest virtue are struggling to impose their will on events and, in this case, restore legitimacy to the state by refounding it. For all his world-dominating achievements and well nigh universal fame, Caesar's efforts to transform the Roman state end not only in his own assassination but also with the descent of the Roman world into chaos and civil war.

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