The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Well-known as a brilliant general and politician, Julius Caesar also played a fundamental role in the formation of the L
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THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR
Well-known as a brilliant general and politician, Julius Caesar also played a fundamental role in the formation of the Latin literary language and remains a central figure in the history of Latin literature. With twenty-three chapters written by renowned scholars, this Companion provides an accessible introduction to Caesar as an intellectual along with a scholarly assessment of his multiple literary accomplishments and new insights into their literary value. The Commentarii and Caesar’s lost works are presented in their historical and literary context. The various chapters explore their main features, the connection between literature, state religion and politics, Caesar’s debt to previous Greek and Latin authors, and his legacy within and outside of Latin literature. The innovative volume will be of great value to all students and scholars of Latin literature and to those seeking a more rounded portrait of the achievements of Julius Caesar. is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile (Cambridge, ), a commentary on Cicero’s De Provinciis Consularibus (), and various journal articles on the Gallic and civil wars and on other authors, especially Vergil and Cicero. . is an Associate Professor of Classics and (by courtesy) German Studies at Stanford University. The recipient of the Christian Gauss Award, his publications include Negotiatio Germaniae (), A Most Dangerous Book (), and Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography (edited with Jonas Grethlein, Cambridge, ). Future projects include an intellectual biography of Julius Caesar and a commentary on Caesar, Bellum Gallicum .
A complete list of books in the series is at the back of this book.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR EDITED BY
LUCA GRILLO University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
CHRISTOPHER B. KREBS Stanford University, California
University Printing House, Cambridge , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York, , USA Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India Anson Road, #–/, Singapore Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Cambridge University Press This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Grillo, Luca, - editor. | Krebs, Christopher B., editor. : The Cambridge companion to the writings of Julius Caesar / edited by Luca Grillo, Christopher B. Krebs. : Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. : | (hardback : alk. paper) | (pbk. : alk. paper) : : Caesar, Julius–Criticism and interpretation. | Caesar, Julius–Sources. | Caesar, Julius–Influence. | Historiography–Rome. : . | /.–dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ ---- Hardback ---- Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR
Well-known as a brilliant general and politician, Julius Caesar also played a fundamental role in the formation of the Latin literary language and remains a central figure in the history of Latin literature. With twenty-three chapters written by renowned scholars, this Companion provides an accessible introduction to Caesar as an intellectual along with a scholarly assessment of his multiple literary accomplishments and new insights into their literary value. The Commentarii and Caesar’s lost works are presented in their historical and literary context. The various chapters explore their main features, the connection between literature, state religion and politics, Caesar’s debt to previous Greek and Latin authors, and his legacy within and outside of Latin literature. The innovative volume will be of great value to all students and scholars of Latin literature and to those seeking a more rounded portrait of the achievements of Julius Caesar. is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile (Cambridge, ), a commentary on Cicero’s De Provinciis Consularibus (), and various journal articles on the Gallic and civil wars and on other authors, especially Vergil and Cicero. . is an Associate Professor of Classics and (by courtesy) German Studies at Stanford University. The recipient of the Christian Gauss Award, his publications include Negotiatio Germaniae (), A Most Dangerous Book (), and Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography (edited with Jonas Grethlein, Cambridge, ). Future projects include an intellectual biography of Julius Caesar and a commentary on Caesar, Bellum Gallicum .
A complete list of books in the series is at the back of this book.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR EDITED BY
LUCA GRILLO University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
CHRISTOPHER B. KREBS Stanford University, California
University Printing House, Cambridge , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York, , USA Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India Anson Road, #–/, Singapore Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Cambridge University Press This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Grillo, Luca, - editor. | Krebs, Christopher B., editor. : The Cambridge companion to the writings of Julius Caesar / edited by Luca Grillo, Christopher B. Krebs. : Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. : | (hardback : alk. paper) | (pbk. : alk. paper) : : Caesar, Julius–Criticism and interpretation. | Caesar, Julius–Sources. | Caesar, Julius–Influence. | Historiography–Rome. : . | /.–dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ ---- Hardback ---- Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR
Well-known as a brilliant general and politician, Julius Caesar also played a fundamental role in the formation of the Latin literary language and remains a central figure in the history of Latin literature. With twenty-three chapters written by renowned scholars, this Companion provides an accessible introduction to Caesar as an intellectual along with a scholarly assessment of his multiple literary accomplishments and new insights into their literary value. The Commentarii and Caesar’s lost works are presented in their historical and literary context. The various chapters explore their main features, the connection between literature, state religion and politics, Caesar’s debt to previous Greek and Latin authors, and his legacy within and outside of Latin literature. The innovative volume will be of great value to all students and scholars of Latin literature and to those seeking a more rounded portrait of the achievements of Julius Caesar. is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile (Cambridge, ), a commentary on Cicero’s De Provinciis Consularibus (), and various journal articles on the Gallic and civil wars and on other authors, especially Vergil and Cicero. . is an Associate Professor of Classics and (by courtesy) German Studies at Stanford University. The recipient of the Christian Gauss Award, his publications include Negotiatio Germaniae (), A Most Dangerous Book (), and Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography (edited with Jonas Grethlein, Cambridge, ). Future projects include an intellectual biography of Julius Caesar and a commentary on Caesar, Bellum Gallicum .
A complete list of books in the series is at the back of this book.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE WRITINGS OF JULIUS CAESAR EDITED BY
LUCA GRILLO University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
CHRISTOPHER B. KREBS Stanford University, California
University Printing House, Cambridge , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York, , USA Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India Anson Road, #–/, Singapore Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Cambridge University Press This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Grillo, Luca, - editor. | Krebs, Christopher B., editor. : The Cambridge companion to the writings of Julius Caesar / edited by Luca Grillo, Christopher B. Krebs. : Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. : | (hardback : alk. paper) | (pbk. : alk. paper) : : Caesar, Julius–Criticism and interpretation. | Caesar, Julius–Sources. | Caesar, Julius–Influence. | Historiography–Rome. : . | /.–dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ ---- Hardback ---- Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Contributors’ Biographies Journal Abbreviations
page viii xiii
Introduction: Caesarian Questions: Then, Now, Hence
Luca Grillo and Christopher B. Krebs
Caesar, Literature, and Politics at the End of the Republic Kurt A. Raaflaub
More Than Words. The Commentarii in their Propagandistic Context
Christopher B. Krebs
Caesar Constructing Caesar William Batstone
Priesthoods, Gods, and Stars Jörg Rüpke
The Politics of Geography Andrew M. Riggsby
Nostri and “The Other(s)”
Andrew C. Johnston
, , ,
Genres and Generic Contaminations: The Commentarii Debra L. Nousek
v
Contents
vi
A Style of Choice
Christopher B. Krebs
Speeches in the Commentarii
Luca Grillo
Wit and Irony
Anthony Corbeill
Literary Approaches to Caesar: Three Case Studies
Luca Grillo
Caesar the Linguist: The Debate about the Latin Language
Giuseppe Pezzini
Caesar’s Orations
Henriette van der Blom
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context
Sergio Casali
Anticato
Anthony Corbeill
Innovation and Cliché: The Letters of Caesar
Ruth Morello
Caesar and Greek Historians
Luke Pitcher
Caesar and Roman Historiography Prior to the Commentarii
Martine Chassignet
The Corpus Caesarianum
Jan Felix Gaertner
Caesar in Livy and Tacitus
Christina Shuttleworth Kraus
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan Timothy A. Joseph
Contents Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars with and beyond Caesar
vii
James Thorne
Writing War with Caesar: The Commentarii’s Afterlife in Military Memoirs
Hester Schadee
Bibliography
Indexes Index Rerum Index Locorum Index Personarum
Contributors’ Biographies
. , Professor of Classics at The Ohio State University, works on literary theory and the literature of the Republic and the Triumviral period. He is author of Sallust: Catiline’s Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, The Histories, Caesar’s Bellum Civile (with Cynthia Damon), and Latin Lyric and Elegiac Poetry: An Anthology (edited with Diane Rayor, “Notes and comments” by Batstone). Current projects: Oxford Readings in Sallust (with Andrew Feldherr), and a literary study of Sallust’s Catiline (Cambridge University Press). is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Birmingham, and an expert in the fields of Roman Republican history, politics, and oratory. She is involved in a project to collect, translate, and comment on the surviving fragments of all non-Ciceronian oratory from the Republican period, and is the author of Cicero’s Role Models: The Political Strategy of a Newcomer () and Oratory and Political Career in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, ). is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata.” He is author of a commentary on Ovid, Heroides (), and one on Aeneid () and he has published various articles, especially on Latin poetry. He is currently working on a commentary on Aeneid (Cambridge University Press). is Professor emeritus at the University of Strasbourg. She is the author of the CUF edition and translation of Cato’s Origines () and of L’annalistique romaine ( vols.: –). She is the editor of L’étiologie dans la pensée antique () and the co-editor of Aere perennius. Hommage à H. Zehnacker (). She has published a viii
Contributors’ Biographies
ix
number of articles on Roman historians of the Roman Republic and early Empire. Currently she is working on Cato’s speeches. , Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, is author of Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (), Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (), and Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (). He has held fellowships at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Munich), All Souls College (Oxford), and the American Academy in Rome, where he has also served as Trustee. is Professor of Classics at the University of Cologne. His publications include a commentary on Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto (), a collective volume on the discourse of exile (), and numerous articles and reviews. Most recently, he co-authored Caesar and the Bellum Alexandrinum. An Analysis of Style, Narrative Technique and the Reception of Greek Historiography (), the first monograph on the Bellum Alexandrinum in eighty years. Currently, he is preparing the publication of his Habilitationsschrift on law and legal language in Greco-Roman New Comedy. is Professor of Classics and William R. Kenan Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile (Cambridge University Press, ), a commentary on Cicero’s De Provinciis Consularibus Oratio () and various articles especially on Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil. He is currently working on a monograph on irony in Latin literature. . is Assistant Professor of Classics and History at Yale University. His primary research interests are in the cultural history of the Roman world, especially the dynamics of social memory and the imagination and representation of selves and others. His first book, The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain, was published in . His other work focuses on the archaeology of central Italy, specifically the Latin city of Gabii. is Associate Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. He earned his PhD in Classical Philology
x
Contributors’ Biographies
from Harvard University and is the author of Tacitus the Epic Successor (), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on Latin historiography and epic poetry. Current research includes work on Lucan’s selfpresentation in the epic tradition and on the figure of the eyewitness in imperial historiography. . is Thomas A. Thacher Professor of Latin at Yale. After studying at Princeton and Harvard she taught at NYU, UCL, and Oxford before moving to New Haven in . She works on Latin historiography and on the theory and practice of commentary. She gave the Martin Lectures at Oberlin College in on the scholarly reception of Tacitus’ Agricola; most recently she has co-edited with Christopher Stray the collection Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre (). . teaches Classics at Stanford University. He works in the fields of intellectual history, Greek and Roman historiography, and Latin philology. Among his publications are: A Most Dangerous Book. Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich () and Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography: The “Plupast” from Herodotus to Appian (Cambridge University Press, ). He is currently completing a commentary on Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum (for Cambridge University Press) and an intellectual biography of Julius Caesar, tentatively entitled The Mind of the Commander. is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Manchester, with a special interest in ancient epistolography. She is co-author of Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, ), and co-editor of Ancient Letters: Essays in Classical and Late Antique Epistolography (). She has also published on Livy, Vergil, and Pliny the Elder, and is currently working on a monograph on Talking to Caesar. . is Associate Professor of Classics at The University of Western Ontario. She is interested in the literary aspects of Latin prose, especially the development of historiography. She has published on Caesar, Livy, and Cicero, and is the co-author of A Caesar Workbook for the AP® Latin curriculum. She is currently working on a literary study of the Corpus Caesarianum, and a digital map of Cicero’s experience of the city of Rome.
Contributors’ Biographies
xi
is Lecturer in Latin at the University of St Andrews. He has worked and published especially on Latin language, meter and textual criticism, Latin comedy, and the history of classical scholarship. He is the author of Terence and the Verb “to be” in Latin () and co-editor of Classics Scholars: Between Theory and Practice (). His current projects include an edition of and commentary on Terence’s Heauton Timorumenos and a forthcoming volume on Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World (co-edited with B. Taylor). has been Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Somerville College in the University of Oxford since . He is the author of Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography () and numerous articles on Greek and Roman history-writing from Polybius to Herodian. is David Herlihy University Professor and Professor of Classics and History Emeritus at Brown University. His research focuses on the social, political, and intellectual history of archaic and classical Greece and the Roman Republic, ancient warfare, and the comparative history of the ancient world. His publications include The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece () and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (co-authored, ). He is general editor of the series “The Ancient World: Comparative Histories,” and is preparing a new Landmark Caesar. . is Lucy Shoe Meritt Professor in Classics and Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Crime and Community in Ciceronian Rome (), War in Words: Caesar in Gaul and Rome (), and Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans (), as well as several articles on Roman conceptions of space. ö ü is Fellow in Religious Studies and Vice-director of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies of the University of Erfurt. He is the author of Domi Militiae (); The Religions of the Romans (); Fasti Sacerdotum (); The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine (); Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Ritual Change (); Ancients and Moderns: Religion (); From Jupiter to Christ (); Religious Deviance in the Roman World (); On Roman
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Religion (). He (co-)edited Rituals in Ink (); Religion and Law (); A Companion to Roman Religion (); Reflections on Religious Individuality (); A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World (). is Lecturer in European History at the University of Exeter, with a research focus on Renaissance Italy, classical reception, and humanism. She studied at the University of Oxford and held fellowships at Princeton University and Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. She is the editor of Evil Lords: Theory and Representation of Tyranny from Antiquity to the Renaissance (with Nikos Panou) and she has published articles on the Gallic War and the Commentarii. She is currently working on translations and commentaries on various work by Poggio Bracciolini and she is completing a monograph on the receptor of Caesar in Renaissance Italy. is teacher of Latin at St Mary’s College Crosby, and Coordinator of the Liverpool Schools Classics Project. He studied at University College London, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the University of Manchester, and has held various lecturing posts, including at Swansea University. He is the author of articles and chapters on ancient warfare, imperialism, and reception, and is currently working on a monograph on the Gallic war.
Journal Abbreviations
ACD AH AIGC AJA AJAH AJP ANRW AU BICS BStudLat CA CB CCG CCJ CJ CP CQ CR CW DAGR DNP ESHG G&R HSCP HZ ICS JHS JRS LEC MD
Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis Ancient History: Resources for Teachers Annuario dell’Istituto Giapponese di Cultura in Roma American Journal of Archaeology American Journal of Ancient History American Journal of Philology Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt Der Altsprachliche Unterricht: Latein, Griechisch. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Bolletino di studi latini Classical Antiquity The Classical Bulletin Cahiers du Centre Gustave-Glotz The Cambridge Classical Journal The Classical Journal Classical Philology Classical Quarterly Classical Review Classical World Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines Der Neue Pauly Études Suisses d’Histoire Générale Greece and Rome Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Historische Zeitschrift Illinois Classical Studies The Journal of Hellenic Studies The Journal of Roman Studies Les études classiques Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici xiii
xiv MDAI(R) NJbb NJW PBSR PCPhS PLLS QUCC QS RE REL RFIC RhM RIL RPh RSI SCI SIFC SRIC StudClas TAPA TLS WZRostock ZPE
Journal Abbreviations Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung = Bullettino dell’Istituto Archeologico Germanico, Sezione romana. Neue Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung Neue Jahrbücher für deutsche Wissenschaft Papers of the British School at Rome Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society Papers of the Leeds Latin Seminar Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica Quaderni di Storia Real-Encyclopädie d. klassischen Altertumswissenschaft Revue des études latines Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica Rheinisches Museum für Philologie Rendiconti / Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes Rivista Storica Italiana Scripta Classica Israelica Studi italiani di filologia classica Studi e ricerche dell’Istituto di Civilità Classica, Cristiana, Medievale Studii clasice. Bucharest. Transactions of the American Philological Association The Times Literary Supplement Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Wilhelm-PieckUniversität Rostock Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
Introduction Caesarian Questions: Then, Now, Hence Luca Grillo and Christopher B. Krebs
When, in Shakespeare, Julius Caesar reflects on Cassius’ mean menace, he concludes that, fear-inspiring though Cassius may be, he fears him not: “For always I am Caesar” (..). Four hundred and some years after the influential tragedy premiered, and some two thousand years after Caesar and Cassius faced one another in Rome, Caesar is still with us: first and foremost, in the living memory of posterity, as the tyrannical undertaker of the Roman Republic – sic semper tyrannis! – and, secondly, as conqueror of Gaul, land of Asterix. In this latter capacity, he has marched across the pages of his Gallic Wars, his account of his conquest in seven books, leading countless students in classrooms near and far through the Latin syntax ever since the Renaissance. Matthias Gelzer, the eminent ancient historian and author of a magisterial biography of Caesar, in the s remarked how the Latin teachers of his school days knew the Gallic Wars by heart. While the degree of familiarity may have changed more recently, Caesar’s standing as the primer in Latin grammars, prose composition volumes, and in the classroom remains unchallenged. This standing is largely owed to Caesar’s limpid style, which contemporaries recognized as exceptional (e.g. Cic. Brut. ). It results from careful and consistent choice and represents his effort at regulation as advanced, theoretically, in his linguistic treatise De Analogia, “On analogous word formation.” As a linguist, Caesar enjoyed great authority (cf. Gell. .. and ..–); his various other contributions to the Roman Republic of letters were no less admired. To contemporaries and following generations he was, in fact, known not only as a political and military
On the alleged origin and afterlife of the declaration, see Wyke (, –); on Caesar and the comic series Asterix, see Wyke (, –). Tatum () uses part of the Shakespearean line for a title. “Die Lateinlehrer meiner Schulzeit kannten die Bücher auswendig . . .” (Gelzer, , reprinted , ). Cf. Pezzini – in this volume. The extent to which Caesar’s practice conforms to his theory is debated.
