Gaius Oppius

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Gaius Oppius was an intimate friend of Julius Caesar. He managed the dictator's private affairs during his absence from Rome, and, together with Lucius Cornelius Balbus, exercised considerable influence in the city. According to Suetonius (Caesar, 56), many authorities considered Oppius to have written the histories of the Spanish, African and Alexandrian wars which are printed among the works of Caesar.

It is now generally held that he may possibly be the author of the last (although the claims of Hirtius are considered stronger), but certainly not of the two first, although Niebuhr confidently assigned the Bellum Africanum to him; the writer of these took an actual part in the wars they described, whereas Oppius was in Rome at the time. He also wrote a life of Caesar and the elder Scipio.

[edit] References

For a discussion of the whole question, see Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, i. p. 210 (2nd ed., 1898); Teuffel-Schwabe, History of Roman Literature (Eng. trans.), 197; see also Cicero, Letters, ed. R. Y. Tyrrell and L. C. Purser, iv. introd. p. 69.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.