Talk:Caesar's civil war/Archive 1

Archive 1

Woefully Incomplete!

Sorry, but it's only half here - it's missing all the background information, etc.

It has the feel of someone filling it in while they watch Rome, which makes me shudder in horror!

The idea is a sound one - but the author needs to put in lot more research.

Battle of Dyrrhachium

Battle of Pharsalus

Battle of Thapsus

Battle of Munda

Roman Republic

Julius Caesar

etc.

etc.

Seriously - this is a subject of a scope that it could be a doctoral thesis - or the career of single historian.

Beowulf314159 21:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Turn into a WP:DAB#Summary_or_multi-stub_pages? I'm trying to do so. Neddyseagoon 17:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)neddyseagoon

Age?

I think that it is kind of odd to think that Julius Caesar, how great he might be, was around 63 years old when he defeated Pharnaces II in 47 B.C. That just doesn't seem right to me but you may prove me wrong (or right).

Born (probably) 100BC, so I make him 53, not 63 - still, impressive! Neddyseagoon 10:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)neddyseagoon

“Veni, vidi, vici”

in this it said that he said after partha which is not true he said that after Egypt and also at this point in time the XIII didn't have a title--Rofur 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Episodic

Removed this statement "Caesar probably writes the Commentaries in this year, although some theories suggest he wrote them one year at a time, in the winter following each year's campaigning" No evidence for this. Probably confused with Gallic Wars. Pengopia (talk) 14:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Clean-up

Added a clean-up tag to the article. It has the potential to be quite good, but right now suffers from poor copyediting and structure, which makes it very unclear. Also, a lot of information could be added (infobox, etc.) to make the article more cohesive.

Also, every single source I've ever seen has said that Caesar's famous uttering upon crossing the Rubicon was not "alea iacta est", but the same thing in Greek, which was actually intended to mean "the die is cast". "the dice fly high" makes absolutely no sense, even if it is a transliteration. I'm going to change that back once I can find a definitive source for it. The Chief 02:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The crossing of the Rubicon is dated Jan 10, 49 BC. The link to Menander (and his attributed Rubicon quote) shows a poet who lived ca 342-291 BC. I am not certain how he could have been so prescient. Blacksnail 20:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is also in desperate need of editing, needs to be more concise and a lot of ambiguity needs to be cleared up. For example: the last section on the aftermath of the war is incredibly hard to understand and is poorly written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.25.178 (talk) 02:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Page title not neutral

I daresay Caesar might have called it "Pompey and Cato's Civil War." --64.66.85.99 (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We go by what reliable sources use. Please see WP:TITLE for more on this. Walter Siegmund (talk) 22:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Optimate/Popularis distinction

This grossly simplifies the relationship between Caesar and Pompey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.43.239 (talk) 22:27, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

DMCA

Take down of the number 45, number forty five. . . dave souza, talk 13:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Date of Return

What day did Caesar return to Rome after the 'end' of the war? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.213.22.172 (talk) 15:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

misleading number of legions

The article stresses Caesar only had one legion with him but in his Civil Wars Caesar says he was joined by two additional legions from Gaul with fresh levies from Gaul, so though Caesar crosses the Rubicon with only one legion by the time Caesar besieges Pompey in Brundisium Caesar has 3 legions and significantly outnumbers Pompey. The article is therefore misleading in stressing Caesar only had one legion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.207.172 (talk) 11:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

As I commented in the talk section of the main article for Caesar, the sources indicate the Pompey had 100 cohorts of soldiers, or 10 legions, when Caesar crossed the rubicon. Now of course they were garrisoned at various towns like Corfinium, but if Pompey wanted to summon them to him so he could have a unified force he certainly had ample time. Caesar's progression through Italy was a slow and leisurely affair, taking about a month, with messengers going back and forth between Pompey. The timeline currently in the article almost suggests Pompey was somehow taken unawares and had no time to order the legions to march to him (or for him to march to them) and lead them. That is simply not accurate, in fact he had sent multiple messages back and forth with Ahenobarbus, but because Pompey had no plan and was indecisive Ahenobarbus stupidly got stuck at Corfinium. There was ample time for Pompey to march to fight Caesar before any reinforcements got there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:1D19:B301:2C79:3FB9:BF65:ACAB (talk) 01:07, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Caesar-was-afraid-of-prosecution theory

Prosecution theory alone is irreflective of more recent literature on Caesar's motivations:

Everyone knows that Caesar crossed the Rubicon because his political enemies at Rome had manoeuvred him into a position [where he would] be put on trial, found guilty and have his political career ended. Yet over thirty years ago, Shackleton Bailey, in less than two pages of his introduction to Cicero's Letters to Atticus, destroyed the basis for this belief, and in the three decades since, no one has been able to rebuild it.