L. GRILLO AND C. KREBS
leader but also as an eminent man of letters, who enjoyed the company of the bright and talented (favet ingeniis, Cic. Fam. ..). The list of his accomplishments is long: as orator he ranked second only to Cicero (Quint. ..; cf. Cic. Brut. ), while, as ethnographer, he produced an account of the Gallic and Germanic tribes so compelling that Tacitus thought it necessary to take him on one hundred and fifty years later. Caesar’s letter-writing inspired awe (Plut. Caes. .) and impressed for novelty (Suet. Iul. .). But he also penned a political pamphlet (Anticato) and poems, whereof we have fragments (or secure knowledge) of an epigram on Terence, for example, and what may have been a verse travelogue (Iter). He was fluent in Greek and admired (and feared) for his wit. Caesar’s intellectual talents and contributions impress, even through their mostly fragmentary state. But his fate as man of letters was to disappear in the shadow of his own accomplishments as military and political leader. One aim of this Companion is to provide discussion of all his works across the literary genres. The predominant view of Caesar as a historical figure (on which Miriam Griffin’s A Companion to Julius Caesar focuses) and as a man of power rather than letters is not only discernible in scholarship on him; it has influenced modern readings of his only extant works, the “commentaries” on the Gallic and civil wars, as well. These seemingly straightforward, seemingly unadorned narratives, rendered in a seemingly unassuming style, befitted the military man, an impression that Cicero’s famous praise of them as nudi . . . recti et venusti, “naked, upright, and charming” (Brut. ), only seemed to confirm. In addition, with their lapidary Latin elevated to classical status – the BG especially came to enjoy the status of a “citadel of classical Latinity” – they fell victim to their own success, as, for centuries, they were studied primarily with historical, linguistic, and, above all, didactic interest rather than a literary-aesthetic sensibility. Carl Nipperdey’s monumental edition of Caesar’s Commentarii along with the Corpus Caesarianum (comprising Hirtius’ eighth book of the Gallic Wars as well as the Alexandrian, African, and Hispanic Wars) is
On Caesar as an intellectual, see Fantham () and Schiesaro (). Krebs is currently preparing a fuller treatment: Krebs (forthcoming b). On Caesar and Tacitus: Krebs (); for Caesar the orator and ethnographer, cf. van der Blom – and Riggsby – in this volume. Cf. Morello – in this volume. Cf. Corbeill – and Casali – in this volume. Cf. Corbeill – in this volume. Cf. Raaflaub and Rüpke – and – in this volume. Griffin (). Frese (, , our translation). On Caesar’s style, cf. Krebs – in this volume.
Caesarian Questions: Then, Now, Hence
widely considered a landmark in Caesarian studies. Since it is also in many ways paradigmatic, it offers an excellent starting point for a survey of modern scholarship. Its introduction, two hundred and fifty pages addressing Quaestiones Caesarianae, “Caesarian Questions,” dedicated two hundred pages to text-critical discussions of individual passages. Nipperdey approached his author as if he were infallible, unfailingly logical, and intolerant of any stylistic irregularity: Caesar could not have written that the tide came in twice within twelve hours, for surely he must have known better (BG .., Nipperdey neque Caesarem in hac re errasse credibile); nor should his pen be credited with a redundant expression such as intermisso loci spatio (literally, “with a spatial distance left in-between,” BG ..), as spatium alone in its literal meaning applies to locus already (propria uis est, ut de loco intelligatur, Nipperdey ). In consequence, Nipperdey frequently altered the (often unanimous) manuscript readings and produced a somewhat idiosyncratic text. Both Nipperdey’s notion of his author, Caesar, as infallible and his approach to his texts, the Commentarii, as monoliths of classical Latinity set the style: the “critical appendix” (kritischer Anhang) of the standard edition cum commentary by Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel () provides ample documentation thereof, as does the list of conjectures Meusel assembled for his lexicon, which totals ninety-three double-columned pages. In more recent years, however, scholars and editors such as Wolfgang Hering have deemed many of these “emendations” unconvincing () (in fact, Rice Holmes condemned this custom already in , xviii (see Rice Holmes ()); Michael Winterbottom remarked that most editions of Caesar are “marked by remarkable indifference to what the manuscripts actually read” (, ); and others, such as P. T. Eden, Lindsay Hall, and, most recently, Cynthia Damon, have emphasized the irregularities in Caesar, thus breathing Roman life back into the marble bust. But the (in retrospect) misconceived effort to cleanse and regularize Caesar loudly bespeaks the interest in securing him as the logical school author of classical Latinity. Ahead of his extensive text-critical discussion, Nipperdey surveyed the evidence as well as arguments pertaining to a number of issues he deemed central, starting with the possible dates and forms of composition and publication of the Commentarii (–). The evidence is scant: praise for
Meusel (–, vol. , part , –) Tabula Coniecturarum (BG, –; BC, –). Eden (), Hall (), and Damon, who has a whole section dedicated to “novel and unusual expressions in Caesar’s Bellum Civile” (, –). Cf. Raaflaub –, Krebs – and Nousek – in this volume.
L. GRILLO AND C. KREBS
the style of the BG in Cicero’s Brutus ( ) provides a terminus ante quem for its appearance; and a statement by Pollio (reported by Suetonius, Iul. ) suggests that the BC was published only after Caesar’s death in . This leaves ample space for ingenuity and disagreements. Nipperdey himself believed that Caesar had composed the BG all at once around (as opposed to year by year), to then be published more or less immediately around at the beginning of the civil war. But the arguments he and others advanced in support failed to prove conclusive. When F. E. Adcock reviewed the arguments in , he concluded that it seemed “more probable than not that, while Caesar wrote his seven commentaries on the War in Gaul in stages, he published them all at once.” But this opinion has not carried the day either. Remarkably, some of the arguments have been used in utramque partem: the stylistic evolution, for instance, as expressed in the increase of direct speeches and changes of preferred syntactical structures and vocabulary, has often been advanced as evidence of the seriatim publication (Schlicher, ); others, meanwhile, interpreted the very same development as a literary device Caesar created in the BG and then reproduced in the BC. Similarly, while no one denies that books three and five contrast Sabinus’ first praiseworthy (.–) and then blameworthy conduct (.–), some have seen the former episode as a set-up for the latter, implying that Caesar wrote book three in foreknowledge of book five (Collins , –), while others have read this very contrast as evidence that Caesar was ignorant of the events to be narrated in book five when he wrote book three (Seel, , iii). The debate continues: more recently T. P. Wiseman has re-emphasized how Caesar would have benefitted from the circulation and public reading of a year-by-year account, while C. B. Krebs pointed to the sudden appearance of Lucretian echoes in the later books of the BG as an argument in favor of serial composition. As for the BC, while most scholars believe that it was published posthumously, there seems to be even less agreement on the date(s) of composition and the question whether Caesar left it unfinished. Closely entwined with the question of composition and publication is that of the possible form and circulation of “notes” that various ancient sources attribute to Caesar (Plut. Caes. ., App. Celt. fr. .). This
Adcock (, ). Von Albrecht (, ). For helpful summaries of the scholarly debate in English, see Adcock (, –), Collins (, –), and Riggsby (, –). Grillo (, –); cf. further Grillo – in this volume. Wiseman (), Krebs (a). For a summary of the various positions, see Grillo (, –).
Caesarian Questions: Then, Now, Hence
second question is further complicated by the fact that we know of the customary reports Caesar sent to the senate at the end of each campaign year (BG .., .., ..), not to mention possible interim reports or letters to friends and acquaintances (Suet. Iul. . and Gell. NA ..). To what, if any, extent are the Commentarii indebted to any of these sources (the military reports in particular), whether for content or for style? Michel Rambaud devoted considerable attention to this issue and elucidated numerous features that the Commentarii and these reports seem to share (, reprinted , –, –); and Eva Odelman, in an equally ground-breaking but less noticed work, brought to light the various debts Caesar’s style owes to the language of Roman administration. Stylistic concerns also bulk large in Nipperdey’s discussion of the corpus Caesarianum, those four texts written by mostly unidentifiable staffmembers of Caesar’s (wider) circle. Their genesis, for both of the individual bella and the entire corpus, their differences in style, and their authorship, all of which he discussed, have continued to pique scholars and have recently received renewed attention, not least for what they can tell us about the state of Latin prose at the time. The same critical acumen was directed to the transmission and manuscripts of the Caesarian Commentarii – the reliability of the various manuscripts and their groupings – and, more particularly, to the question of possible interpolations into Caesar’s own texts. The ethnographic and geographic digressions in particular were much doubted in their authenticity, both on linguistic and structural grounds, until Franz Beckmann demonstrated in that no activity by an interpolator was demonstrable. Since then, skeptics have been few and far between, and most accept the passages in question as genuine. “Nonetheless, the idea of interpolation in De Bello Gallico [and De Bello Civili, our addition] may not be quite dead yet.” The questions Nipperdey highlighted have shaped the debate, as Hans Oppermann acknowledged when, in , he reviewed the “problems and status quo in Caesarian scholarship” (Probleme und heutiger Stand der Caesarforschung). But among those problems, which he himself proposed to reevaluate with the help of a “comprehensive profile of Caesar’s personality . . . [as] yardstick,” there are two issues that had hardly figured
Her work, Études sur quelques reflets du style administratif chez César, was published in . See Gaertner and Hausburg (, –, with n. ) and Gaertner – in this volume. Riggsby (, ), with further discussion and references. Oppermann (, ). “Gesamtbild der Persönlichkeit Caesars . . . [als] allgemeinen Maßstab,” Oppermann (, , the emphasis in the English translation above is ours). Thus Oppermann succumbed, in his own way, to the cult of Caesar’s personality that had enthralled German scholars in particular for many decades.
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in the Quaestiones. First, Caesar’s “reliability” (). Caesar’s union of agent and author had always raised skepticism, even among his contemporaries (Suet. Iul. .); and while it had been discussed variously in the second half of the nineteenth century, the “propagandistic” aspects of the Commentarii came under closest scrutiny after World War Two. Michel Rambaud, mentioned above, in offered a detailed and comprehensive rhetorical analysis of Caesar’s déformation historique. He conceded that Caesar narrated real events, “mais du côté qui convient à ses intérêts, et les formes de son récit suscitent chez le lecteur une impression fausse.” The bulk of the book is devoted to the rhetorical techniques of “demonstration” and “persuasion” by which historical reality is warped. Coinciding with three other studies to the same effect, La déformation historique caused a lively controversy; and while the controversy has calmed down over the last two decades and propaganda is no longer so pressing a question, the influence of Rambaud’s study can still be felt, and its sophistication makes it mandatory reading for anyone interested in Caesar. The second issue that occupied considerable space in the review concerned the literary characteristics of the Commentarii and their literary genre. Oppermann himself had made substantial contributions to both questions. He (and others) confidently reconstructed the history of the commentarius genre and declared the Gallic and Civil War its “classical works.” But even if the commentarius continued to receive acute attention, today very few would share this confidence: so scant is the evidence of other commentarii, so vague the term itself, that the generic approach to Caesar’s Commentarii seems to have reached its impasse. Our appreciation of their literary qualities, on the other hand, has only grown since Oppermann’s study. The third-person narrative – intended, he argued, to preserve the impression of “a simple reconstruction of what had really happened” – continues to be the subject of subtle analyses. And his observations on “the functions of space and time,” and, more particularly, on how episodes were connected and
Rambaud (, ). This controversy, which predates Rambaud (cf. e.g. Stevens () for the BG and Barwick () and Treu () for the BC), is helpfully summarized by Collins ( and ). On propaganda, see Krebs – in this volume. Oppermann (, ). Cf. also Klotz (, –) on the literarische Charakter des Bellum Gallicum und Bellum Civile. On the commentarius, cf. Nousek – in this volume. “[A]ls einfache Nachbildung dessen, was wirklich geschehen ist,” Oppermann (, ). For more recent discussions: Pelling (a and ), Grillo () and Batstone –, Pitcher –, and Chassignet, – in this volume.
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vivid effects were brought about, would later in the century be differentiated further with the help of the tools supplied by narratology. Just a few years after Oppermann’s survey, in the late s, a major shift occurred in the study of ancient historiography. In Clio’s Cosmetics T. P. Wiseman argued that the Roman historians were much closer to the poets and orators than to their modern counterparts, similar, as they were, in regards to aims, methods, and subject matter: “persuasion is his [the Roman historian’s] business no less than the orator’s.” Focusing in particular on the historians of the late Roman Republic, Wiseman detailed how they resorted to the treasury of rhetoric to compose content and weave a plausible rather than factual text; he also emphasized that their audience would have rather expected them to do just that. The muse of history, he concluded, liked make-up just as much as her sisters. About a decade later, in , A. J. Woodman pursued this line of inquiry further. In Rhetoric in Classical Historiography he revealed through careful readings of Thucydides (the alleged paragon of facticity), Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus that the writing of ancient history was first and foremost a literary endeavor, with the historian conceiving of himself primarily as a literary artist, or, in the words of T. J. Luce, “the heir of Homer.” Woodman explored the central role that inventio, the “discovery” of suitable materials, played in the historian’s crafting of his verisimilar historical narrative. His conclusion was that, aside from a few incontestable historical hard facts, historical narratives were built from the storehouse of literature and with the techniques of rhetoric. Reviewers of both books were quick to predict that they would cause a lively controversy; they were right. But irrespective of how “truthful” the ancient historians actually were, it is now standard practice to regard their texts as literature engaged with the Greek and Roman literary traditions, participatory in contemporary discourses, and inevitably shaped by the allpervasive influence of rhetoric. Indeed, this historiographical turn has, for most of the extant classical historians, resulted in unprecedented sophisticated readings of their narratives.
Another important contribution at the time, Barwick’s study of Caesar’s Commentarii und das Corpus Caesarianum () also helped to advance our appreciation of Caesar’s style and narrative, even though his remarks are embedded in a highly debatable argument about the composition of the corpus Caesarianum (a question that occupied this generation of scholars). For examples of literary approaches to Caesar, cf. Grillo – in this volume. Wiseman (, ). Luce (, ). Cornell (, ), Luce (, ). For a recent contribution to the debate cf. Lendon (); cf. also Thorne – in this volume.
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Caesar’s Commentarii have been somewhat slow to attract that new attention, even if, as some recent works have demonstrated, they are ultimately no exception. Whatever the degree to which they fell under Clio’s province, Caesar certainly knew how to use rhetorical and literary devices; and the celebrated “nudity” of their style is a studied pose, as C. S. Kraus, among others, has noted (, –). Accordingly, Batstone and Damon’s literary approach to the Civil War (), Riggsby’s discourse analyses of the Gallic War () and Grillo’s study of The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile () have put to good account narratological, intertextual, and semantic tools and demonstrated that, thanks to their literary complexity, both the BG and the BC fully repay the same scrutiny that Latin poets and other historians enjoyed long before Caesar. Much work remains to be done in these areas and while this Companion provides an overview of the approaches that have been taken to Caesar’s works, it also aims to encourage further exploration. Other, partly related areas provide perhaps even more fertile fields for future research. As a man of letters, Caesar certainly not only knew but actively engaged with his Greek and Roman predecessors. Yet the generic difference of the Commentarii from historia and, more generally, their alleged overall sparseness, not to mention the scant and controversial evidence of other Commentarii have discouraged inquiries into the literary sources and models of both the BG and the BC. Similarly, while his contribution may reasonably be assumed to have left a mark on Latin literature, what evidence is there of his influence on later Latin prose and poetry? And what of later imitators outside Latin literature? The final section of this Companion turns to these and related questions, though, by necessity, selectively and exempli causa; several of them surely await a monograph treatment. To return to our starting point, then, Caesar is still with us – but, as the new approaches to the Commentarii indicate, wearing a new suit of clothes. Cicero in his Pro Marcello effusively predicted that Caesar’s military and political actions would ensure that his “life [would] flourish in the memory of all times” (quae [sc. vita] vigebit memoria saeculorum omnium, Marcell. ); but he knew why he withheld judgment on them.
Cf. Pitcher – and Chassignet – in this volume. On Caesar’s Sisenna and Caesar and Thucydides, see Krebs ( and ); on Caesar and Polybius, see Grillo (). Cf. Kraus – and Joseph – in this volume. Cf. Schadee – in this volume.
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Caesar’s literary accomplishments have also earned him immortality, and of a less controversial quality to boot. *** We should like to thank Amherst College for generous support of our conference on Caesar in preparation for this Companion; and we should like to acknowledge gratefully the help of Dan-el Padilla Peralta with the translation of chapter and of Brittney Szempruch and Ted Kelting with the aggregation of the indices.
Literature and Politics
Caesar, Literature, and Politics at the End of the Republic Kurt A. Raaflaub
Caesar’s Literary Achievement and its Place in Roman Literature Caesar was one of the greatest literary talents Rome ever produced (Cic. Brut. ), prolific and path-breaking in several genres. Cicero thought he at least equaled the greatest orators (Brut. ; cf. Quint. ., Suet. Iul. ), among whom he stood out as “the purest user of the Latin tongue”; he also admired Caesar for his deep and thorough studies of language and saluted his De Analogia as “the most careful and precise treatise on the principles of correct Latinity” (). This excitement confirms Caesar’s literary reputation (cf. ). In short, without choosing to dedicate his career to such pursuits, Caesar rose to the highest ranks among brilliant orators and experts on style – and he might have done so also among historians. According to Cicero, Caesar had acknowledged that his pioneering efforts in mastering the art of rhetoric had “achieved great merits for the prestige and standing of the Roman people” (bene de nomine ac dignitate populi Romani meritum esse) (Brut. ). This formula, more typical of generals and statesmen, is remarkable. To have his literary accomplishments acknowledged like others’ military and political successes must have been a dream come true to Cicero, whose political self-assessment was frequently challenged and whose shortcomings in the military sphere were obvious. This raises questions. To what extent was literary fame in the late Republic capable of matching military or political glory? And if I thank the participants in a conference organized for discussion of draft chapters, for valuable suggestions and the volume editors for incisive comments that helped me improve the chapter. See Butler and Cary (, ). Although Caesar’s ideals differed from Cicero’s: on this and De Analogia, see most recently Garcea (). This work addressed Cicero, its dedicatee, as “almost the pioneer and inventor of eloquence” (Cic. Brut. ). In Cic. De Or. .., . Cicero says that the general’s prestige is greater but the orator’s art both more difficult and more beneficial to the state; see further just below.
