Triumphal literature, or a literary triumph? : Caesar’s Commentaries and the Roman triumphal procession

This dissertation examines the relationship between Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War and the Roman triumphal procession. I use the modern theory of intermediality, which posits the possibility of relationships of influence between works of different media, to argue that the Commentaries’ uniqueness in the ancient literary canon can be in part explained by recognizing the significant influence they draw from the triumph. The institution of the triumph meets modern theorists’ criteria for the “historical work,” and there was a long tradition of various forms of writing accompanying individual triumphs – this combination of factors meant that a literary production could not only easily imitate the communicative strategies of the triumph, but we might even say it could expectedly do so. In analyzing such a relationship between the triumph and Caesar’s Commentaries, I divide the subjects presented by these media into two broad categories – the vanquished foe and the victorious Romans. The treatment of the enemy focuses on leveraging their defeat for political clout. The threat posed by the various enemies, whether that be physical or ideological, was the object of concerted emphasis in both media and, in an entirely different vein, more neutral objects of ethnographic interest like local flora and fauna became the objects of lengthier treatments as time progressed. In presenting the victorious Romans, both media focus on instilling a sense of community in their various audiences. While the triumph accomplished this by leaning on the unifying forces of the Romans’ shared history and the fact that the Romans were all physically gathered together on the day of the procession, the Commentaries use the linguistic directness afforded to literary media to more directly remind their readers of their commonality with the Roman army. I conclude by discussing the impact that the environment of aristocratic competition had on the incorporation of triumphal elements in the Commentaries. I propose that Commentaries were a natural next step in the evolving field of Republican aristocratic competition, and that their inherently Republican nature guaranteed their lack of literary successors, given their publication in the final years before the fall of the Republic and the establishment of the principate