Scribam ipse de me: The Personality of the Narrator in Caesar's Bellum Civile

This article analyzes the strategies by which the narrator of Caesar's Bellum Civile constructs his authority and promotes his version of the civil war. Despite being generally omnipresent, omniscient and un-intrusive, the narrator can abandon his covert position and all-encompassing knowledge and use multiple devices to guide the readers' perception of salient events. Switches of focalization, inferred motivation, presentation through negation and intratextual echoes color the narrative of key episodes, such as the negotiations of peace with Pompey in Book 1 and the descriptions of the battles at Dyrrachium and Pharsalus.