Cesare e la tradizione retorica su Alessandro Magno nel libro V del Bellum civile di Lucano

The presence of the rhetorical model of Alexander the Great has been long recognized as an important feature of Lucan’s Bellum civile, especially in the treatment of the character of Caesar. The association between the two leaders, particularly evident in the two last books of the poem, begins already in book 5, at the right moment when Caesar, like Alexander, is moving toward an alius orbis (Lucan. V 238). So the model of Alexander is implied in many of the episodes of the book – the mutiny at Placentia, the crossing of the Adriatic sea and the storm, the speech of Caesar’s companions after his rescue – all of which show significant contact points with such texts as Seneca the Elder’s suasoria 1 (Deliberat Alexander an Oceanum naviget) and book 9 of Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni (a work in its turn deeply influenced by the rhetorical tradition). At the beginning of a new section of the poem, when the war is moving in Macetum terras (Lucan. V 2), the land of Alexander, Caesar is therefore assuming the traits of a new Alexander.