Resumen de The Rhetorical Use of Maxims in Caesar
Caesar’s Commentarii de bello civili show a significantly higher occurrence of γνῶμαι than his books on the Gallic war. I argue that this difference in style is due to the different goals of the two works: in De bello civili Caesar has to convince the reader that he was loyal to Roman values while Pompey was not, therefore maxims have, as Aristotle prescribes (Rh. 2,21,16), the function of creating a moral “common ground” with the reader and to show that the author is “a man of good character”.
