Abstract
Building on the work of others who have seen an allusion to the First Triumvirate in the tripartite Gallic conspiracy led by Orgetorix, this article shows how Caesar reveals himself as formidable between the lines of De bello Gallico, and particularly in its famous opening.
Highlights
Caesar apparently delays his “entrance into history.”1 by no means hesitant to make himself conspicuous in De Bello Gallico,2 he mentions himself for the first time at 1.7.1, using the dative form Caesari
Following a hint from Hermann Fränkel,6 Yves Gerhard argued in his path-breaking 1991 article “Orgétorix l’Helvète et la Bellum Gallicum de César” that the conspiracy of Orgetorix the Helvetian, Dumnorix the Aeduan, and Casticus the Sequanian was an allusion to the First Triumvirate
There is good reason for this connection: high school Latin teachers are accustomed to begin at the beginning, and it is in the famous opening words of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico that the curious dialectic between concealment and self-revelation that is my subject first appears
Summary
Caesar apparently delays his “entrance into history.” by no means hesitant to make himself conspicuous in De Bello Gallico, he mentions himself for the first time at 1.7.1, using the dative form Caesari. Le triumvirat de Cesar, Pompée et Crassus, s’il ne connut pas une fin analogue, était en réalité dissous lors de la rédaction du Bellum Gallicum, en 52 ou 51.”. The parallel has come “to Caesar” that he assumes his characteristic role as the subject of three verbs—parallel to his more famous triplet veni, vidi, vici—maturat, contendit, and pervenit. The fact that his first entrance is marked by precisely three verbs reminds us of his book’s famous opening sentences, where triads multiply: Gaul has been divided into three parts (1.1.1), its inhabitants differ among themselves in three respects (1.1.2), and three rivers are required to divide them geographically (1.1.2). In addition to seeing these triads as signs of careful composition in general, I will argue in this paper that it was Caesar’s intention to reveal what I will call his “formidable” position among the secret conspiracy of Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar, known to posterity as “the First Triumvirate,” and will suggest that this intention should be considered in the context of Caesar’s rivalry with his fellow-triumvirs, but with Cicero
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