The two lineal gravities --- based on the de Sitter group or a central extension of the Poincar\'e group in 1+1 dimensions --- are shown to derive classically from a unique topological gauge theory. This one is obtained after a dimensional reduction of a Chern--Simons model, which describes pure gravity in 2+1 dimensions, the gauge symmetry being given by an extension of ISO(2,1).
Categories: gr-qc hep-th