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Caesar believed that thanks to rhetoric Cicero had “achieved great merits,” what does this mean for his own career choice and the way he thought about his literary pursuits? One needs to distinguish between genres. Rhetoric was indispensable for success in politics. Brilliant oratory could secure victories and advance careers – as Cicero’s case illustrates. Hence Roman nobiles, including Caesar, studied rhetoric with the best masters. But it was a means to an end, and applying it to political success was sharply distinguished from teaching it or writing about it: Cicero wrote his rhetorical works when politics enforced leisure. Legal expertise was valued and respected but, traditionally, cultivated in certain senatorial families and practiced on the side to advise clients, friends, and even the general public – a means to perform leadership and care for the people (Digest .., esp. –). It was gradually professionalized but, Cicero insists, dedication to legal science was not to prevail over public engagement in the Forum; at most, it was a compliment to do both (De Or. ..–). Nor could such expertise balance lack of achievement in the field – as Cicero’s devastating (though tendentious) attack on Servius Sulpicius Rufus demonstrates: “How could it be doubted that the glory of skills in military matters rather than civil law supports a higher claim to reach the consulship?” (Mur. –). The same is true for history, long a “hobby” of elder statesmen who wrote Rome’s history from the senate’s perspective, intending to highlight their class’ collective achievement. Here too, non-elite “professionals” had begun to intrude, new genres complemented the traditional annales, and historical works now often presented a partisan view-point. The prefaces of Sallust, a senator with an overall unsuccessful career, illuminate his efforts to claim for his art a level of respectability that would give him the desired prestige (Cat. .–; cf. ; Iug. –). In vain. Not intellectuals or artists but a long line of military and political leaders had built the magnificent edifice of the Roman State and Empire; they get credit in Cicero’s Republic, populated Livy’s “exemplary” history and, as summi viri, adorned the niches in the porticoes of Augustus’ new Forum, models of “citizens who had raised
See the praise of rhetoric’s power in Cic. De Or. .– and the ensuing discussion; also Leg. ..; Off. ... Rhetoric in Rome: Kennedy (); Rawson (, –). Cicero: Conte (b, –). Caesar’s training: Gelzer (, ). Rawson (, –). Rawson (, –); Oakley (, –); Mehl (, chs. –).
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the Roman people from small beginnings to their present glory,” to be imitated by future generations. Because of its political value, serious study of rhetoric or law was acceptable but otherwise sons of senators wasted little time in formal education and only dabbled in intellectual pursuits such as philosophy. They learned leadership skills by observing their relatives in action and were stimulated by Rome’s memorial landscape. Typically, like Sallust, Varro (the polymath) turned to intellectual pursuits only after his political career foundered. Hence the doer of deeds continued to prevail over the writer and scholar. The path to highest standing in Rome led only through the battlefield and Forum – in this sequence. Caesar might compliment Cicero extravagantly for enhancing the Roman nomen and dignitas through intellectual achievements – especially in competition with the Greeks – but he himself would never have considered anything but a military and political career in competition with the greatest Roman achievers: the Scipios, Marius, and Pompey. Still, he dictated De Analogia “while coming back over the Alps” from Cisalpine Gaul, and a poem, The Journey (Iter), “on the road between Rome and Western Spain” (Suet. Iul. ..). He wrote pamphlets, other pieces of poetry (now lost), and ten books of commentarii; he read and commented on others’ poetry while maintaining an astonishingly intense correspondence in the midst of long and difficult wars. We understand the importance of the correspondence. But what is the significance of all the other literary activities? Does it mean that thinking and writing about Latin style or composing poetry were merely useful to exercise his mind or pleasant distractions? Hardly, though we can only speculate. I would think that in this respect Caesar, despite his family connections and ideological leanings, identified more with the Scipios and Sulla than with Marius and Pompey: with old, highly educated and sophisticated nobility, conversant in languages, literature, and the arts rather than with military men who excelled in the field but were lost when dealing with the intricate norms of the elegant salons of high society and the senate’s antechambers. Nobody doubted Caesar’s abundant social skills. Intellectually, he had proved his
Cic. Rep. ., with a historical sketch; Chaplin () (exemplary history); van der Blom () (on Cicero’s exempla); Sall. Iug. .– (on ancestors’ exempla); Suet. Aug. .; Luce ; Zanker (, –) (on the summi viri). See also next note. Hölkeskamp (); Scholz (). On De Analogia and the Iter, see Pezzini – and Casali – in this volume. On Caesar’s ability to focus and dictate several letters simultaneously, see Pliny, NH .; Plut. Caes. .–; Suet. Iul. .. Caesar’s comments on Cicero’s poetry: Cic. QFr. ...
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excellence in rhetoric and the courts; he continued to display flashes of his brilliance in other intellectual fields by producing exquisite tidbits of poetry or brilliant examples of stylistic theory and historical narrative (De Analogia, the Commentarii) – to make himself present in Rome while he was far away, and to demonstrate that he had it all, being a serious literary contender while competing with the best generals Rome ever had! In a personality as complex as that of Caesar’s, it is no contradiction that such intent to align himself with the highest and oldest nobility goes together with what some scholars have identified as a populist effort to “democratize” language in De Analogia: this treaty clearly reflects contemporary debates and contrasts with Cicero’s much more exclusive understanding of language. In particular, through linguistic analysis and theory Caesar attempted to make Latin accessible and manageable to those Romans, Italians, or even provincials, who did not have the proper Roman elite background and were looked down upon because they had “insufficient” control of this language. This effort of “popularization” in the sense of reaching, including, and empowering wider audiences far beyond the Roman elite applies not only to De Analogia but also, as we shall see, to the Commentarii. Finally, perhaps Caesar’s thinking about style corresponded to a deepseated need. Matthias Gelzer writes about De Analogia: [O]ne suspects that the principle of style which he there champions was derived from his own method of aiming at perfect clarity of expression. Thus . . . the characteristic warning: “As the sailor avoids the rock, so should you the obsolete and rare word” . . . could . . . be applied to his policies, which shunned all display of “clever” originality, but appeared in their monumental simplicity as the fulfilment of the duties of a true Roman statesman.
Even so, the military and political spheres claimed absolute priority, and overall Caesar had more important things to do. The poem and De Analogia were among rare exceptions. Why, then, did he invest so much continuous effort into writing his Commentarii on top of the usual general’s reports to the senate? What, then, was a commentarius in Roman tradition and perception? How do Caesar’s Commentarii relate to such perceptions? When and how were they published? And what was their purpose and intended readership?
See recently Osgood (). Dugan (, –); Garcea (, ch. , esp. -) and Pezzini – in this volume. Gelzer (, ); see Garcea (, –) about the relationship between this literary work and some of Caesar’s political and administrative measures. See also below at n. .
Caesar, Literature, and Politics
Caesar’s Commentarii in their Literary and Political Context Briefly, a commentarius (often used in the plural, commentarii), variously interchangeable with acta, tabulae, or res gestae) could be a “handbook” (such as the guide to senate procedures Varro wrote for Pompey), a record (or set of records) of activities and transactions (what Caesar gave to Antonius before his planned departure for the Parthian campaign), kept by a head of household, priestly college, or magistrate, or a memoir or autobiography written to describe, glorify, justify, and defend a person’s achievements from his own perspective (such as Sulla’s memoirs or Augustus’ Res Gestae). Some were published, most were not. Nothing suggests that such commentarii were commonly intended to be elaborated by historians – which is what Hirtius and Cicero claim of Caesar’s Commentarii, while also making it clear that these works were literary masterpieces no historian would want to improve upon. [A]ll the most strenuous literary efforts of others are surpassed by the elegance of these commentaries. They were published to provide writers with information about such important events, but they have received such general approbation that future writers appear to have been forestalled rather than provided with an opportunity. Yet we may feel greater admiration than all others, for they know how well and faultlessly he wrote, while we also know with what ease and speed he completed the work. (Hirtius, BG praef. –; cf. Cic. Brut. )
The speed of completion Hirtius mentions perhaps explains the more critical assessment of another of Caesar’s close associates, Asinius Pollio, who apparently believed “that the memoirs show signs of carelessness and inaccuracy” and that “Caesar would have been intending to rewrite and correct” them (Suet. Iul. .). Clearly, then, Caesar had in his own simple but refined style created successful works of elegant literary art. Why Cicero and Hirtius still thought that they were written “to furnish others with material for writing history” is perhaps elucidated by Cicero’s own case. Hoping that someone would write a history of his great achievements in his consulship but rebuffed by several historians, he eventually approached Lucceius and
Varro: Gell. NA ..–; Caesar’s records: e.g., Cic. Phil. .; .–; Vell. Pat. ... See most recently Rüpke (); Riggsby (, –); Batstone and Damon (, –); Nousek – in this volume; Krebs (). Lossmann (, –); Grillo (, ). Pollio, author of a history of the civil wars, probably had his own agenda. So too Krebs ().
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promised to supply him with commentarii “on the whole affair,” that is, with notes or a narrative upon which Lucceius could elaborate artistically and dramatically (Fam. .). Disappointed again, Cicero wrote a commentarius on his consulship himself, but in Greek (a hypomnēma), and later reported that he had sent it to Posidonius “with the idea that he might compose something more elaborate on the same theme,” but “so far from being stimulated to composition he was effectively frightened away” (Att. ..–; .). This obviously was an elaborated and polished historical work, ready for publication – and still Cicero expected a professional historian to take it to yet higher levels. Apparently he applied the same standards to Caesar’s work: excellent in its own way (he said) but still improvable (he thought). Whatever Caesar’s own opinion about this, his Commentarii must have been intended to present his own interpretation of his accomplishments in an elegant and readable style to a public that was supposed to be persuaded and impressed. These books were based in turn on a collection of materials (notes and records), including his dispatches (litterae) to the senate and those of his officers to himself, that formed his personal archive (commentarii) on the events he was involved in. The questions of purpose, publication, and readership are crucial. They require a brief review of Caesar’s situation when he began his Gallic campaigns. Cicero and Sallust present Caesar as a popularis already in (Cic. Cat. .–; Sall. Cat. ). He had fought for the restoration of people’s rights eliminated by Sulla against Sulla’s successors, who clung to power and prevented the realization of long overdue reforms. His demonstratively anti-optimate actions in further established his reputation as an ambitious and unusual risk-taker who courted popularity among all who were not optimates. But these actions caused conflicts with leading optimates and their chief-ideologue, Cato, about matters of policy and principle that forced Caesar to seek support elsewhere: through his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, he reached the consulship of and a plum provincial command that was likely to offer opportunities for impressive military feats, perhaps even matching those of Pompey – but at the price of disastrous fights with his opponents and repeated disregard for constitutional rules that marred his entire consulship and made him vulnerable
On Caesar’s use of the reports of his legates, see Rambaud (, ch. ). Strasburger (, nd edn ); also Wiseman (, –). Gruen (), among others, disagrees. For a more detailed discussion with sources, see Raaflaub (a). Caesar’s goals in Gaul: Meier (, –, –); Walser (); Botermann ().
Caesar, Literature, and Politics
to later court action. As governor of Transalpine Gaul, Caesar eagerly seized the first opportunity to launch a war, without hesitation crossing the border of his province into independent Gaul, and went on to conquer it – for Rome but without senate authorization, thus again violating legal restrictions. From the moment Caesar left Rome, he was thus forced to organize his defenses. He needed to justify his actions in Gaul to forestall any legal action upon his return: this he de facto accomplished thanks to his success, recognized by the senate in when it decreed an exceptionally long thanksgiving period for his victories (BG .) and in when it authorized public funding for the legions Caesar had raised on his own (Cic. Fam. ..) – thus giving “full legal validity” to “all Caesar’s actions in Gaul since .” Moreover, he had to protect himself against his enemies’ threats to prosecute him for legal offenses during his consulship, and to prepare his return to Roman politics against their foreseeable opposition. This he achieved in a first step by renewing his alliance with Pompey and Crassus in , who as consuls passed a bill in to extend his proconsulship by another five years for a total of ten (the interval required between consulships). In a second step, he planned to run for a second consulship in absentia and thus to maintain immunity through his year of office, which would allow him to take care of all remaining problems. This effort started well when in with Pompey’s support all ten tribunes passed a bill allowing Caesar to run in absentia, but it failed when his enemies succeeded in pulling Pompey to their side. Caesar must thus have launched a propaganda campaign from the very beginning of his operations in Gaul: through individual letters to leading personalities and by exerting pressure on some of them (such as Cicero), seconded by letters of his associates (as attested in Cicero’s correspondence), through building projects and other acts of generosity benefitting the urban population in Rome, through financial “support” of important politicians “in need,” through dispatches to the senate – and through his Commentarii. Whether these were published annually or in one set late in Caesar’s proconsulship is debated. Each essentially covered one campaigning season
For details, Gelzer (, ch. ); Meier (, ch. ); Jehne (). Gelzer (, –). Thanksgiving: repeated in (.) and (.). Caesar’s levies: ..; ... Gelzer (, – with sources). For detailed discussion, see Raaflaub (, pt. I and –). For details and references, see Krebs – in this volume.
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(except for the eighth, for which Hirtius, completing the series, apologizes explicitly: BG ..–). Although some scholars believe that these books, “however they were written, were . . . finished off as a unitary narrative,” numerous reasons speak for annual publication: indeed, given his situation, Caesar had compelling reasons not to wait till the end. Furthermore, pursuing the connection between Caesar’s literary and political projects suggested above concerning De Analogia, it seems highly plausible to see these Commentarii also as an expression of Caesar’s own need: to understand, structure, conceptualize, and contextualize his war efforts and to create an increasingly clear and compelling vision that turned multiple stories of scattered campaigns into a coherent narrative of transforming a vast conquered barbarian territory into a civilized province of the Roman empire. The civil war allowed no winter breaks and no leisure time. Caesar had made intense and good-faith efforts to avoid this war and, when these failed, tried everything he could to end it as quickly as possible – to no avail. In this case, efforts at damage control and winning the public relations battle were even more urgent and began immediately. Almost daily comments in Cicero’s correspondence illuminate these activities that comprised letter campaigns, reliance on personal contacts, diplomatic efforts to restart peace negotiations, and a refined political strategy appealing to those who wanted to remain neutral. These policies had a sensational impact when Caesar demonstrated unexpected generosity toward those opponents who fell into his hands at Corfinium, and made leniency his principle. In this political battle too, Caesar’s Commentarii were intended to play a crucial role. Their composition, completeness, and publication are also intensely debated. Hirtius indicates that the Civil War was incomplete. Who completed it and how the extant work can be reconciled with Hirtius’ words remains a puzzle. Most likely, though, Caesar wrote his
BG (events of ) contains another anomaly: its beginning (.–) covers the unsuccessful campaign of Servius Galba in the Rhone Valley, dating to late . This may be owed to artistic and political reasons, which, as Klotz (, ) points out, demanded that book end with the glorious Gallia pacata and thanksgiving celebration (.), not with a setback. On the other hand, the setback occurred after Caesar’s campaigns of that year and his departure to northern Italy (..), and thus possibly after the dispatch of his annual report (..). Kraus (, – (quote: and the bibliography in n. )); recently: Wiseman (); Welch (). Krebs (a) provides additional arguments for serial composition. See recently Osgood () and this chapter’s last section. Raaflaub (, pts. , ). BC .–; Cic. Att. . vs. ..; .C; Raaflaub (, pt. ); Grillo (, ch. ). Summarized in Raaflaub (, –). See Gaertner – in this volume.
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three books soon after the events, two covering the year (the first his own actions, the second essentially those of his legates), the third the events of , culminating in (but not ending with) the victory at Pharsalus and Pompey’s death in Egypt. Segments of the Alexandrian War seem close to Caesar’s narrative style, suggesting that the author knew Caesar’s drafts and, therefore, that Caesar intended to write a commentarius on this war too. His obvious effort to enhance his public image and emphasize his Republican convictions, the justice of his cause, and his care for the Roman state and citizens make it likely that he intended to publish the work, perhaps upon his return to Rome from the East. Although some scholars still think it was indeed published at that time, enough reasons, including Cicero’s failure to acknowledge it, argue against it. Probably Caesar ultimately decided against publication because political conditions – and perhaps his thinking – had changed, and conditions in Rome and the prospect of a new civil war may have discouraged him from continuing his Republican goodwill campaign. The circumstances in which Caesar wrote all his commentarii must thus have urged him to address a broad public that comprised all those whose opinion mattered and who were not a priori against him. He had always sought support outside the senate, and his policies had long envisaged what we might call “a grand coalition of true Romans” that encompassed the majority of senators (beyond the dominant faction of his enemies), the equestrians, the elites in the townships of Italy and Roman provincial municipalities, and the middle and upper officer corps in the armies. Other large audiences included the urban populations of Rome and Italy – who heard about Caesar’s deeds and arguments by word of mouth, in contiones, and through soldiers’ letters to their families – and the soldiers who had witnessed or heard about them. In both cases, knowledge may also have been disseminated through public readings of the Commentarii. I suggest it is this coalition – partly real and visible in the Civil War’s narrative, partly ideal, to be confirmed or won over – that Caesar addressed in his Commentarii. For this broad and diverse audience it was crucial that Caesar had the gift to write with simple but “consummate elegance” and that he “also knew to convey his intentions most exactly” (Hirt. BG praef. ).
Hirtius, BG praef. . Boatwright (); Jehne (); Batstone and Damon (, –, ); Grillo (, –). Alexandrian War: Gaertner and Hausburg (). On the question of the numbers of books initially intended, see Grillo (, –). Not to speak of posterity: Cic. Marc. . “Grand coalition:” below nn. –. As argued by Wiseman (). See also Rüpke ().
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To this audience Caesar needed to portray himself not only as a great general and achiever but also, in contrast to his irreconcilable opponents, as a supreme statesman and leader who was capable of rising above the parties, who endorsed principles needed to overcome the crisis of polarization, who was able to achieve what needed to be done, and whose actions were always determined by the interests of the res publica, its citizens, and all those affiliated with it. Caesar’s self-portrait needed not only to be compelling but also appealing to his readers as a means to identify with him. Roman history was “exemplary,” offering models to imitate and to avoid. It was thus not far-fetched, even for an author of commentarii, to transcend justification and glorification by emphasizing in his self-portrait generally valid traits that inspired identification and imitation. What, then, does Caesar’s self-portrait reveal about his views of what a Roman ideally was and what a Roman leader should strive to be?
Caesar’s Self-portrait as a Perfect Roman Two episodes take us to the heart of the issue. In one, Vercingetorix and his army in Alesia are starving and desperate. In the war council, Critognatus blasts the Romans: “What do they want, except to settle in the fields and cities of the Gauls and bind the people in slavery forever? . . . They have never waged war for any other reasons than these . . . [L]ook at our neighbor ‘Gaul,’ which has been reduced to a province, had its rights and laws transformed, been made subject to their government, and is oppressed by perpetual slavery” (BG ..–). Although elsewhere, too, Caesar mentions the Gauls’ intense desire to preserve their ancestral freedom, this speech goes farther: it reminds us of that of Calgacus, leader of the last free Britons, who in Tacitus’ Agricola describes the Romans as robbers of freedom and “pillagers of the world” (). Tacitus likes to use hostile but virtuous “others” to criticize the Romans. This is hardly Caesar’s intention. Unlike Tacitus’ Calgacus, Caesar’s Critognatus is ruthlessly brutal, and his Gauls are no shining paragons of virtue. Hence Caesar’ purpose must be different. It is, I suggest, to endorse the Roman imperial mission we know best from Vergil’s famous lines:
Livy pref. –. Exemplary history: above n.; Mehl (). Lausberg () shows how Tacitus in turn uses Caesar as an exemplum to shape his biography of Agricola. BG ..; ..; .; ..; ..; see Seager (, –). See Barlow for how Caesar undercuts the credibility of Gallic proclamations of liberty.
