Finishing Off Caesar: Conflict and Continuation in Gallic War 8

presented by James Uden, Boston University

Synopsis: 

When Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, he left behind seven books of the Gallic War, which chronicled his campaigns from 58-52, and three of the Civil War, covering events in 49 and 48. What about the gap in the middle? In the months following Caesar's death, the consul designate Aulus Hirtius published a work narrating the missing years 51 and 50, only to die himself soon afterwards, at the Battle of Mutina in 43. Literary historians have tended to file away Hirtius' book as the efforts of a 'Caesarian continuator', yet what it meant to continue Caesar's work was the foremost question of the age. This talk aims to rediscover Gallic War 8 as a vital document of the post-assassination period – and a text much more ambivalent about Caesar's legacy than is typically assumed.