Julius Caesar in Western Culture

Copyright © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Julius Caesar in Western Culture

Editor(s): Maria Wyke

Published Online: 11 FEB 2008

Print ISBN: 9781405125987

Online ISBN: 9780470775042

DOI: 10.1002/9780470775042

About this Book

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About The Product

This book explores the significance of Julius Caesar to different periods, societies and people from the 50s BC through to the twenty-first century.


  • This interdisciplinary volume explores the significance of Julius Caesar to different periods, societies and people.
  • Ranges over the fields of religious, military, and political history, archaeology, architecture and urban planning, the visual arts, and literary, film, theatre and cultural studies.
  • Examines representations of Caesar in Italy, France, Germany, Britain, and the United States in particular.
  • Objects of analysis range from Caesar's own commentaries on the Gallic wars, through Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and images of Caesar in Italian fascist popular culture, to contemporary cinema and current debates about American empire.
  • Edited by a leading expert on the reception of ancient Rome.
  • Includes original contributions by international experts on Caesar and his reception.

Table of contents

    1. You have free access to this content
      Frontmatter (pages i–xvii)

  2. Part I: Introduction

    1. Chapter 1

      Judging Julius Caesar (pages 1–26)

      Christopher Pelling

  3. Part II: Literary Characterization

    1. Chapter 2

      The Earliest Depiction of Caesar and the Later Tradition (pages 27–44)

      Mark Toher

    2. Chapter 3

      Caesar, Lucan's Bellum Civile, and their Reception (pages 45–61)

      Christine Walde

    3. Chapter 4

      Julian Augustus' Julius Caesar (pages 62–82)

      Jacqueline Long

  4. Part III: The City of Rome

    1. Chapter 5

      The Seat and Memory of Power: Caesar's Curia and Forum (pages 83–94)

      Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani

    2. Chapter 6

      St. Peter's Needle and the Ashes of Julius Caesar: Invoking Rome's Imperial History at the Papal Court, ca. 1100-1300 (pages 95–109)

      John Osborne

    3. Chapter 7

      Julius II as Second Caesar (pages 110–127)

      Nicholas Temple

  5. Part IV: Statecraft and Nationalism

    1. Chapter 8

      Imitation Gone Wrong: The “Pestilentially Ambitious” Figure of Julius Caesar in Michel de Montaigne's Essais (pages 129–147)

      Louisa Mackenzie

    2. Chapter 9

      Manifest Destiny and the Eclipse of Julius Caesar (pages 148–169)

      Margaret Malamud

    3. Chapter 10

      Caesar, Cinema, and National Identity in the 1910s (pages 170–189)

      Maria Wyke

    4. Chapter 11

      Caesar the Foe: Roman Conquest and National Resistance in French Popular Culture (pages 190–201)

      Giuseppe Pucci

  6. Part V: Theatrical Performance

    1. Chapter 12

      Julius Caesar and the Democracy to Come (pages 203–227)

      Nicholas Royle

    2. Chapter 13

      Shaw's Caesars (pages 228–243)

      Niall W. Slater

    3. Chapter 14

      The Rhetoric of Romanità: Representations of Caesar in Fascist Theatre (pages 244–265)

      Jane Dunnett

  7. Part VI: Warfare and Revolution

    1. Chapter 15

      From “Capitano” to “Great Commander”: The Military Reception of Caesar from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (pages 267–284)

      Jorit Wintjes

    2. Chapter 16

      Crossing the Rubicon into Paris: Caesarian Comparisons from Napoleon to de Gaulle (pages 285–302)

      Oliver Benjamin Hemmerle

  8. Part VII: Afterword

    1. Chapter 17

      A Twenty-First-Century Caesar (pages 303–323)

      Maria Wyke

    1. You have free access to this content
      Bibliography (pages 324–351)

    1. You have free access to this content
      Index (pages 352–365)

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