Julius Caesar's Invasion of Britain: An Historic Illumination From a Now Lost 15th Century Work (A Medieval Miniature of Julius Caesar Routing the Chariot-Mounted Forces of the British Chieftain Cassivellaunus During Rome?s 2nd Expedition to England)

Beschreibung

The sole known surviving piece of a once vast and grand 15th century "Faits des Romans," doubtless for a noble patron of enormous wealth.?The artist is a follower of the Co?tivy MasterThe twin nostalgias of Europe? one for the powerful, all-encompassing Roman Empire, the other for connecting with the mysterious pre-Roman peoples? combine in this 15th century French illumination of Caesar?s final, and questionably successful, encounter with the Britons, led by Cassivellaunus. While Caesar won this battle, his dream of a conquered, and Roman, Britain would not be realized within his lifetime. His legacy, however, was studied, admired, and immortalized far after his fatal betrayal by Brutus. This illustration captures this historic moment of Caesar?s triumph, the beginning of the end for the Britons, and the cultural legacy as viewed during the waning of the Middle Ages.In the nineteenth century, European medievalists began shoring up their nations? relationships with medieval literature to try to create firm claims of their peoples? innate heroic attributes, their noble histories, their glorious pasts. This led, for example, to the French identifying themselves with the Chanson de Roland and the English lionizing King Arthur. But the desire to have these medieval roots overshadowed the more complicated histories: the Chanson de Roland, though composed in French, is about an emperor best known by his French name, Charlemagne, but who was born in Aachen, Germany and is buried there. The first legends of King Arthur from the 9th century, reflecting a much earlier time, came from Wales, a nation suppressed by the English, and the major inventions in the narrative, like the love story of Guinevere and Lancelot, and the Round Table, were invented in France. Though English storytellers engaged with Arthur and his knights, it wasn?t until Thomas Malory in the 15th century that Arthur became English.During the Middle Ages, Rome was the empire to draw connections to for auctoritas. This is why the empire established by Charlemagne became known as the Holy Roman Empire. Though the term was not in use until the 13th century, the Emperors were instilled with translation imperii-- a transfer of rule directly inherited from the historic emperors of Rome.One aspect of Rome that was particularly admired in the Middle Ages was the conquering and bringing into Civilization of the barbarians north of the Alps and west of the Rhine, that includes Caesar's foray into England and his confrontation with Cassivellanus. Cassivellaunus was likely the chief of the Catuvellauni of Hertfordshire, whose tribal name translates to ?war-chiefs? In British accounts, he appears in Welsh literature ranging from Geoffrey of Monmouth?s chronicle about the history of the Kings of Britain in both Latin, Historia regum Britanniae, and Welsh, Brut y Brenhinedd, to the more folkloric-based Trioedd Ynys Prydein (The Triads), the second branch of the Mabinogi, and Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys (The Adventure of Lludd and Llefelys). The British chieftain even appears, briefly, in the Greek Stratagemata by Polyaenus. The Latin literature, of course, written by the winners, includes Julius Caesar?s own Commentary de Bello Gallico (Commentary on the Gallic War).During the account of his second campaign in Britain from Gaul in 54 BCE, after a failed first a year earlier, Caesar writes that Cassivellaunus was a rabble-rouser, conquering the Trinovantes, the most powerful British tribe (perhaps how the tribe received their appellation of ?war-chiefs?). Though his location was betrayed by the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, and Cassi, who had surrendered to Caesar, Cassivellaunus gathered the forces of the Kentish kings, Cinetorix, Varvilius, Taximagulus, and Segovax. The tribes retreated to higher ground when they saw the sheer masses of Romans that Caesar had brought to avert the same failure of preparedness he suffered the year before. The legions established their militar.

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Julius Caesar's Invasion of Britain: An Historic Illumination From a Now Lost 15th Century Work (A Medieval Miniature of Julius Caesar Routing the Chariot-Mounted Forces of the British Chieftain Cassivellaunus During Rome?s 2nd Expedition to England)

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Hardcover