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You, Roman, remember to rule the peoples with your command (imperium) – these will be your skills – to impose civilization (morem) on peace, to spare the subjected and to fight down the arrogant. (Aen. .–)
In contrast to the motto, si vis pacem para bellum, “if you want peace prepare for war,” the Roman principle was first to subject the enemy and then to enjoy peace. Caesar presents himself as doing just that: although Roman imperial control requires the suppression of other peoples’ liberty, this is amply justified by the resulting peace, stability, and order. Most Romans would have agreed. Cicero, hardly a warmonger, emphasizes the parallel between Caesar’s achievement in the North and that of Pompey in the East where all peoples have been weakened so gravely that they hardly exist anymore, and pacified so completely that they rejoice about Roman rule (Prov. Cons. , ). In the other episode, Caesar faced an enemy army that held a much superior position. His soldiers still wanted to fight. But Caesar refused, explaining to them the heavy losses the victory would cost: “he would be judged guilty of the most terrible injustice if he did not place a higher value on their lives than on doing well for himself” (BG ..–). Similarly, in Spain in Caesar had cornered and demoralized the enemy troops and cut them off from supplies and water. “This offered an opportunity to do things well!” Although urged by his army to attack, he refused: “Why should he consent to lose any of his men, even in a successful battle? . . . He was also moved by pity for his fellow citizens on the other side, for he knew that . . . they would be slaughtered. He preferred to achieve his objective while leaving them safe and unhurt” (BC .., .–). Against the soldiers’ frustrated threats, Caesar persisted – and was soon vindicated, when the enemy capitulated and his clemency earned the approval of both sides (..). Here, in a civil war, Caesar tries to save citizen lives on both sides – a recurring motif. True, clemency is part of his carefully calculated political strategy, but in the Gallic War too he usually applies the principle of pardon after the first submission – so that the Gauls themselves count on his clemency. For violations of sworn agreements, however, punishment
This motto originated in political debates of late nineteenth-century Germany: see Wölfflin () and, for further discussion, Linderski (b); Welwei (). For Tacitus’ further development of this argument (and for differences), see Lausberg (). Although the formula rem bene gerere usually simply means “to be successful, gain victory,” a literal translation better brings out what Caesar means here. Usual clemency: e.g., BG ., . Caesar’s political strategy in the civil war: Raaflaub (, pt. ); clemency: Raaflaub (, –). Caesar’s clementia: Dahlmann (); Weinstock (, –); Alföldi (: ch. ); Griffin (); Grillo (, –).
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is brutal, not least for the sake of deterrence. Remarkable here is not the cruelty – common in the history of Roman warfare – but the frequent effort to avoid it. By contrast, leniency and moderation are unknown to barbarians and to Caesar’s opponents in the civil war, who mercilessly execute Caesar’s soldiers they capture, often breaking earlier assurances. Caesar’s self-portrait as a general is well-known: his determined pursuit of victory and his ability, with few exceptions, to avoid major disasters and turn even great challenges into triumphs; the speed (celeritas) of his movements and decisions and his unrelenting persistence that baffled his opponents’ best efforts; his iron will and focus; his personal courage and willingness to incur risks if it was needed to achieve success; his circumspection, inventiveness, and ability to “think outside the box”; his comprehensive understanding of the conditions in which he fought; his versatility and mastery of all aspects of military science; his ability to lead and inspire, his care for his soldiers and officers, while demanding highest levels of performance; his magnanimity in acknowledging their efforts and achievements, and his generosity in rewarding them; and the natural authority with which he quelled rare instances of dissatisfaction or panic. Caesar’s self-portrait as a statesman is equally impressive. Justifying his involvement in Gaul, outside his province – politically and legally not without problems – Caesar emphasizes that he was motivated entirely by his responsibility as a provincial governor to protect his province and Roman “friends” and allies – particularly upon the latter’s request – and by his desire to avenge past injury and restore Roman (and personal) honor. More broadly, Caesar’s actions in free Gaul stabilize a troublesome border area and thus serve Roman security needs. Hostilities among Gallic tribes that subsequently threaten such stability are interpreted as rebellions against an order established in Rome’s and its allies’ interest (e.g., BG .). Their repression – and Caesar’s involvement in an ever larger area outside of his province – are thus necessary to protect this order. Caesar and his subcommanders always do what is needed “in the interest of the res publica.”
Punishment of treacherous Gauls: e.g., BG .–; .. On the impact of Caesar’s conquest in human and economic terms: Will (, esp. –). E.g. BG .–; cruelty of Caesar’s opponents: e.g., BC ., , with Grillo (, –). Goldsworthy (); de Blois (); Rosenstein (). The Bellum Africum, probably written by an officer, offers most valuable insights about the psychology of Caesar’s leadership and how he was seen by his troops. BG ., –, , –, , , ; Seager (, –).
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Caesar constantly thinks and acts as a representative of the Roman state and people. As such one does and does not do certain things. As Quintus Cicero says to rebel leaders, “it was not the custom of the Roman people to accept terms from an armed enemy.” If they disarmed and sent envoys to Caesar to submit, he, Cicero, would support their petition and Caesar hopefully would grant it (BG ..–; cf. .). While Titurius Sabinus follows treacherous enemy advice and is massacred with all his troops, Cicero and his men fight heroically and are saved by Caesar’s determined intervention (.–). Romans display courage, discipline, and constancy; they never give up and always abide by agreements and oaths – traits the barbarians lack: they are treacherous, making and breaking agreements at will, bold and courageous but foolhardy, fickle without discipline and persistence, arrogant and boastful but easily discouraged. These patterns, based on prejudice and experience, have an ulterior purpose – to show Caesar systematically replacing a world of barbarian chaos with Roman order, until we see him holding court in Bibracte, as if Gallia Comata were already a Roman province (BG .). Conversely, praise of Gallic bravery serves to enhance Caesar’s and his army’s achievement: easy victories offer little cause for glory. As governor, Caesar is especially obliged to protect Roman citizens. Hence violence done to his emissaries or the murder of Italian merchants suffice as causes for war and brutal punishment, and the safety of his soldiers is a constant concern (BG .–; .). In the BC all this receives additional clarification. Caesar insists that he is fighting not against state, senate, or Roman people but only against a small faction of personal enemies who want to destroy him. He thus speaks of “disagreement among citizens” rather than “civil war,” continuously seeks compromise and peace, explicitly excludes from the conflict those in the middle who wish to remain neutral, and treats opponents he captures with clemency, thus consistently demonstrating his statesman-like qualities. His opponents use an opposite strategy and often behave like barbarians, not Romans. In forcing the war, they use oppressive and despicable political methods, allowing Caesar to present himself as advocate of the senate’s and people’s liberty and thus to refute long-standing
On Caesar’s portrait of the Gauls as warriors: Rawlings (). The Alexandrian War offers further rich evidence on the common negative portrait of non-Roman enemies. On political strategies in the civil war: Raaflaub (: pt. ), summarized briefly in Raaflaub (, –). Ibid.; Grillo (, –).
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denunciations of himself as a threat to the state’s liberty. An exclusive minority, his opponents pursue divisive policies and fight for the state in word, but in fact for personal enmities, privileges, and power, demonstrating blatantly un-Roman attitudes (e.g., BC .; .–, ). In contrast, Caesar claims the support of the majority of the senate and Roman people (BC .., .., ..; cf. Hirtius, BG ..) as well as the Italian municipalities – a vote of Italy in Caesar’s favor that prompts provincial towns too to join his side (BC .–, , .; .–; ., –, –). This majority also includes the citizens in Rome’s armies: those of his opponents who owe their lives to his clemency and, unlike their stubborn leaders, happily leave the war behind (e.g., BC ., ), and Caesar’s own, condemned as outcasts, who need to fight with him to regain their citizenship (.). They all do their duty (officium) in saving citizens’ lives; only the enemy generals brutally suppress peace (BC ..–; .). Caesar addresses them as citizens in explaining the justice of his cause and his efforts to preserve and restore peace (., ; .). He is thus a leader who unites citizens of all classes and represents their true interests. Certainly, all this is tainted by Caesar’s partisan interests. A corresponding report from the opposite side would have sounded very different. It is easy to be charmed by Caesar – a trap to be avoided – but just as easy to discard as mere propaganda what we just extracted from Caesar’s works. His vision of a grand coalition of true Romans recalls the comprehensive reform programs of Gaius Gracchus and Livius Drusus, involving all classes of Roman citizens. In , Caesar used inclusive procedures to make an urgent agrarian law acceptable, and resorted to radical methods only when his opponents categorically refused even to consider it. In the spring of , Caesar urged the senators to join him in taking responsibility for the state’s government and to resume peace negotiations. His aim, he says, was to outdo others in justice and equity, just as he previously surpassed them in achievement. This effort failed because the senators feared Pompey’s threats – and presumably disliked Caesar’s announcement that, if necessary, he would do alone what needed to be done. Caesar’s plans, like those of all other leaders, always served his own interests, but they also contained the potential to overcome the stalemate that paralyzed the state. Unfortunately, in and , when he had a
Liberty: Raaflaub (). See also Cic. Lig. .; Lucan .–; Raaflaub (, n.). Raaflaub (a), (b); Grillo (, –). : Dio Cass. ..–. : BC .–.
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chance to realize his ideas, he was frustrated too quickly: for the doer he was, used by ten years of war to trust himself and decide on his own, the painstaking rituals of Roman senatorial politics proved unmanageable. Hence his increasingly authoritarian thinking that perhaps eventually aimed at some kind of a monarchy. Still, this was only the end. Even if we can find severe faults in what Caesar writes, the literary self-portrait he sketches in the Commentarii, despite their immediate political purpose, contains important elements of how he conceived of an exemplary Roman leader. Here Caesar’s works offer important insights into central aspects of Roman thinking and politics. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H Recent biographies transcend traditional fact- and source-based descriptions of Caesar’s life (as in the exemplary and still indispensable Gelzer ) and place it in the broad context not only of Roman political but also social, constitutional, military, and cultural history (Meier ; Goldsworthy ). Rawson and Conte b discuss Caesar’s works in the framework of late Republican literature; they and Kennedy () illuminate his rhetorical brilliance. Thanks to Garcea () we now have a detailed study of his De Analogia. The literary art of the Civil War has been highlighted recently in two excellent studies by Batstone and Damon () and by Grillo (); strong foundations for a similar reassessment of the Gallic War have been laid, for example, by Riggsby () and Osgood (). Collected volumes (Welch and Powell , Griffin , as well as the present volume, among several others) contribute a broad range of valuable insights, and numerous appendices in the forthcoming Landmark Julius Caesar (Raaflaub ) add further suggestions. It is to be hoped that the latter work will represent a “landmark” in bringing Caesar’s Commentarii to the attention of a broad readership. From the perspective of the present chapter, several issues are crying out for comprehensive new treatment. The most important is the literary art of the BG, especially in view of recent important progress achieved in reassessing the BC. This needs to be done in connection with several major problems that concern both works. Although there is no lack of brief discussions, especially of individual aspects, the last systematic treatments of these problems were written a long time ago and on the basis of premises that have long been outdated (outstanding examples are Barwick and Rambaud on historical distortion in Caesar’s reporting). These problems thus require renewed systematic attention aided by new approaches and modern perspectives. One is the issue of the nature and purpose of Caesar’s Commentarii (including a re-examination of “Caesar the
See Gelzer (, ch. ); Meier (, ch. ); also Jehne (), (); Urso ().
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historian,” on which now see Krebs ()), another the question of the production, publication, and intended readership of the Commentarii, yet another that of propaganda, ideology, and accuracy. Finally, the self-portrait sketched by Caesar (and complemented by the portraits drawn by the authors of the later Wars) throws important light on Caesar the leader, politician, and statesman. What I said on this in the present chapter and in Raaflaub (a and b) seems to me only a beginning.
More Than Words. The Commentarii in their Propagandistic Context Christopher B. Krebs
The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine. Edward Bernays, Propaganda ().
In its checkered history, “propaganda” changed from its original association with “true faith” to “deceit” and became equated with the dissemination of party ideology through mass media, especially in the Third Reich. This would seem an incongruous concept to apply to the first century ; and yet, it was precisely the developments in Italy and Germany in the s that heightened classicists’ attention to the Roman analogue. Most consequentially, Sir Ronald Syme detailed, in consciously anachronistic fashion, the “organization of opinion” under Augustus through literature, spectacles, minting, and architecture, summarily styled “methods of suggestion and propaganda.” Studies of propaganda in ancient Rome subsequently flourished, while critics queried whether the concept fit ancient conditions. Caesar’s double part as a(u)ctor has always caused concern about the accuracy of his Commentarii; such may be traced back to Asinius Pollio (Suet. Iul. ). It is telling, though, that nineteenth-century studies address “fides” and “Glaubwürdigkeit” for the most part – as Rice Holmes’ title “The credibility of Caesar’s narrative” indirectly attests – whereas “propaganda” preponderates in the following century, as may, in turn, be gleaned from Collins’ examination of “Caesar as political propagandist.” Under these and related headings, scholars have discussed I owe thanks to the following friends for comments on an earlier draft: Fabio Berry, Luca Grillo, Christina S. Kraus, Bob Morstein-Marx, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, and Jennifer Trimble. See OED, s.v. , . Weber and Zimmermann (, –) discuss the term in relation to classics. Syme (, –); his “political catchwords” pertain too (–, with Yavetz , –). For the parallels between Augustus, Mussolini, and Hitler: Momigliano (orig. ), . As the bibliography in Schanz (, ) and a search of L’année philologique reveal. Ritter (, –) documents a similar terminological shift in numismatics. For Rice Holmes, see Rice Holmes (, nd edn), .
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whether the Commentarii actually were propaganda, to what extent and in what ways their factuality was tampered with, and what their respective messages were. Majorities have formed around the views that they cannot be deemed “non-political,” and that, while they contain few instances of blatant misrepresentation (and the BG seemingly fewer even than the BC), overall their author prefers skewing to lying. As for the third question, there is common agreement that the BG largely advertises Caesar as a capable general who fights to free Rome from its metus Gallicus, “fear of the Gaul,” in a campaign escalating out of necessity more than sheer imperialistic expansionism; the BC, on the other hand, first and foremost addresses the responsibility for the civil war, representing Caesar as a peace-seeking “loyal son of the Republic” coerced into conflict by a selfserving few. Caesar’s rhetorical realization of his propagandistic aims, often discussed as Tendenz (see introduction –), has received particular attention: how, say, through narrative juxtaposition of events and linguistic links, he emerges as the speedster nonpareil; how his representations of space support his strategic decisions; or how, by evoking barbaric commonplaces, he demeans his Pompeian opponents. This intense scrutiny may be a legacy of Rambaud’s L’art de la déformation historique (), which, with its pervasive deconstruction of Caesar’s rhetorical rather than realistic accounts, provided the perspective for many (while persuasive in toto to few). Meanwhile, other questions germane to the propagandistic effect of the Commentarii – concerning their composition and publication, their authorship and audience, and, above all, their interaction with other media – have received less systematic attention. Finally, while skeptics have occasionally doubted the relevance of a twentieth-century concept to Caesar’s case, in general, “propaganda” has been used uncritically. The term is here understood “as the deliberate attempt by some individual or group to form, control, or alter the attitudes of other groups by the use of the instruments of communication, with the intention that in
As suggested by DeWitt (); more recently Lieberg (, with Hall ). Many great scholars of Caesar have been too generous with the benefit of the doubt. “Seemingly” in so far as we lack independent testimony for most events in the BG. Rambaud () and Walser () stand out as most skeptical; Opperman () takes issue with them. Collins (, ). Grillo (, –), Krebs (), Rossi (). Many more could be mentioned. Huber () partly anticipated Rambaud, Barwick () and Stevens () coincided with him; for reviews, discussion, and influence of his book see Collins (, –) and n.. Gelzer (, n.), however, considered this “fundamentally wrong,” “grundverkehrt” (but see n. ). Riggsby (, –) has a nuanced discussion.
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any given situation the reaction of those so influenced will be that desired by the propagandist.” The following pages will () discuss generally the various “ways to communicate with Rome” at Caesar’s disposal, () highlight “recurrent themes within and without the Commentarii” with particular attention to the latter’s interaction with other media and their expression of Caesar’s “popular” sympathies, and () end with thoughts on their production and reception.
Presence in Absence: Caesar’s Ways to Communicate with Rome Before Cicero left Rome for Cilicia, he made his protégé M. Caelius Rufus promise to keep him posted on res urbanae, “Roman affairs” (Fam. .., .). Such reports were common: the triumvir Crassus, campaigning in Syria, depended on them, as did Cicero’s brother Quintus when stationed in Gaul (Cic. Fam. .., QFr. ..). Equally important was the dissemination of news from abroad in the capital, as Cicero learned when faced with Roman ignorance of his Sicilian accomplishments (Planc. ). Politics was made in Rome, and politicians abroad had to ensure information and influence. Caesar knew this all too well when he departed, in March , amidst efforts to repeal his consular legislation. In he had been allotted Cisalpine Gaul (and Illirycum) for five years through the lex Vatinia, which circumvented the senate and was ratified by the populus Romanus instead. His opponents vowed to bring him down. Later on they incriminated him for waging war unnecessarily (Cic. Brut. , Suet. Iul. ., Dio Cass. ..) and for slaughtering Germanic tribes illegally (BG ., Plut. Cat. Min. .); they threatened abrogation (Suet. Iul. .), agitated Rome by hostile rumors and, especially during the civil war, spread their own propaganda. It was imperative that Caesar check this opposition and secure his base; this required that he remain present in Rome during his absence. He had five ways to do so.
