The relationship of particular passages of Caesar to particular Greek predecessors has been the subject of several studies: see in particular Bartley (2008) and Pelling (2013) on Caesar and Xenophon and Reggi (2002) and Krebs (2016) on Caesar and Thucydides as well as Grillo (2016) on Caesar and Polybius. The most thoroughgoing study of the tropes of authorship which Caesar shares with his predecessors remains Marincola (1997).

As we have seen above, the study of allusion (whether specific or generic) in Caesar remains an area where there is much to be done, and one that even some quite compendious works on reception have left more or less untouched: Fromentin, Gotteland, and Payen (2010), for example, which otherwise has a remarkable chronological inclusiveness, nevertheless passes by the reception of Thucydides in Caesar. Caesar’s relationship to Greek predecessors is also relevant to several other interesting areas in thinking about Caesar as an author: how far is his authorial persona comparable to/different from theirs? What of his treatment of time and space?

For an excellent overview of historiography before Caesar (including political autobiography), see Suerbaum (2002); for a collection of the fragments, other than Chassignet (1986, 1996, 1999 and 2004a), with translations and notes in French, see Beck and Walter (2002 and 2004), with translation and commentary in German, as well as Cornell et al. (2013), with translation and commentary in English. For political autobiography, see Chassignet (2003) and Walter (2003), but also Bates (1983). On Caesar and Sisenna, see Krebs (2014)

A comparison between Sulla’s felicitas and Caesar’s fortuna would certainly bear much fruit; see some premier reflection in Guillaumin (2009, 26) and Grillo (2012, 155).

For a more complete treatment of the Corpus Caesarianum, see Gaertner and Hausburg (2013). Since there is currently no satisfactory edition of the pseudo-Caesarian works, it is best to use Klotz and Trillitzsch (1957), Seel (1961), and Hering (1987) for BG 8, and Klotz (1927a) in conjunction with Andrieu (1954), Bouvet and Richard (1949/97), Pascucci (1965), and Diouron (1999) for the other three supplements. Richter (1977) offers a useful, but in many ways inaccurate introduction to these texts. The relevant commentaries are Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel (1920) for BG 8; Schneider (1888), Wykes (1958) (only chs. 1–33), Giomini (1956), and Townend (1988) (only ch. 1–33) for the Bellum Alexandrinum; Wölfflin and Miodoński (1889), Schneider (1905), and Müller (2001) (only chs. 1–47) for the Bellum Africum; and Klotz (1927b) and Pascucci (1965) for the Bellum Hispaniense; cf. also the introductions and explanatory notes in Andrieu (1954), Bouvet and Richard (1949/97), and Diouron (1999). Further literature is cited in the notes above.

There has been much less research on the pseudo-Caesarian works since 1945 than in the preceding decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many textual points and questions of language or prose rhythm are still unresolved, especially in the badly transmitted Bellum Hispaniense. With regard to the literary interpretation of the pseudo-Caesarian supplements, more work needs to be done on the narrative technique of BG 8, the Bellum Africum and the Bellum Hispaniense. Also welcome would be studies that explore how these texts influence the reader’s view of the historical events and whether the rhetorical or manipulative techniques employed in these texts differ from those of the authentic Caesarian works.

To my knowledge there is no general recent study of Caesar’s stylistic influence on later historiography. There are useful analyses of some elements of influence: so, for example, Spilman (1932) and Chausserie-Laprée (1969) on sentence structure; Aumont (1996) on prose rhythm; Lausberg (1980) on the persona and theme of Caesar and Cato in Tacitus’ Agricola; Klotz (1941), (1953) on Caesar and Livy (primarily textual); Kraus (2011) on Latin historiographical style; and Utard (2004), (2006) on indirect discourse. The best place to find analysis of such stylistic influence is in commentaries, e.g. in the notes of Oakley (1997), Woodman (2014), Krebs (forthcoming c).

Directions for further research: A stylistically sensitive treatment of Caesar as a writer within the wider context of Roman historiography is badly needed.

The commentaries by Horsfall on Aeneid 11 (2003), Aeneid 3 (2006), and Aeneid 2 (2008) include many observations on Vergil’s use of Caesarian military language. On Vergil’s depiction of the historical figure Julius Caesar, see Sirago (1984–91), Dobbin (1995), Wittchow (2005), Zieske (2010), and Gale (2013). Articulate proponents of the BC as an important model text for Lucan are Haffter (1957), Rambaud (1960), Lintott (1971), Masters (1992), and Zissos (2013). Bachofen (1972) helpfully juxtaposes parallel passages in the BC and Lucan’s poem.

The scholarship cited here provides starting-points for much further work. Vergil’s use of Caesarian military language and of comparable battle scenes raises a number of questions about the conventional distinctions between genres, and about any narrowly drawn registers of diction in Latin literature. Systematic research, building upon the observations by Horsfall in his commentaries, could contribute significantly to continuing discussions about genre in Latin literature. The compendium by Bachofen (1972) and the claims made by Masters (1992) and others point to the BC as a key model – or anti-model – for Lucan’s poem, but there is no thorough study of how the poet engages with Caesar’s commentarius across his epic. To consider the matters addressed here from the point of reception, if we are open to the possibilities of these poets – the one soon after Caesar’s assassination, the other a century later – reading closely and responding to the commentarii, what does this tell us about the status of Caesar’s writing at Rome? What can we learn about the commentarii and their place in Latin literary culture from Vergil’s and Lucan’s works of poetry?

Several of the essays in Griffin (2009) come at similar topics to those handled here from different angles. The essays referred to in Chevallier (1985) are succinct and informative. The actual works of Mommsen (translated into English soon after publication), Rice Holmes and Jullian (the latter in French only) are relatively widely available, and while hard copy of the two Napoleon’s works are more the province of special libraries, Napoleon III’s, at least, has been digitized and can be freely read online.⁸⁸

In this chapter, we have been able only to glance at a few of the more significant corners of the various tableaux they have presented. Much more could be said about them. And even then, we would have considered no work after 1923: Matthias Gelzer and Christian Meyer could certainly be investigated along the same lines as here. But perhaps the greatest gap in the literature implied by the present discussion is our want of a modern narrative of Caesar’s wars on the scale of Rice Holmes’ or Jullian’s, but which takes the hint from Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian and treats the commentaries with great skepticism.

An excellent introduction to war writing across the centuries is McLoughlin (2009). For Caesarian echoes in military literature see, for the fifteenth century, Ianziti (1988), O’Brien (2009), and Schadee (2016); for the sixteenth, Lupher (2003), Harari (2004), and Rodríguez Pérez (2008). For the reception of Caesar’s person that forms the background to his literary longevity the best starting point is the last two parts of Griffin (2009). For a brief survey of both aspects, see Schadee (forthcoming).

While this chapter examines the afterlife of Caesar’s Commentarii in military memoirs, their influence on other historical or literary genres remains almost entirely unstudied. It is clear, however, that much of the work’s later appeal resided in the ethnographies. Their appropriation by early modern antiquarians, chorographers and travel writers – if these constituencies can be separated – merits further attention. The Commentarii were also an enduring resource for students of the Roman military. One would like to know more about how military strategists – both in theory and in practice – relied on, or reinterpreted Caesar’s text. Research into these fields should be supplemented with an investigation of contemporary appraisals of Caesar’s qualities as historiographer and stylist.