This proposition also is not fringe, being the subject of repeated articles in Historia. This article ought to be updated to reflect the trend in newer scholarship that questions whether prosecution was likely, possible, or casually meaningful in Caesar's decision calculus. Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

References

It's hardly a theory though. Primary sources talk directly about this being the major factor in Caesar's decision making, including (indirectly) from Polio who literally lived through these events and served as Caesar's subordinate. It also fits neatly with everything else. If the goal of the Boni was merely to remove Caesar as a danger to Rome, they could have let him simply give up his army and run for the consulship in absentina, as he himself (and others) proposed. It's a cute bit of 'alternate history' and 're-examination' that is common in academia because you need to come up with new and novel interpretations so you stand out, instead of repeating what everyone else said before you. If you've read Lucky Jim or seen History Boys you'll know what I mean right away. All the evidence is Caesar went out of his way to compromise and avoid a war, until finally he had to choose between self-immolation and war. He, quite reasonably, chose the latter.

There is a pro-Pompey/anti-Caesar bias that has started to infect this and other pages, which is not uncommon among people new to this subject matter, because Caesar won and ended up as dictator, and Pompey died and so is sympathetic. In actuality though, Pompey and the Boni were not democratic appointees, and the majority of Rome (including among most of the educated class) was pro-Caesar it seems. Only in the hyper elite did he have implacable enemies like the Boni. Pompey had, in fact, done everything Caesar was being accused of and more. His career had been super illegal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:1d19:b301:a4d4:f116:f06e:6c51 (talk • contribs) 18:30, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Let's say your assertions are true (even including the rejected factionalist interpretation of Roman politics; note also doubt in Erdhardt at 34–36). Do you have reliable and current sources justifying your historiographical claims? I am willing to focus more on prosecution theory if the scholarly consensus is that it heavily motivated Caesar's decision calculus. Ifly6 (talk) 23:25, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

English-language map

Is there any chance of creating an English version of the French-language map used at the top of this page? WP Ludicer (talk) 12:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I might take a crack at it in Inkscape if the image is SVG Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I took a look at the image and it's a mess. Specifically, the portions that are supposedly text are interpreted instead as vector graphics, meaning it's very non-trivial to just re-type all the text in a matching font. Then Inkscape crashed for no reason which was very discouraging. Ifly6 (talk) 02:58, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

"Earth moles"?

Under the heading "March on Rome and the early Hispanian campaign", the third sentence of the fifth paragraph states "Caesar then tried to trap Pompey in Brundusium by blocking up the harbour mouth with earth moles from either side..." (emphasis added) I have no idea what "earth moles" might be, nor has a cursory search turned up an explanation. Can anyone explain? Bricology (talk) 02:20, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I can't say I have any idea what that means. In my rewrite, I substituted earthworks in the appropriate section. Ifly6 (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Aftermath

In edit note actium ≠ philippi; given the empire is formed like 20+ years after caesar's death, that cannot really be called an 'aftermath'. condensed. for this edit. There are a few problems with the original text as to factual errors (specifically, how that version confuses the war between Octavian + Antony vs Brutus + Cassius with the war between Octavian and Antony). But, in general, I don't feel there is any need to include some kind of "And this led to the Roman empire" outro. This is for a few reasons.

First, Octavian's ascent at the death of Caesar was not guaranteed. If Caesar had died of natural causes, he likely would have gotten nothing in the will but a name and (an enormous amount of) money. Second, people who lived at the time did not think the republic was entirely done for and that everything was doomed. Cicero's Phillipics and the war between "the republic" (under Hirtius, Pansa, Octavian, Decimus Junius Brutus, etc) and Antony show this clearly; so too does the fragile peace negotiated. While hindsight is pretty clear, writing something of that sort imposes anachronistic elements into the history of the period. It reduces the actual actions – and the alternatives thereto – taken by those people into caricature. It also condenses over a decade of history (from 44 to 31 BC) and related choices into two sentences. If you go as far as the empire, perhaps even more. It is something which season 2 of HBO's Rome does, if only because they ran of money to write the much longer conclusion they wanted. We should focus only on matters that directly emerged from this civil war in its Aftermath: Caesar's assassination is close enough to be one of them. Ifly6 (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

References

Infobox edits

Hello there, TableSalt43! I appreciate that you're adding content to the article. I have a few questions though. Who is Gaius Fabius and what did he do? Who is Saburra and what did he do? Are they major leaders in the war? What are your sources for their inclusion?

I know info-boxes are flashy tables that people like to edit, but they are supplements to articles rather than elements in of themselves: they should reflect the content of the article only. They also should not list every single person tangentially related to or mentioned in the conflict; otherwise, the Battle of the Somme should probably include a list of British soldiers hundreds of thousands of names long (ought Lt JRR Tolkien be included?). They ought include only the major commanders (imo, many people should be removed from it, M Junius Brutus included). See MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE.

If you are to include these people, I think you ought to add to the article and describe what they did, while citing modern sources (one of my biggest gripes with the older versions of this article was that it read like someone just translated some primary sources and called it day; the primary sources are not great and really need scholarly handling). I can help you on research etc if you would like. Ifly6 (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2022 (UTC)