Qualter (, ). See Wells (, –) for evidence of this attitude. Cicero’s later efforts to spread news about his accomplishments in Cilicia (e.g., Fam. .) show that he learned that lesson. Suet. Iul. .. See Badian (), discussing Gruen (), for these legal proceedings. Cic. Fam. .., Caes. BC ., res publica below, n. , and Cass. Dio . for an anti-Caesarian account of his “conquest” of Britain. For a general discussion of these ways, see Kolb (). Caesar was, of course, not the first one to avail himself of these media (cf. Riggsby , –); he may, however, have been unprecedented in the amplitude and consistency of his message (see also n. ).
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First, in unison with Pompey and Crassus, Caesar ensured whenever possible the election of loyalists into office (frequently by dispatching legionaries on furlough to rig the vote in Rome) to forestall or further legislation. These men in office were joined by others in deputation, often of equestrian rank, amongst whom L. Cornelius Balbus and G. Oppius held primary positions. There were also spokesmen enlisted on occasion, none more eminent than Cicero: his oratorical support benefitted Caesar repeatedly, as in the summer of when he advocated the prolongation of his command (Prov. Cons.). Caesar’s proximity to Rome during most proconsular winters facilitated personal encounters with these and other men (cf. BG .., Cic. Sest. , Plut. Caes. ., Dio Cass. ..). With supporters and opponents alike Caesar stayed in touch through prolific correspondence. From Rome he received detailed reports on “everything, big or small” (Cic. QFr. ..), which, along with other documents, reached him in Gaul and Britain by courier-service. At the other end, in Gaul, he maintained a chancellery, headed by the father of the historian Pompeius Trogus and, later, by Aulus Hirtius. Its responsibilities included communication among Caesar’s far-flung troops, diplomacy, legislation in the Gallic territories, and communiqués to Rome. The last-mentioned made Cicero’s ears ring with foreign names (Prov. Cons. ) and their effect on the audience may be surmised from Pompey’s effort to delay their reading for fear that his achievements be eclipsed further (Dio Cass. ..). They included the legally required annual report by any governor to the senate, there read out loud during session (Cic. Fam. ..); in Caesar’s case, these epistulae ad senatum were innovative in form (Suet. Iul. .), and a connection between them and the books of the BG has been assumed. Later on, in the lead-up to the civil war, letters to the senate served to state Caesar’s case (BC .., cf. Cic. Fam. ..), letters sent all over Italy challenged Pompey to a peaceful solution (Dio Cass. ..), and a “chain letter” declaring Caesar’s policy of clemency was sent to Oppius, Balbus, Cicero, Atticus, and who knows who else (Cic. Att. .C). Aside from the Roman elite, there was, of course, the wider populus Romanus, all the more important for its tried and
See Suet. Iul. on propugnaturos, Plut. Pomp. . and Dio Cass. .. on vote-rigging. See Wistrand (, ) for a telling episode involving Balbus and C. Scribonius Curio. For the courier-service, see Maier (, –). Ariovistus’ claim (BG .) is interesting, as it would seem to suggest that he, too, received communications from Rome. Just. Epit. ... On the chancellery: Malitz (b), on Caesar’s communication in Gaul: Osgood (). See Morello – in this volume for discussion of Suet. See Liv. .. and Cic. Pis. on the tradition, Norden (, –) and Rambaud (, esp. –, –) for discussion of the commentarii in relation to the epistulae.
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tested advancement of Caesar’s career. Letters were read out loud to it too by such allies as P. Clodius Pulcher in (Cic. Dom. ), Pompey in (Dio Cass. ..), and, “in defiance of the senate,” Mark Antony in the prelude to the civil war (Plut. Pomp. ., Caes. .–). In all likelihood, the annual report to the senate was also read to the people at a contio, “a public meeting,” once a supplicatio, “a public thanksgiving,” was granted. The courier-service also allowed Caesar to stay involved with Rome’s literary culture, the third conduit of influence. His own publications, most significantly De Analogia in and the BG, reached Rome that way. He went farther, however, and tried his hand at censorship, encouragement, and “the organization of opinion.” His displeasure at Catullus’ iambics prompted the latter’s apology, and he alarmed the wayward C. Licinius Calvus but then reached out by writing to him first. The circumstances of “l’affaire Labérius” and of the eavesdropping on Cicero (Fam. ..–) remain murky; but clearly, they approximated censorship. Other, maybe lesser, critics he seems to have ignored. Meanwhile, Caesar may also have promoted literary production, such as Varro Atacinus’ hexametric Bellum Sequanicum, a mostly lost epic written on the war against Ariovistus some time after . Did the poet, quite possibly still living in his native Gaul, use (a version of) BG provided by Caesar? A connection would seem likely, as would a panegyrical tendency. Slightly later, what were the circumstances of Catullus , which, in (or ), eulogized the recent feats of Caesar Magnus? If nothing else, it reflects the explorer and conqueror as advertised by the BG. Roughly concomitantly, though we hear little about Cicero’s epic on the invasion of Britain, we may surmise from his correspondence that Caesar was eager (QFr. .., ..); and their relationship at the time and Cicero’s occasional remark (QFr. ..) leave little doubt about its overall tone. As such, it could have helped
See Raaflaub – in this volume with further literature and Marshall (). Halkin (, –). On the contio: Morstein-Marx (, –). See Williams (, –) on Caesar’s patronage, and Raaflaub – in this volume for Caesar’s literary output while abroad. Catull. .; cf. Suet. Iul. . On Catullus’ politics, see Deroux () and Syndikus (, –), on “César et Catulle” in particular, Rambaud (), though few accept all his conjectures. Hamblenne (, –). Cf. Suet. Iul. , . and Tac. Ann. ... See Courtney (, –, esp. ) for the two fragments of the Bellum. See Krebs (). Catull. .– may allude to Bibaculus’ Annales: Hollis (, ). See Allen (), though partly imprecise, on Cicero’s correspondence about the epic(s). Quintus also contemplated one, but Courtney doubts his sincerity (, ); even Cicero’s may not have circulated, in fact. Cicero may have tried to ingratiate himself with Caesar before: see Benario () on his Marius.
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counter some of the political criticism Caesar’s expedition had earned in Rome (see above, p. ). Similarly elusive are the content and circumstances of L. Aurunculeius Cotta’s treatment of said expedition in his treatise On the Roman Constitution (Athen. .) and of an epic on the Gallic war in at least eleven books by M. Furius Bibaculus, a Cisalpine Gaul born at Cremona. The latter’s frg. rumoresque serunt varios et multa requirunt, “they spread various rumors and ask around a lot,” is close enough to BG .. addunt ipsi et adfingunt rumoribus Galli, “the Gauls themselves imaginatively added (to this account) with rumors,” to provoke wonder about the two works’ relationship. What, then, about Caesar’s broadcasting of his clementia in all media and Publilius Syrus’ sententiae addressing the same virtue (e.g. Sent. )? Or the latter’s quip that loco ignominiae est apud indignum dignitas, “unmerited glory is tantamount to shame” (Sent. ), which, while expressing a commonplace, could not fail to reverberate with Caesar’s oft-repeated justification of his march on Rome, viz. the protection of his dignitas? True, he, the author of mimes, also composed lines easily construed as anti-Caesarian; but Caesar may have had other than purely aesthetic reasons for his patronage (Macrob. Sat. ..). And how, one may continue to wonder, did the Anti-Catones by Caesar and Hirtius relate to the BC? Last but certainly not least, eulogies embedded in Cicero’s willy-nilly oratory on behalf of the triumvirate, such as his forceful plea to extend Caesar’s command (Prov. Cons.) with its repeated references to the latter’s dignitas or his expatiation on “Caesar’s many great virtues” (Rab. Post. ), often echo Caesarian propaganda. From all this, mostly fragmentary, evidence Caesar emerges as someone who “deliberately gathered the most distinguished writers of his time . . . to foster a climate of opinion that would benefit him politically” (much in the same way, one may add, as Augustus would). The Commentarii played an integral part in this effort. It was also Cicero, or so he claims, who secured Caesar his first supplicatio, a sought-after public celebration (cf. Cic. Prov. Cons. )
See Courtney (, –, esp. –) on the Annales Belli Gallici. Hollis (, ) cites “several passages from Caesar, but the parallels are all very speculative and may be illusory.” Hamblenne’s contextualization of the sententiae (, –) deters any simplistic reading of them as straightforward propaganda. See also Cic. Att. ..– with Shackleton Bailey (–). Siani-Davies (, n.) provides a list of Cicero’s triumviral efforts. The following quotation: Williams (, ). I omit here discussion of Cornelius Gallus’ panegyric passage, on which see Anderson, Parsons, and Nisbet ().
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and, as such, exemplary of the fourth medium of communication, viz. spectacles. To obtain one for himself in recognition of his victory in Cilicia, Cicero conducted an all-out epistolary campaign, and it seems safe to assume that Caesar, whose three supplicationes during the Gallic war pursuant on the campaigns in , , and were of unprecedented length (BG ., ., .), had similarly cued in the senators before his official report was read, and, quite possibly, the people too, if Plutarch’s report merits credence that Cato’s proposal to hand Caesar over to the Germanic tribes rather than honor him with a supplicatio foundered in the face of the people (Comp. Nic. et Crass. ). The supplicatio allowed for varied self-advertisement: the communiqué was read to the populus, the senatus consultum that decreed it was published and included in the acta, and, during the celebration, families in fine attire were invited to visit the temples. Other spectacles, including an unprecedented commemoration of his late daughter and the fourfold triumph in , when historical paintings represented the battles the Commentarii had narrated, were welcome propagandistic opportunities too. Caesar had a history as an organizer of spectacular events, financed with enormous debts, which some thought foolish, but not so Plutarch who saw that by such means Caesar purchased “great things cheaply” (Caes. .). The Gallic conquest was celebrated on types of coins as well, such as the series of denarii, minted by the Caesarian L. Hostilius Saserna in , which depicted a Gaul along with symbols of Roman victory (RRC ). Coinage, along with gem portraits, statuary, paintings, and monuments, form the fifth group of media, summarily styled “imagery.” The propagation of Caesar’s clemency may briefly exemplify its usage: Clementia Caesaris graced a denarius minted in (RRC .), which also displayed, in all likelihood, the temple to the Clementia Caesaris, decreed in . The complex was intended to feature a statue of the goddess holding hands with her devotee.
On Cicero’s claim: Grillo (, ); on the supplicatio: Halkin (, esp. –) and Grillo (, –); on Cicero’s efforts: Halkin (, –) and Grillo (, –). The funerary games: Suet. Iul. .. Ancient testimonies to Caesar’s triumphs are listed in Zinserling (–, –). Holliday () discusses triumphal paintings. On Caesar’s Münzpropaganda see Morawiecki (, –, , –) and Mannsperger (). See Kolb (, esp. –). Vollenweider (, –) discusses a gem possibly cut during the Gallic war. Caesar likely was also the first to have his countenance engraved on coins in his lifetime – “a further monarchic privilege”; see RRC /– with Weinstock (, –). For evidence and bibliography: Grillo (, –). The temple may not have been completed.
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On Message: Recurrent Themes Within and Without the Commentarii The “chain letter” to Oppius in early March states the policy of clemency, which the BC demonstrates in action: from the fall of Corfinium when Caesar shields Pompeian leaders (..) to his victory at Pharsalus when he briefly mentions his clemency (de lenitate sua, ..), then salvages all and sundry – again and again, Caesar’s narrative parades him as merciful. Different in method but similar in effect, he took care to restore statues of Pompey and Sulla in the heart of Rome, which Plutarch was right in reading as another instance of clemency; then again, so was Cicero in shrewdly remarking that these statues were now Caesar’s (Caes. .; cf. Suet. Iul. ). Similarly, Caesar’s decision to have Ligarius tried in the Forum guaranteed a wider audience for his practice of clemency. While clementia moved to the fore of Caesarian propaganda because of political circumstances, it had already figured in the BG, where vanquished tribes appealed to sua (scil. Caesaris) clementia ac mansuetudo, “his customary clemency and leniency” (.., ., note the possessive pronoun; cf. ..). Clementia (while slightly various in significance) is a recurrent propagandistic theme; as such it is joined by Caesar’s descent from Venus, his dignitas, and his allegiance to the populus Romanus. Early in his career, when Caesar delivered the funerary oration for his aunt Julia, he proclaimed their joint descent from Venus (Suet. Iul. ); by thus emphasizing, indirectly, his dignitas generis, “excellence by birth,” he voiced his rightful claim to high office. Years later, when Pompey himself had laid claim to Venus on coins and with a temple in his theatre, the Venere prognatus, “offspring of Venus,” as Caesar may have called himself, advertised his divine ancestry heavily and variously. In the heat and aftermath of the civil war, Venus adorned coins as conqueror of Gaul, rang as Venus Victrix in the battle cry at Pharsalus, and inhabited as Venus Genetrix a temple consecrated in . Lastly, in arms she even sealed with wax countless Caesarian communications. All these invocations will have reminded Romans of Caesar’s dignitas generis. Reactions to this propagandistic theme can be found in letters and inscriptions; to which should
Zecchini (, –). For these different forms of clementia, see Grillo (, –). See Wistrand (, ) along with Hellegouarc’h (, –, esp. n. ) and Batstone (, –). Wiseman () discusses such “legendary genealogies.” Caelius speaks thus of him in (Cic. Fam. .. with Weinstock , n. ). RRC /–; App. B Civ. ., ; Dio Cass. .. and ... See Weinstock (, –, –).
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be added the polysemous praise of the commentarii as nudi, recti et venusti, “naked . . . straight and charming,” by Cicero (Brut. ), no stranger to jesting (Plut. Cic. .). Just as references to Venus serve as reminders of Caesar’s dignitas generis, so the BG, in accord with other media, illustrates the dignitas Caesar won in Gaul – Cicero’s De Provinciis Consularibus contains at least seven explicit references to it – for which, in the end, he marched on Rome. He declared so himself when he asked his troops at Ravenna to defend his existimationem dignitatemque (BC ..). Toward the end of the narrative this theme returns when, at Pharsalus, the centurion Crastinus exhorts Caesar’s men to recuperate their leader’s dignitas and their own libertas (..). Most other instances of dignitas cluster towards the beginning (.., ., .). But dignitas was also a catchword in communications with Rome, as some reactions reveal: a letter by Cicero from early January expresses incredulity over such calamitous developments for the sake of dignitas (Att. ..; cf. ..); elsewhere, in response to Caesar, he appears to resume the latter’s words when he speaks of himself as fautor dignitatis tuae, “a supporter of your claim to rank” (Att. .A.); and Pompey’s message, as reported in the BC, appears to rebound Caesar’s argument on him when he suggests (..) that he let go of his anger “for the sake of his dignity (dignitate).” Hirtius continued the mantra – five out of six mentions of dignitas pertain to Caesar – as did the other authors of the corpus; Cicero, as defense lawyer in the face of the autocrat, adapted it to his advantage. But just as clementia and Venus did not arise as catchwords suddenly in the late s, neither did dignitas. Caesar himself asserts that it “had always been his primary concern” (BC ..), and the BG not only accounts for this concern, it also makes it explicit once (.., quoted below). Yet it is once again Cicero who attests what must have been public knowledge of Caesar’s particular regard for dignitas by the mid-fifties; otherwise, his
Powell (, ). To this compare Cicero’s scornful comment in a letter that “this son of Venus (a Venere orti) lost his virginity in Bithynia” (apud Suet. Iul. .). The inscription: Inscr. It. ..; for the monument at Ephesus dedicated to “C. I. Caesar . . . descended from Ares and Aphrodite . . .” see Dittenberger, Syll. () . See Raaflaub (, –, esp. n. ) for evidence and discussion. But Morstein-Marx () is right to accentuate the social (over its individualistic) character of dignitas, on which in Cic. see Batstone (, –). Cicero similarly echoes Pompey’s invocations of the res publica: Wistrand (, –). Raaflaub (, –) provides the references. Sallust knew dignitas for what it was – an honestum nomen (cf. Cat. .), which Catiline himself could wield for advantage (.). Richter rightly notes (, n. ) the rarity of the term dignitas in BG in comparison to the authors of the corpus.
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threat to Vatinius in the spring of that he would “drag [him] out not from the dignity of an eminent man (ex amplissimi viri dignitate) but from [his] own obscurity” (Vat. ; cf. , ) would not have stung. There is, in fact, no reason to doubt that Caesar had emphasized his dignitas ever since the funerary oration (as suggested above) and therefore any mention of potential “ignominy” (as in BG ..) or the honorable standing enjoyed by certain Gallic tribes thanks to Caesar (as in BG ..) would have sufficed to remind the audience of Caesar’s dignitas. Therefore, to the few mentions of the term the invocations of the motif must be added. Crastinus’ exhortation is telling too for its mention of libertas. For Caesar knew to combine his abased dignitas with the libertas populi Romani, held hostage, purportedly, by the disregardful few (cf. BC ..). His sympathy for the populus Romanus, his being a man not of but for the people, was a central propagandistic theme throughout his career. Already in , commemorating his aunt Julia, widow of Marius, he had displayed the funeral masks of the Marii, father and son. Some clamored in objection; but “the people (ὁ δῆμος) shouted them down” (Plut. Caes. .). Both sides understood that these masks signaled “a specific program.” His restoration of Marius’ “statue and his statues of victory carrying trophies” (Plut. Caes. ., transl. by Pelling) a few years later “in the teeth of the opposition of the nobles” (Vell. Pat. ..) may have served the same purpose. He continued publicizing his allegiance, endorsing with borrowed money popular projects and staging spectacular games; in return, he could count “on the fickle people” (Cic. Phil. .) for his consular legislation and proconsular appointment. The BG bespeaks this allegiance too. On the one hand, Caesar mentions Marius in a speech addressed to his soldiers and alludes to Marius by evoking the pernicious pair he had defeated (.., ., ., ., .); Cicero, too, obliged by aligning Caesar publicly with Marius (Prov. Cons. ). On the other hand, in BG alone, populus Romanus makes fortysix appearances, senatus a mere eleven: its author remembered to whom he owed his appointment. References subsequently decline; but while the former frequents all books (except the third), totaling eighty instances,
For Cicero’s (implicit) critique of Caesar see Pocock (, –). On Caesar’s liberty propaganda see Raaflaub (, –), Morstein-Marx (, ). Flower (, ). Wistrand (, ) suggests that the gesture implied a call-up to Marius’ former clients. Morstein-Marx (, –) provides evidence for Marius’ “popular” appeal. Cf. Plut. Mar. . Καῖσαρ . . . ζηλώσας Μάριον, and Zecchini (, esp. ). See MP s.v. populus and senatus. For Caesar and the populus, see Ramage (), and for Roman politicians’ sense of debt, Morstein-Marx (, –).
