Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:47:32.380Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Caesar and Lucretius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

SirFrankAdcock, in his book, Caesar as Man of Letters, observes (p. 72) that Caesar's description of his defeat at Dyrrhachium, in B.C. iii. 69, shows a change of style. ‘Here, as Caesar lives again through this crisis in his fortunes, the plain style is for a moment infused with the vividness of his recollection’; and we note especially the words omniaque erant tumultus timoris fugae plena, which recall plena erant omnia timoris et luctus, found in the description of Curio's disaster in B.C. ii. 41. But long before that, in E.G. v. 33, Caesar had written: ‘Praeterea accidit, quod fieri necesse erat, ut uulgo milites ab signis discederent, quae quisque eorum carissima haberet ab impedimentis petere atque arripere properaret, clamore et fletu omnia complerentur.’ This is in the vivid and moving account of the disaster which befel Sabinus and Cotta in 54 b.c.; and indeed Sir Frank Adcock does note that here ‘there is a more dramatic treatment of the situation’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)