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the latter is mostly passed over and counts a mere sixteen (one in BG , two in BG and ). This preponderance is no coincidence: it results from Caesar’s choice to name the populus Romanus where alternative nomenclature (or none) would have done, and to omit the senate unless necessary for a political function it exercised, as in amicus a senatu appellatus, “named ‘friend’ by the senate” (..). But even these lattermost are curtailed: in the three acknowledgments of the supplicatio, the senate as awarding body is owned once, omitted twice (.; ., .). Finally, their respective iuxta posita tell the same story. Those of the populus Romanus are generally flattering, as this selection reveals: mos et exemplum, tantum imperium, hospitium atque amicitia, auxilium, dignitas, fides, maiestas; senatus, however, receives none except for the occasional consilium or iudicium and once (but almost by proxy) beneficium ac liberalitas (..). Caesar’s treatments of the two bodies of political authority (cf. BC ..) contrast markedly. A particular instantiation of this allegiance appears in passages that present Caesar as acting in unison with the populus Romanus, as in the context of the bridging of the Rhine river to cross which by boat he did not deem in accord with “either his standing or the Roman people’s,” “neque suae neque populi Romani dignitatis” (..). As Batstone has shown, such an alignment had tradition; but their frequency as well as the opposition to the senate is significant in Caesar’s case. Most of them are made by the narrator and in the first book, especially in the confrontation with Ariovistus and maybe nowhere more tellingly than in Caesar’s castigation of the Germanic leader for the ingratitude shown “himself and the Roman people” for an honor decreed by the senate. Ariovistus, in turn, also identifies his opponent with the people he represents (aut Caesari aut omnino populo Romano, ..). Unsurprisingly, while Caesar identifies with the populus Romanus twelve times in BG and once in BG and , he aligns himself with the senate but thrice and nowhere other than in his role as consul and thus its highest-ranking member. The virtual exclusion of the senate as an institution in speeches at the contio, noted by MorsteinMarx, is an intriguing parallel. Furthermore, when Quintus Cicero negotiates with Ambiorix, the latter outlines his intentions in Ciceronem populumque Romanum, “with regard to Cicero and the Roman people,” only to hear the former refer solely to “the Roman people’s custom”
Batstone (, –). The first instance occurs at ... Caesar and Ariovistus: ..; cf. ., ., .. See Ramage (, esp. –) for other instances. Variations are used in .., .., ... .., ., .. The following: Morstein-Marx (, ).
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(..+). Only Caesar represents the Roman people, which is a message also implied by those many passages wherein Caesar speaks on its behalf (such as .), not to mention his co-optation of the language of the Roman state and the commentarius title and form, which contemporaries might easily have associated with government too. The BC – although the frequencies of populus and senatus therein are insignificant because of its content – bespeaks the very same allegiance. Caesar early on identifies with the Roman people when he states his intention to free “himself and them” (..) and resumes this connection towards the end when he expresses his belief that the Egyptian conflict matters ad populum Romanum et ad se, “to the Roman people and to himself” (..). Most important, he highlights that the people granted him the right to run for a second consulship in absentia but others then deprived him of this populi Romani beneficium (..). Beneficium, the standard term for an office or right granted by the will of the populus (TLL ..–), figures not only in his message to Pompey, which the BC summarizes, but also in his correspondence with Cicero, as the latter’s response seems to indicate (populi Romani beneficio, Att. .A.). It also seems to have been employed in the letter which was read to the senate but not included in the BC, if Suetonius is to be thus understood (“he implored the senate by letter not to deprive him of the privilege the people (beneficium populi) had granted,” Iul. .); and Caesar would not have been Caesar if he had not included this fact and phrasing in the letter Mark Antony read to the people (Plut. Pomp. .). In other areas Caesar highlighted his advocacy of the people as well. In he designed to renovate and redevelop the precincts for popular voting on the Campus Martius by building “covered marble booths for the Assembly of Tribes and . . . surround[ing] them with a high colonnade, a mile of it in all” (Cic. Att. .., transl. Shackleton Bailey). The Saepta Iulia, which, in conjunction with an expansion of the Forum Romanum, was his first major architectural project, marked in the heart of Rome his appreciation for the people’s participation in public business (and, as so often, the rivalry with Pompey, whose theatre was consecrated in , should be taken into account as well). Later on, though the details are murky, Caesar’s temple to Venus Genetrix made the same point: a templum rostratum and
See Krebs, –, esp. , in this volume for the former and Nousek, esp. –, in this volume on the commentarius as administrative “notes.” The fact that “commentarius” is also used in reference to all kinds of other notes does not impinge on my suggestion. For discussion see Raaflaub (, –). Cf. .. cur se uti populi beneficio prohibuisset? See LTUR iv, s.v. (Gatti) and Ulrich (, –).
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only the second building of its kind (viz. with a speaker’s platform rather than a flight of stairs), it was “a monumental celebration of the dictator’s special relationship with the general public.” This relationship was also propagated in the civil war when coins were issued that, emblazoned with libertas, depicted the rostra and the Tribunician bench: two mainstays of the people’s participation in power, and, in the case of the latter, quite possibly an allusion to Caesar’s efforts to restore the expelled tribunes to their elected office, which the BC emphasized too (..). And when, as dictator, Caesar made himself available to the people in his gardens (Val. Max. ..), the symbolism should not be underestimated either.
“The Democratic General to the People” Revisited In interaction with other media, both Commentarii contribute to Caesar’s effort to communicate with his primarily Roman audience. Opinions on the identity of this audience have varied widely; as have those on the composition and publication especially of the BG. Mommsen characterized the latter as “the military report of the democratic general to the People from whom he had received his commission.” Gelzer deemed this characterization “unfortunate,” since “the ‘Roman People’ . . . read no books.” He, as one among many, believed the Commentarii to have been published in the winter of / for the benefit of the Roman senate. But the senate did not need Caesar’s reminder of his achievements on behalf of the populus Romanus; and the people did not have to be able to read as long as they were able to listen to someone else reading. As stated above, it was imperative for Caesar to make himself heard and seen in Rome during his absence. Reports to the senate alone did not suffice, nor the temporary employment of Cicero for a spokesman. Caesar also addressed the populus Romanus be it through letters read out loud by agents or a grand architectural project with a “popular” element at its core. Hereto must be added the favorable preponderance of the populus within the Commentarii and their lapidary style. Internal inconsistencies and stylistic developments have always suggested that the Commentarii were, to a large extent at least, written annually; which proponents of the thesis of a unitary composition were ready to concede, as it did not necessarily render unitary publication impossible.
Ulrich (, ). RRC ; see Mannsperger (). Mommsen (, vol. , ). The following quotation: Gelzer (, ). See introduction – in this volume.
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But if, in essence, Caesar wrote the Commentarii year by year, he would have had to be a fool to delay their “publication” until an unspecified moment in the future and not utilize his courier service, his network of supporters in Rome, and his channels to communicate with his popular base to capitalize on their political message. He was no fool. In the light of the evidence discussed, annual composition and dispatch seem very likely, especially as this could help explain the support Caesar received from the plebs, believed to be entirely on his side in the build-up to the civil war. In consequence, Wiseman’s suggestion that the Commentarii were read to the people does not seem too far-fetched either. Unfortunately, as Wiseman himself and others point out, we have not a shred of evidence for such public readings of the Commentarii; an argumentum ex silentio, it is true, but a strong one. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H The three most important studies of Caesarian propaganda are Barwick (), Rambaud (), and Collins (); none is without problems. Collins () provides an informed review of the previous literature, Riggsby (, –) an up-to-date discussion of “propaganda” in Caesar, and Kolb () a survey of ways to communicate with the public. Crawford (, vol. .–) discusses Caesarian coinage, Gros () Caesar’s architectural designs, and Zanker () Caesarian portraiture. The study of the varying and changing terminology in Caesarian scholarship on propaganda (fides, Glaubwürdigkeit, tendenza) may yield interesting results. Further desiderata include studies of Caesar’s propagandistic efforts in comparison (and partial response) to Pompey’s and of the continuators’ (cruder) propaganda in the Corpus Caesarianum.
See further Raaflaub – in this volume. See Morstein-Marx (, with n. ) for evidence concerning the plebs. The following: Wiseman (). See Jehne (, n.) and Riggsby (, –) for criticism.
Caesar Constructing Caesar William Batstone
Caesar constructing Caesar is not a simple proposition. Here, I would like to discuss first some of the ways in which this is a complex proposition, a kind of rabbit hole of circularity. I will then outline some of the identifiable features of language and narrative that traditionally form the basis of discussions of Caesar’s self-construction. Finally, I would like to move beyond style and intention and discuss some operations of Caesarian writing that create the myth of Caesar. The focus will be on the BG, although similar concerns can be identified in and for the BC.
The Proposition Clearly the phrase “Caesar constructing Caesar” does not refer to the simple operation of a subject on an object, as if Caesar were operating on inert material. One problem is that it is impossible to disaggregate the self from the operations of self: this self-reflexive expression is already filled with circularity. But in Caesar’s case, there is something else. It is a question about Caesar. Not only is the constructing Caesar Caesar, but our interest in him is an interest in Caesar, constructed and constructing. Caesarian greatness lies in his rhetorical, political, and military accomplishments, and it is to be found in the very making of the image he has constructed of that genius. Caesar does not hide behind “Caesar,” making and remaking him, nor does “Caesar” trail in the wake of the great or vicious general and politician. As construct and constructor, even for Rambaud (), Caesar is always Caesar, the absolute Caesar, ever in control, adjusting to circumstances, democrat and monarch, whether
See Tatum (); his book, Always I am Caesar, takes a line from Shakespeare, where it means “after all I am Caesar,” and makes it suitably Caesarian; cf. Grillo and Krebs – in this volume. See Mommsen (, V.–).
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optimus maximus or pessimus maximus. The constructing Caesar cannot be fully disaggregated from the general and the politician. I will try to illustrate the nature of this problem with two examples: the story of his capture by pirates and his speech for his aunt Julia. The story of his capture by pirates in is well known: while in captivity he writes poems and speeches; he increases the ransom requested and promises to return and kill them. But there are problems. The story varies in different writers. It first appears late, in Velleius Paterculus (..–.). Upon release, Caesar goes to the governor of Asia for state action. And, before he crucifies them, he cuts their throats out of clementia (Suet. Iul. .). The prediction Caesar makes only works if we overlook the visit to the governor, and the clementia makes no sense, since it subverts the entire purpose (exemplary suffering) of crucifixion. It seems clear that the history of Caesar and the Caesar of history precede the Caesar of this anecdote. The governor, the prediction, the self-confidence, and the clementia, perhaps even the poems and speeches he wrote in captivity, are accretions from the future. We can read it not only as a story of Caesar’s well-known clementia, but as a kind of competition with Pompey (a young privatus with a navy solves a pirate problem) and an incipient critique of senatorial corruption in the provinces. Perhaps the story was made up by Caesar, perhaps it is just another apocryphal tale which predicts a young man’s future greatness. The story is not told because it is true; it is told because of who Caesar is. It is the story of the myth of Caesar preceding Caesar. “Always I am Caesar . . .” Although we may suspect that Caesar had a hand in this tale of youthful superiority, the story itself comes from an outside source. We can see how Caesar himself plays a role in this sense that there is something momentous within him by turning to our second story and focusing on the role of ideology, aristocratic competition, and a culture of spectacle in shaping it. Long before Caesar was offered a crown, considered a rex, or proclaimed divus Iulius, the rhetoric and ambitions of aristocratic competition made it possible for him to stand before the image of Marius (ancestral virtue), to speak a eulogy for a woman, perhaps for the first time (primus), and to say: “My aunt Julia’s family on her mother’s side arises from kings; on her father’s side it is joined with the immortal gods. . . . Therefore, there exists
See Casali in this volume. In Plutarch, Caes. .–, when the pirates ask for twenty talents, Caesar promises fifty. For thirtyeight days he joined in their games, wrote poems and speeches, called them barbarians, while the money was procured. Saylor (, ); Wyke (, –). See Wiseman ().
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in her family line both the sacred inviolability of kings, who have the greatest power among men, and the awesome sanctity of gods, in whose power are the kings.” The Latin is elegant, tight, clear. The emphases of its phrasing are classic and climactic. But couched in this clarity there is an ambition that connects the young nephew with his aunt’s family’s sanctity and with the awesome superiority of their divinely descended power. No one, I believe, can read these lines without thinking of Caesar’s own imperial ambitions, the crown offered him, the star, and divus Iulius. Caesar is already there. The ambitions of aristocratic competition are at work in this. The reputation of great men precedes them. Adventu Caesaris cognito: Caesar’s arrival (even the rumor of his arrival) always produces a change, towns capitulate, the enemy is routed, hope restored. But, while the change Caesar’s arrival precipitates constructs something of what Caesar means, this change depends upon what Caesar already means. Cognito Caesaris adventu tells us that Caesar has arrived, but it also tells us that “Caesar” arrived. And whether we admire or contemn this image, we are but replaying myths of Caesar: deceptive, brutal, self-aggrandizing or brilliant, imperial, Olympian. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” This is, to be sure, our problem, part of the reception of Caesar, but it was already Cicero’s problem, when he claimed no one else could bring the war in Gaul to a close (Prov. Cons. ), when the supplicatio of , more than enough to satisfy the Republic and the gods, was extended because of the dignitas of Caesar (), when he said, “This life of yours, contained in body and spirit, should not be considered your life. That life, I say, that life which flourishes in memory of all time, which posterity will nourish, which eternity itself will always protect, that is your life” (Marcell. ).
Language There are, then, conceptual problems in getting to the agent in the phrase, “Caesar constructing Caesar.” He is himself constructed by the ideology he enacts and the very idea of Caesar is always inhabited by the Caesar to
Suet. Iul. ; see van der Blom – in this volume. Compare BC .. The phrase is part of the rhetoric of praise in Cic., see Arch. . Caesar’s ability to affect events through mere arrival is treated as a virtus in Ramage (, –). It is reported as a fact by Hirtius: see BG ... The formula is common as is the reference to the power of a man’s mere arrival (see e.g. Cic. Leg. Man., where the power of Pompey’s adventus is mentioned four times. Cf. Luc. ). W. B. Yeats, “Among School Children” VIII . See further on Caesar and Caesaris dignitas Krebs – in this volume and Raaflaub in this volume.
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come. Nevertheless, I will begin with a traditional view of selfconstruction: what words are affiliated with Caesar by Caesar and what terms are avoided, whom does he praise and why. The evidence is familiar (see “Further Reading”). Caesar praises virtus in Gauls and Romans; Caesar is not interested in Caesar’s emotions; Caesar’s judgment is always accurate (except once); his fears are prudential and his complaints are juridical. If we look at the qualities of an exemplary general like Pompey, as represented by Cicero in , we find all of them associated with Caesar or his army: celeritas, misericordia, temperantia, fortitudo, labor, consilium, providentia. The familiar metonymy of general for army allows the virtues of his men to be Caesar’s just as, when the soldiers build a bridge, Caesar says Caesar built the bridge. But if we turn to the four cardinal virtues in Cicero’s list (Leg. Man. .), virtus, scientia militariis, auctoritas, and felicitas, the striking thing is that they are rarely associated with Caesar. Virtus occurs seventy-one times, but only once, in Ariovistus’ insulting speech (..), does it refer to Caesar. Scientia militaris is never ascribed to Caesar. Felicitas is Caesar’s only once, in his speech to his frightened legions in BG .., and his auctoritas is twice recognized by others, and once used by Caesar. The reason seems to be twofold. First, Caesar does not harp on his own virtues. Many aspects of his self-presentation are fleeting representations of potential. The gods, for instance, are notably absent in Caesar’s BG, but at .., he says that his success in avenging wrongs to the Roman people represents either chance or the plan of the immortal gods. Then, at . he speaks for the intentions of the gods, explaining to Ariovistus that the gods delay justice only to make it more bitter. At .. he tells his soldiers that his felicitatem and innocentiam perpetua vita should remove their fear. This is enough to align his project with divine will. He typically observes the battle, but once he gets off his horse, and removes all the other horses to equal the risk for all his men (..); another time he grabs a shield and enters the fighting (..); in the final battle, he appears with his conspicuous cloak (..). These are small touches, but enough to align him with Marius, in contrast to the Alexandrian heroism of Pompey.
See below. Ramage () discusses fourteen virtues and eleven attributes; cf. Raaflaub – in this volume. See Rüpke – in this volume for discussion. The only other mention of Caesar’s alignment with the gods is at .., where despite the disaster involving Sabinus and Cotta, the enemy’s joy did not last long because of the favor of the gods. For Caesar as the non-heroic representation of the summus imperator, see McDonnell (, –).
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Second, and equally important, the qualities that in Cicero define Pompey are in Caesar always less than adequate. Virtus can be confounded by temeritas cupiditasque (..) and should be moderated by modestia et continentia (..–) and aided by usus ac disciplina (..). Caesar relies on the scientia rei militaris of his experienced centurions (..) but it also characterizes the Veneti (..), Sertorius’ legions (..), and perhaps ironically the old Gaulic warrior at Lutetia (..). Vercingetorix complains that Romans win, not by virtus, but by scientia oppugnationis (..). Auctoritas is something to be used and manipulated: he hopes that Ariovistus will be persuaded by his auctoritas (..); both Diviciacus (..) and the Aedui (..) appeal to Caesar’s auctoritas, but the Belgae have auctoritas (..), auctoritas misleads the Gauls (..) and Caesar manipulates Cingetorix’s auctoritas (..). Felicitas is both the result of Caesar’s innocentia, diligentia, and officium (.) and something not attained when Ambiorix escapes (..–). This is all the more striking, since we know from BAfr. that it was Caesar’s watchword for attack. Fortuna, on the other hand, occurs thirty-seven times and can be found both helping and hindering on both sides of the war. What, then, does this mean for Caesar’s self-presentation? It seems that Caesar’s exceptionalism is not presented as a congeries of qualities, his alone, or exceptional in him, but as a matter of negotiating, deploying, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these qualities. Caesar (and his men) are associated with all the military virtues, but Caesar always stands above them. He is what makes them virtues.
Narrative In attempting to isolate characteristics, we have arrived at narrative: Caesar’s success does not lie only in virtus, but in how virtus is deployed. We had, of course, already entered this territory with the narrative marker, cognito Caesaris adventu, and here I would like to point to some of the ways that Caesar’s text makes an argument. Obviously, his text operates through selection: massive theft, especially sacrilegious looting, is not mentioned, his reasons for going to Britain (captives and wealth) are
See McDonnell (, –). See Riggsby (, –). Curiously, as if like Caesar, the aquilifer prays feliciter eveniat (“that it may turn out well”) when they land in Britain (..). For fuller treatment of Caesarian virtus, see McDonnell (, –); for how the narrator shapes our view of himself and virtus, see Grillo (). See Batstone (). See Hirtius BG . ., ., ., .; cf. Catullus .–. See Cic. Att. ...
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dissembled. These features, like his justification for entering Gaul, are usually treated under the rubric of propaganda. Here, however, I am interested not in the truth of a narrative but in the argument it constructs. When the Helvetii move, Caesar leaves Rome. In Gaul, he becomes Rome, the senate, the Roman people; he fights to protect the allies. He keeps the Helvetii out of the province. In the end, he recalls and avenges not only the public wrongs but his own private injuries: he sets right history and acts piously on behalf of his father-in-law’s grandfather (..). Later, when Diviciacus asks for indulgence for his brother’s actions, Caesar overlooks “the injury to the state and his own disappointment” (..), addresses the calamity caused by Ariovistus (which the senate had not addressed), and eventually repairs the patron–client relationships and power relationships among the Aedui and Sequani. Thus, Caesar represents memory and history, justice and the Roman people, Roman mores and pietas, and ultimately both immediate political considerations that the senate did not address and general values more important than “injury to the state and his own disappointment.” Caesar keeps rising above the event. Of singular importance to this perspective is the third person narrator: the writer, Caesar, with his Olympian gaze over all Gaul, the voice that returned to tell the tale, and so the assurance that all will be well. This narrator, coming after the event, always knows what it will mean for Caesar to arrive, and his foreknowledge is confirmed within the text by a similar foreknowledge in the townspeople, the soldiers, the enemy. Caesar always precedes Caesar, whether it is in the image of senators fleeing Rome or the renewed hope of his soldiers. This merges with the general who sees everything at once, does everything at the same time, and praises the actions that the text remembers and relates. As “Caesar” deploys virtues and armies, Caesar deploys “Caesar,” which means that there is always a surplus. Caesar the writer is more than “Caesar.” Among the most important narrative effects is the text’s reference to Caesar’s success. And yet that too is a textual effect: not only is it the
His failure in the BC to mention the mutiny of the ninth legion and his control of information arriving in Rome during the Bellum Gallicum (including encoded messages, see Gell. NA ..–) surely suggest manipulations we cannot know about. See Pollio on the BC, Suet. Iul. . See Batstone and Damon (, –). Ibid. –. See ... .. Note that when Caesar retells the story of BG in BG ., political change occurs adventu Caesaris, which must refer to the end of , but seems to participate in the cognito Caesaris adventu topos. See Collins (). Batstone and Damon (, –); on the textual effect of Caesar’s narrative choices, see Grillo ().
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implicit message of the narrator, but the BG does not end with BG . Gallic revolts continued for two decades after Caesar’s death and Roman legions stationed at the Rhine were a feature of the early principate. In fact, one might say that Caesar not only defined Gallia and Germania, but created the myth of their pacification.
Mythologie To understand this larger and more compelling effect, we turn to semiology and the science of signs. The Caesar we seek when we ask about Caesar constructing Caesar is both an effect of the text, and a cause of it. It is a mythic effect, and by mythic I do not mean to say something about myth, to refer specifically to the “myth of Caesar” or to call it a lie. I am referring to how a certain kind of language works, and works in Caesar. I am using the language of Roland Barthes, and a brief review will help the discussion. Language and any other system of signs work by joining an arbitrary formal material (say the sound “leaf” or “Blatt” or folium) with a concept (in English the concept of a “leaf”) in such a way that you cannot hear the sound “leaf” without getting the concept leaf. Analysis can designate the arbitrary signifier, the concept, and the conjunction of the two in a sign, but in the world they are one. For the sake of simplicity we can say that these signs send messages; they have reference and meaning, and are not really different from narratives or photographs that reference events and so on. This reference is the message (or meaning) of a sign or a primary discourse: “leaf” means “leaf”; veni means “I came.” Now, “myth” is also a message, but how does it relate to other signs? Simply put, “myth” uses the primary discourse as a signifier to signify something else. The primary discourse thus becomes the bearer of a secondary message. In other words, in mythological speech the system of signs shifts. Signifier + Concept = Sign [Primary Discourse] Signifier + Mythic Concept = Myth [Secondary Discourse] Thus, Caesar’s arrival is an event caused by strategy, news, the actions of others, and so on; it is the historical event that appears in veni or Caesaris
On Caesar’s construction of Germania as opposed to Gallia, see Krebs () and Johnston – in this volume. See also Osgood (, –). Barthes (, –).
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adventu. But this (frequent) arrival within the narrative joins with the mythic concept of Caesarian imminence in such a way that the reader does not attend primarily to the event, but to the imminence and impact of Caesarian arrival. The sign/message “veni” (which is the end of the primary discourse) becomes signifier (or the beginning) or the mythic discourse whose concept is, say, “Caesarian adventus.” For an event to become the signifier of some mythic concept, the primary reference which is full of meaning (Vercingetorix, victory, Sabinus, centurions – all of which have rich and full content) must be emptied of that referential meaning, or rather as much of it as would interfere with the mythic meaning. This is important, because the mythic sign does not lie or conceal; it does not tell the truth; it inflects, and signifies something beyond the given signifiers. It does not refer to the richness of the world and its meanings; it refers primarily to the mythic concept that lives in the signifier (in the picture, or in the event). The mythic inflection is always something not quite in the world. If it were in the world, the sign would suffice. I have an example to help clarify this (Figure .). In the s, Barthes gazes on a cover of Paris Match. A black soldier salutes, presumably, the French tri-color. What does this signify? Is it about this black soldier, his life or his age, his struggles, his service to France during the Algerian war? Or is it about black soldiers in the French foreign legion? Not at all. While the primary meaning of most magazine photographs is a reference to a person, place, or thing, here that reference is drained out of the photograph. Compare another cover from , Liz Taylor with her child (Figure .). However iconic Liz Taylor may be, and however much the photo reflects some dreamy notion of motherhood, this cover still has reference, primary meaning, which one might call “news.” But the cover with the black soldier is not about “news”; it has been drained of all that primary reference; even the flag is absent. But the message is clear: French impérialité, the goodness and the naturalness of the French empire. “See, even the black soldier salutes just like our boys!” This significance is imposed upon the reader in , just as the sound “leaf” imposes the concept “leaf,” but, while the sound “leaf” is arbitrary, the sign of mythic discourse is always motivated, at a reduced point, where the concept is comfortable. This means that there are two important distinctions between the semiology of the myth and the semiology of the sign. First, the signifier of the myth, being a primary discourse, is not arbitrary. There is a relationship between the saluting black soldier and French impérialité. One looks through the reference to the significance, now you see the soldier, now you receive French impérialité, which
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Figure . Paris Match magazine cover N , June to July , ; Diouf, a young soldier of the child troop in the Army of the AOF who came from Wagadugu Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). (Photo by Izis/Paris Match via Getty Images)
means you can always refuse the myth, analyze the myth, reject the myth. Mythic discourse imposes a moral dimension upon the receiver. Second, the myth is always a message sent to a particular audience in a particular historical moment. It says what needs to be said today, but for which
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Figure . The cover of Life magazine features a photograph of British-born American actress Elizabeth Taylor as she holds up her infant daughter, Elizabeth (Liza) Todd, November , . (Photo by Toni Frissell/The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images)
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there are no words, except neologisms and stories that lose their primary reference in service to the myth. So how about Caesar’s discourse? As a mythic discourse, it is not about Caesar, for which we have a perfectly good word, a word whose meaning appears to be the goal of scholarly monographs. Caesar’s discourse is not about Caesar, but about an inflection of Caesar, and giving the Gauls a victory at last, I will call this (pun intended) Césarité (c’est tsarité ). A particularly clear example is the familiar titulus: veni, vidi, vici. Its familiarity is already evidence of its effectiveness. The phrase is a mininarrative, but almost nothing is left of the event. What has been drained away? Pharnaces II’s seizure of Cappadocia, Armenia, Eastern Pontus, and Lesser Colchis; his cruel victory, castrating captured Romans; the rout of Caesar’s legate Cn. Domitius Calvinus in late ; the embassy from Pharnaces to Caesar seeking peace; the camps at Zela and the unexpected attack by Pharnaces; Caesar’s initial losses and then his regrouping and the rout; but, then, the escape of Pharnaces II. The war lasted either five days or two weeks. But all this reference misses the point. With veni, vidi, vici we do not see someone coming and observing. The mini-narrative is drained of reference and what one sees through it is the speed and ineluctable necessity of Caesarian victory: that is the mythic narrative of Césarité – and all it takes is three words. In Caesar’s text I have identified three primary markers or effects of Césarité. First, there is the totalization of the narrative. Omnis appears times (and this does not include totus, nullus, nemo, quisquam, or ceterus and reliquus); Caesar himself appears only (!) times. Omnis is particularly useful for the mythic effect because, while it seems full, it is empty: it reduces variety, event, the real, to a uniformity, just as all Gaul is reduced. Men attack from everywhere; they try everything, they hand over themselves and all their property. Omnis is the term that signifies desperation in actions: all resources failed him. It marks closure: all the ships were safe, all the villages burned, all Gaul was pacified. And it plays a role in the second marker of Césarité, the Olympian viewpoint: “All Gaul is divided . . . from the setting sun to the north star” (.). “All things which are absent trouble men’s minds more strongly” (..). It can be used to excuse Caesar’s only failure of judgment: “For every reason” he thought Gaul pacified (..). The third marker is Roman exemplarity. In moments of memorialization, an event is plucked from the confusion and
Thus, the future of Césarité is in the word as a surplus. Reported by Appian to be Caesar’s report to the senate, BCiv. ..
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chaos of battle: a centurion is wounded in both thighs, a father dies bringing aid to his son. The event, its memorialization, and how it inflects the battle itself are all part of Césarité. Always the eventfulness of history must be reduced, like the history of the black soldier, like the tribes reduced by Roman generals, and what takes their place is Césarité. And it worked: ardeo, said Cicero (Prov. Cons. ). At Avaricum, the Gauls raise towers equal to Caesar’s, undermine his walls, destroy his battlements with fire, boiling pitch, and heavy stones. Caesar pauses at . to describe all Gallic walls (that totalizing imperialistic perspective: “all Gaul” is now “all Gallic walls”). But despite the details, these walls are difficult for modern readers to build: the reason is that this is not about building walls. Rather, it is about Caesar’s understanding of their massive, complex structure. You are not supposed to see the walls, only structural relations. And it is not the structure you are seeing; it is Caesar’s impressive view of the structure. These walls (or is it this wall) is primarily a thing understood by Caesar, part of Caesarian knowledge, from a perspective outside the event. It is reduced to an object so as to signify Caesar’s mastery of the wall, and that mastery inhabits the description of the wall in the same way that the concept of “leaf” inhabits the sound “leaf.” But, this mastery of the wall is not just technical mastery. He tells us that the wall is not unattractive. One could hardly be further from the contingencies and confusion of war. The Gallic wall is now Caesar’s; it has been taken from the Gauls, and when it is returned, it is a different wall, a wall appreciated by Caesar, a nice wall, ultimately a wall that does not defend. The next chapter begins with the simple claim that Caesar’s soldiers overcame all these obstacles. The purpose of the wall was to disappear as an obstacle. This is Césarité. Or we may consider the battle at the Sambre (.–), the most desperate of the war. When the battle finally turns, first because Caesar grabs a shield and fights along with his men, and second because Labienus sends in the tenth legion, then the wounded centurions rise up and fight, the unarmed camp-followers attack the armed enemy, and the cavalry advances ahead of the legionaries; they are fighting in every place. The final scene is that of the Nervii fighting in extrema spe salutis: the living pile up the cadavers of the dead so as to fight upon them as
C. Krebs points out to me that archaeologists today use Caesar’s term, murus Gallicus, to classify these walls. Not the kind of detail military historians want, because this is not about strategy or event.
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from a mound (.). That’s it. No strategy. Just desperation and virtus. The next paragraph begins, “When the battle was over. . .” What happened has been drained away, except for this mound of cadavers. And Caesar responds: “And so it ought not to be judged that men of such great virtue had dared to cross the widest river, to ascend the tallest shores, to advance to the most difficult position in vain/without good reason; and they rendered these things easy instead of most difficult by the greatness of their spirit” (.). The superlatives, the virtus and animi magnitudo, all ensure the generic affiliation with monuments. But why was their effort not nequiquam? Not fruitless? But they were wiped out. Not without good reason? But it was strategically unsound. Did the greatness of their spirit justify their efforts? Or is this monument itself the fruit, and so the fruitfulness of their failed attempt? They did not die in vain because they died so well. And fittingly this is all a blur. A moment taken out of the confusion, without place, and without time. But, the narrative is not about the battle, and it is not about the Gauls. As the mind shuttles from defeat to honor, from superlatives to death, from the poor strategy to desperation on a mound of cadavers, it also shuttles away from the present moment to eternity, and in gathering together all these perspectives, Caesar imposes upon us the Olympian view of Césarité. Of course, in the world of Caesar, the enemy is defeated; of course, great virtue is rewarded: sunt laudes rerum. One could say similar things about Cicero’s struggle with the Eburones (.). According to what Caesar says it was by far the worst day. Ambiorix sets fire to every part of the camp, the flames are everywhere, the soldiers realize that all the baggage and all their fortunes are burning, but no one tried to leave the rampart, no one looked behind him, they fought most fiercely and bravely. Then, the flames abate, a tower is brought to a certain place (it matters not where this is not about facts or details); the centurions draw off all their men; they taunt the enemy. No one of the enemy dares to advance; stones are hurled from everywhere. It is at this point that Caesar interrupts with the exemplary tale of the two centurions who compete in virtue. Rambaud () found in these moments a tendentious distraction from the reality. It seems to me that this is not a distraction, but a specific mythic reconception of the war. It is very much like the black soldier on the cover of Paris Match. It replaces the details of battle with a clarity that turns the conflict between the Nervii and Cicero’s legions, that massive loss of life, into a contest over virtue between two Roman centurions. After all, from the perspective of Césarité, this is what the war really is: a Roman
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contest regarding Roman virtue. And this is part of the myth of Roman imperiality: a war against thousands turns out to be a monument to Roman virtus, both what it means to fight for Caesar, and how Caesar honors that virtus (.). In fact, when Caesar arrives to encourage and congratulate Cicero and the army on their victory, “he praises the legion; he names the centurions individually and the tribunes whose virtus had been extraordinary” (..–). At this moment, then, Caesar is said to do what the text had already done. He then encourages and consoles, speaking of “the immortal gods” (whose agent was, of course, the arrival of Caesar) and the virtus militum; of expiation, joy and grief. The decorum and necessity, the power and justice and absoluteness of this moment is the myth of Césarité. A similar moment, engineered differently, closes Caesar’s BG. In ., Vercingetorix decides to yield to fortune (another name for Caesar). Legates are sent to Caesar. Caesar (ipse) takes his seat on the fortifications in front of the camp: an Olympian view. “The leaders are led there. Vercingetorix is handed over, weapons are cast down.” That’s it. The man who dominated this story for eighty-five chapters is dispatched in two words (Vercingetorix deditur). Then, the captives are given to soldiers as plunder. In the final paragraph, Caesar moves on to the business of empire. He marches to the Aedui and recovers the state. He orders hostages, sends legions to winter quarters, gives orders individually to eight legates. It is amazing how Vercingetorix disappears, and how Caesar himself melts away into the administrative jobs of a commander. It is a frequent end to the books of the Gallic war. But, here, this is the end. Who was that masked man? It was not a man, it was Césarité.
Conclusion Caesar’s text works by using word choice, subordination, reference, and narrative, together with omission, totalization, perspective, contextualization, and selection to tell a story through which we see not Caesar, but Césarité, that peculiar combination of Olympian perspective and totalized closure (“All Gaul . . .”), distanced understanding and improvisational success, ruthless vengeance and well-known clemency, extraordinary energy and bureaucratic detail. It is a voice that speaks for history and for Rome, for the centurion and the enemy, but it is a voice and a narrative that always imposes Césarité, the totalizing force that protects our boundaries and monumentalizes our virtues.
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F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H The basic works for understanding the debate about Caesar’s Tendenz are Rambaud (, nd edn ) and Collins ( and ). After half a century they remain polarizing and useful. For discussion of Roman virtues and politics in relationship to Caesar, one should turn to Weinstock (), Fears (), and Ramage (). McDonnell () places these discussions in a Republican context. Narrative in Caesar has seen several recent studies; especially useful is Riggsby (). The collection of essays in Welch and Powell () cover a very useful range of topics. Batstone and Damon () and Grillo () focus on the BC but address issues relevant to narrative in the BG. The reception of Caesar is studied by Wyke (). I have not seen Wyke (), but it should be mentioned. Biographies are always useful. The classic biographies are by Gelzer () and Meier (). Two recent books that are both easy reading and broadly informative are Tatum () and Goldsworthy (). One should not forget the ancient sources: Suetonius, Cicero’s letters, Cassius Dio. Studies of Caesarian “propaganda” over the past century seem to have resolved into a resounding non liquet. This conclusion should entail a further conclusion: we do not understand clearly the methods and purposes of a work like the BG. We need both more narratological studies of the text and semiological studies of its meaning: how does totalization, exemplary anecdote, bureaucratic detail work in creating the text’s effects? What is the function of the authorial surplus that is evident everywhere? There are many suggestions in the literature, but no thorough study. We need also to understand better how and why Caesar’s text was important in its first moment. How does it play the game of aristocratic competition? What does it ask of its audiences and what does it offer? Finally, given the transhistorical life of Césarité, we need to understand why and how that myth still serves the West: why do we need or want the absolutism, the totalization, the colossus, the unwavering mastery and well-known compassion? If we are the subject of Césarité, what kind of subject are we asked to become?
Priesthoods, Gods, and Stars Jörg Rüpke
Caesar and Religion In Roman culture, religion was one of the most important media of public communication, comprising more than the public ritual and discourse. Private individuals turned to religion in situations of need; religious rituals, including marriage ceremonies and the conferral of the toga virilis, added significance to pivotal moments in life; myths and stories were filled with gods, to whom personal worldviews attributed different degrees of importance. These stories, however, did not add up to a coherent system of “belief,” and individual preferences may have led one to worship certain gods, to uphold basic convictions about the human and the divine, frequently to repeat ritual action, and even to perform religious roles. Unfortunately, our sources prevent us from reconstructing all facets of these individual “religious” preferences, even for Julius Caesar, even though his life is comparatively well-documented. It is possible, however, to trace his religious roles, which were by definition “public” (sacerdotes publici), and to scrutinize the connections to religion in his words and deeds. Neither Caesar nor any of his contemporaries would have expected such connections to define a religious “profile” or indicating a personal religious “belief:” for instance, in his biography, Suetonius has no section specifically on “Caesar’s religion,” and the famous discussion in chapter mentions “religion” as a keyword but within a context that deals with Caesar’s enormous energy (–): religious scruple, Suetonius says, never deterred or slowed him down (ne religione quidem ulla a quoquam incepto absterritus umquam vel retardatus est). His dealings with bad omens or prophecies only demonstrate his audacity, cleverness, and ruthlessness, and Romans
Rüpke (b), (a). Durand and Scheid (); Scheid (). On Romans and belief, see also Feeney (, –).
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would not necessarily have equated such ruthlessness with a-religiousness or atheism. And in a way, Caesar’s treatment of omens partakes in a contemporary debate, along similar lines as the BG, wherein religio (and more frequently the plural religiones) signals irresponsible behaviour and is synonymous with superstitio (this definition of religio conflicts with the Stoic and Academic views offered by Cicero in The Nature of Gods). Caesar also acknowledges the religious dimension of public communication. In the funeral speech for his aunt Julia he claims that duly worshipping the cult of the gods (caerimonia deorum) is a characteristic of his family (Suet. Iul. .). This comes from the earliest part of Caesar’s life from which we have quoted speech, and other episodes reported by Suetonius attest the same awareness on the public role of religion: Caesar visits a famous temple in his allotted province (.), decorates public and religious buildings (.), closely scrutinizes who is selected to rebuild the Capitoline temple (), attains and holds unusually long supplications and triumphs (.; .), organizes splendid games as spectacles for the gods (; .), and tops his architectural program by rebuilding the temple of Mars (in primis Martis templum, .). These deeds illustrate not only Suetonius’ but especially Caesar’s appreciation of the public importance of religious action. Tradition and duty provided various occasions for, and varying degrees of engagement in, (public) religious deeds; Suetonius states that Caesar’s deeper and more frequent engagement helped him excel over his contemporaries in a number of competitions.
Serving the Gods Suetonius’ cursory treatment of religion may, however, reflect the standard of the s rather than that of the mid-first century . For instance, Caesar held the most important Roman priesthood, the supreme pontificate, for nearly two decades and lived in the Pontifex Maximus’ public house. Ever since Augustus, Roman emperors became Pontifex Maximus more or less by default, and Suetonius consequently considered Caesar’s Pontificate unworthy of comment and instead simply recorded his spectacular electoral success in (Iul. ). But in the Republic it represented a major achievement, worthy of pride, and rarely, if ever, was it combined with supreme political power. Indeed becoming Pontifex Maximus was a milestone in Caesar’s career. He paid bribes far beyond what he would have been able to pay back had he failed to secure the
Rüpke (a, –).
Suet. Iul. .
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office. His election was a major step in a long and complex sequence of sacerdotal offices, which, in Caesar’s case, amounted to a coherent and uninterrupted tenure of magistracies held year after year. A fairly late source attests Caesar’s earliest priesthood. A coin issued on Caesar’s behalf in – includes an ancile, a figure-of-eight shield. This shield symbolizes Caesar’s membership in another priesthood, that of the salii. One could enter into this college of dancing priests only while one’s parents were still alive, so Caesar must have entered before the death of his father in . The coin does not demonstrate that Caesar was still a salius in , but he probably was, as in the Republic salii held their office for life. In , the suicide of the Flamen Dialis L. Cornelius Merula offered Caesar the exclusive opportunity to ascend to the highest circle of flamines, priests dedicated to the cult of single deities. The process of electing Merula’s successor went on to unusual lengths, and Caesar was probably inaugurated Flamen Dialis only at the beginning of , at Cinna’s instigation, after his separation from Cossutia and subsequent marriage to Cinna’s daughter Cornelia. A few years later, around , Sulla wanted to force Caesar to leave office by means of a fine from the supreme pontiff; Caesar had recourse to an appeal of provocatio ad populum, but an assembly dominated by Sulla refused his appeal and he lost his office. The legal basis of the fine is unknown and evidently invited protest. It remains unclear whether Caesar’s flaminate was a temporary affair, lacking its final legitimization, or a brief tenure that was subsequently judged to be illegal. Caesar himself never referred to it, but the position was not filled again within his lifetime. The members of the pontifical college who favored Caesar offered him a compromise. They re-admitted him to the pontifical college, of which he had been a member as Flamen Dialis. Around he was elected pontiff. As mentioned before, he became Pontifex Maximus, supreme pontiff, in
The following closely follows Rüpke (, no. ). Crawford (, n. ). Simón (); Vanggaard (); Rüpke (, ). See Rüpke () for further details; cf. Taylor (); Liou-Gille (). Plut. Caes. ; Suet. Iul. .– (flaminate); Vell. Pat. .., ; Leone (). Tac. Ann. ., .. All the supporters named by Suetonius – Vestals, C. Aurelius M. f. Cotta, Mam. Aemilius Mam. f. Lepidus Livianus (the latter overlooked by Leone) – belonged to the pontifical college (Leone (, –)). His co-optation into the pontifical college occurred prior to his quaestorship (–), when Sulla’s supporters still held a majority of voices, Taylor (, –).
Priesthoods, Gods, and Stars
, even before holding the praetorship (in ) and over competitors of much higher standing, Q. Lutatius Catulus and P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus. Finally, in or the beginning of at the latest, he became an augur; this office alone represented the apex of the major priesthoods, and Caesar’s election to it was an event which had very few precedents.
Talking about the Gods Did being a priest in the late Republic engender religious convictions? Priesthoods were collegial and, excluding the flamines and the Vestal Virgins, they included only some specific ritual or juridical tasks, which only some members had to attend. To inquire about Caesar’s personal convictions, therefore, we must turn to what he said and did. As seen, coins struck for Caesar include references to his priestly offices, but they also display Venus Victrix, Venus Genetrix and Victoria, as well as Pietas, Ceres, and Minerva; Caesar had coins minted also with Victoria, Diana, Jupiter, Bacchus, Ceres, Libertas, Mars, Pietas, Fides, Hercules, the Penates, Venus, the Dioscuri, Juno Moneta, Juno, Apollo, Minerva, Honos, Sol, and Roma. Similarly, as Stefan Weinstock has convincingly argued, Caesar from the start planned to place the temple of Venus in the center of his Forum. Perhaps the vows to Venus Victrix known during the civil war found their precedents in Gaul. In light of this pervasive presence of the gods, it may be surprising that in the BG the gods play a much smaller role than in contemporary works of historiography. Such reduced role was not dictated by the specific genre of commentarii, since this malleable genre included the protocols of priestly colleges and autobiographical memories of magistrates. Caesar chose to limit divine agency, but this choice expresses his convictions about responsibilities rather than about religious beliefs. An episode of further exemplifies Caesar’s cunning use of religious discourse. Having stopped a mutiny, he executed the two ringleaders, and the ritual of execution took the form of a sacrifice to Mars. The pontiffs
Dio Cass. ... Dio Cass. ..–; RRC ., Cic. Fam. ..; also attested on RRC .; .; .–, –, ; .–; and in CIL . = ILS = ILLRP . Rüpke (a, –). See Rüpke (, –). For Venus: RRC .; .; .–; . and ; for Victoria RRC .a,b and .a,b; and see Krebs – in this volume. Weinstock (, ). App. B. Civ. . and . See Nousek – in this volume and Chassignet – in this volume; Rüpke (a), (b).
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and the Flamen Martialis, a priest of Mars, nailed the leaders’ heads to the Regia. The ritual killing of the victorious horse of a race on the Ides of October, the so-called “October horse,” has been seen as the model for this spectacular ritual. From the third century onwards Romans sacrificed the victorious horse, somewhat illogically, as a penalty for the Trojan horse which enabled the Greeks to take Troy. In the Commentarii, however, Caesar portrays himself as a perfect rationalist general and does not include descriptions of standard ritual procedures. In this absence, passages where the gods are mentioned are magnified. For instance, references to fortuna/Fortuna (like fatum) are strategic, but very restricted. The di immortales, the “immortal gods,” are mentioned extremely rarely but figure prominently in the Helvetian war and the very first battle of the BG (..; ..). Appian’s and Plutarch’s account of the same battle may suggest why: the defeat of the Tigurini, the first successful battle in Gaul, was led not by Caesar but by his lieutenant Labienus. This inopportune detail, which does not square with Caesar’s commentarii rerum gestarum belli Gallici, is conveniently bracketed between the death of a relative and an appeal to the immortal gods. The gods cast this specific episode into a larger perspective, and they deny personal glory to a subordinate. The large ethnographic digressions on the Gauls and Germans include substantial information on their religion, and this information helps unite both into ethnic communities. Religion is presented from a universalist perspective: Caesar’s discussion of the Gallic cult of Mercury (BG ..) exemplifies interpretatio Romana, a translation that presupposes the universal nature of the Roman perception of religion and the gods. As such it illustrates Caesar’s mentality as the builder of an empire, one who can acknowledge that cultural and ethnic differences are not only normal but also harmless. Again, however, parallel evidence suggests that Caesar
Dio Cass. ... Pascal (, ) points to the passage’s sarcastic language. The historicity had been occasionally denied, but without convincing arguments (e.g. Reid (, )). For the discussion of the event within the framework of the cult of Mars see Scholz (, –), Weinstock (, –), and Rüpke (a). This ritual was present also in dramatic forms: Jocelyn (, ); taken up by Vergil in the shape of Laocoon thrusting a spear onto the Trojan horse: Rüpke (). Cicero, likewise an augur and even more a philosopher of religion, concentrates on the triumph in his letters on his expedition to Cilicia in a parallel manner: Cic. Att. . and ; . and . Exercitum lustravi in .. does not exceed the meaning of “I held a parade”. On Caesar’s rationality see Cancik (). Mantovanelli (); Begemann (, –); Grillo (, –). App. Celt. .; ; Plut. Caes. ,. See Rüpke (b, –) for the title. For further details of this chain of arguments see Rüpke ().
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strategically uses this divine appeal. In a section on Caesar’s greed, Suetonius documents that he plundered Gallic sanctuaries and temples, for which contemporaries likely criticized him. By contrast, in the BC Caesar mentions religion more often. For instance, the treatment of temples distinguishes Caesarians from Pompeians, who indulge in unacceptable plundering. Similarly, the Pompeian leaders inculcate religious scruple, religio, in Roman troops by means of new oaths, which Caesar discredits by the tendentious use of the very word iusiurandum. The third and last book ends with a grandiose series of prodigies (.) rather than with the conclusion of the civil war; but Caesar, perhaps realizing that his audience longed for the end of the war, abstained from publishing the BC.
Dealing with the Stars Caesar wrote his treatise On the Stars in a time of war, as he probably stressed in an autobiographical introduction. We lack verbatim fragments from this treatise, but it seems that Caesar’s work, drawing on Egyptian astronomical knowledge and relying on a Roman collaborator, set forth the scientific basis of and rationale for another project: the calendar reform. In , in the middle of the civil war, Caesar gave priority to this reform, which resulted in the Julian calendar and included prognostics for the whole year. In the fifties, the Roman calendar was badly out of sync with the natural year. In a hot political climate, contenders did not refrain from using various aspects of religion as political weapons and even managed to prolong office by intercalating (adding days to the calendar), or by refraining from doing so. This practice, just like other means of political obstruction, did not express any fundamental criticism: it aimed to use the calendar for political aims, not to destroy it. After the Bellum Pompeianum and Caesar’s return from the East in October , his thoughts turned to reforming the calendar. The sources do not discuss his political motivation for this reform, but undoubtedly the
Suet. Iul. .. Zecchini (, –). Caes. BC ..; ..; cf. .. (correct usage by Massilienses); Grillo (, –). Grillo (, –). Rüpke (b, f.); Grillo (, –). Caes. De Astris test. Klotz = Schol. Lucan. cod. Lips. rep. , N. (saec. XII) .; the wording is probably not ancient. See Macr. Sat. .. and Comm. Bern. Lucan. . (= frr. and Klotz; again the wording of the latter text is hardly ancient). See Brind’Amour (, ). The following exposition is abbreviated from Rüpke (b, –). For this political context see Malitz (a).
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impetus came from Caesar: he appointed a commission for developing the new calendar, and most importantly, he chose non-Roman experts, like Sosigenes, as members. Caesar was assisted by M. Flavius, a scriba from the pontifical college, and probably by a pontifex minor, from a subgroup of priests who dealt with the calendar and its ritual enactment. From an astronomical point of view, the reform promoted three technical changes. It redefined the length of the natural year at . days, reflected in a civic -day year plus a quadrennial day of intercalation. This redefinition minimized the need for days of intercalation and replaced a calendar with twenty-two intercalary days in a two-year cycle: practically this meant that Romans no longer needed occasional extra (thirteenth) months, so that the visual character of their calendar changed deeply. The regularization of intercalary days also prevented manipulations or exploitations. The third change may look less important, but it may have been the most memorable for Caesar’s contemporaries. In order to synchronize the reformed calendar with the current year, sixty-seven days had to be inserted and were distributed between two intercalary months, and as a result, year counted days. Thus Caesar eliminated intercalation, with all its uncertainties and irregularities (the anni confusio, in Macrobius’ irreverent view of the Republican calendar,..). These three changes made the calendar long-lasting, constant and precisely synchronized with the solar year. In particular, the linking of March with the spring equinox was pivotal and new to a people who had learned to live with two calendars: the astronomical, based on calculation, observation and parapegmata, and the civic. This reform led to a long-term cognitive reorientation: for the first time, astronomical and meteorological events could be described on the basis of civic dates, something that, as noted by Feeney, Cicero had admired in as a characteristic of Sicily and the Greek world. According to Pliny the Elder, Caesar observed the dates of the rising and setting of stars, which implies that he was aware of the gradual inception of a conceptual change. Cicero mockingly remarked that even the stars now moved on command, but such a naturalization must have been highly attractive.
Plut. Caes. .; Dio Cass. ... Plin. NH .–. See Rüpke (, no. ). For an early error see Sordi (). Already achieved by the Metonic cycle in the fifth century , see now Stern (). Censorinus DN .. Censorinus DN .; Dio Cass. ..; see also Cic. Fam. ... Cic. Verr. ..; Feeney (, ). Plin. NH .–. Plut. Caes. . (with Pelling); Holleman (). Fully realized by Ovid, see Feeney (, –); Rüpke (b).
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Caesar’s calendar displayed utmost prudence in leaving religious practices unchanged. Both the names of the months and the slots for intercalations remained unaffected, and no new feriae were added for the first year. Caesar’s guiding principle was the preservation of the internal monthly structure wherever possible, so he had the annual deficit of ten days (which was formerly covered by the mensis interkalaris) carefully distributed between the remaining twelve months. As a result, he left the complex month of February untouched, along with March, May, Quinctilis (later renamed July after him), and October, which already had a maximum of thirty-one days. As for the remaining months, one or two days were inserted immediately before the last day of each month. In this way the Nones and Ides kept falling regularly either on the th and th or on the th and th day from the beginning of the each month. After the Ides, however, the interval until the beginning of the next month, the Kalends, increased. The addition of days at the end of some months rather than the beginning was explicitly meant to leave the oral announcement of feriae unaffected. Thus the Ides remained the religious reference point for each month but were also dissociated from the political and juridical calendar. On what authority did Caesar carry these changes? Technically, being Pontifex Maximus was not necessary but must have helped Caesar to make his reforms more acceptable and to obtain desirable cooperation. But the presence of a pontifex minor on the committee for reforming the calendar demonstrates that Caesar felt the need to make his reforms palatable. Perhaps he relied on pontifical assistance in a series of concrete, individual decisions year on year. As for the structural changes, an edictum could have been enough to have the rex sacrorum perform an intercalation every four years, but Caesar acted cautiously. As Pontifex Maximus he followed the rules and added two additional intercalary months (after the regular intercalation in February) between November and December. The rules for inserting a second intercalary month required that its thirty-first day be followed by the last day of November, and December could then run its normal course. As supreme pontiff, then, Caesar must have obtained the necessary cooperation of the rex sacrorum and of a pontifex minor. The Julian Year was inaugurated by Caesar as dictator, but only by means of
Macr. Sat. ..–. Censorinus DN .. The fasti Praenestini carefully mark the added days and give us some insight into the exceptional intercalation of , cf. Inscr. It. ..; illustration: . Noticeably, Censorinus describes Caesar as Pontifex Maximus precisely for this accomplishment; and Macrobius attests the employment of a scriba, probably the pontifex minor M. Flavius, for this same preliminary stage.
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being Pontifex Maximus could he ensure that the pre-Julian January be used as the Julian January.
Divinization Caesar did not only talk about the stars but he acted upon them as well. His reformed calendar had two spectacular consequences. In the long run, the identity of the “natural” and the “religio-civic” calendar offered a convenient calendar to civilizations as wide-ranging as late-antique Christianity and nineteenth-century Japan. In the short run, the reform made the calendar a major field of religious politics: new festivals, particularly in the form of imperial holidays, were invented and strategically placed. Ovid’s commentary on the calendar, the Libri fastorum, marks a new form of literature. The calendar reform paved the way for a period of broader religious reform that pretended to keep or restore Republican precedents. Caesar’s own “asterification” makes the best ending for a chapter on Caesar and the stars. Suetonius duly summarizes the ambiguous religious honors which preceded his formal divinization and were based on the appearance of the sidus Iulium: Sed et ampliora etiam humano fastigio decerni sibi passus est: sedem auream in curia et pro tribunali, tensam et ferculum circensi pompa, templa, aras, simulacra iuxta deos, pulvinar, flaminem, lupercos, appellationem mensis e suo nomine. He even suffered some honours to be decreed to him, which were unbefitting the most exalted of mankind: such as a gilded chair of state in the senate-house and on his tribunal, a consecrated chariot, and banners in the Circensian procession, temples, altars, statues among the gods, a bed of state in the temples, a priest, and a college of priests dedicated to himself, like those of Pan; and that one of the months should be called by his name.
Tellingly, Suetonius concludes his last and most explicit description of Julian religion (Iul. ) with a reference to the calendar: the “Ides of Mars” would be marked by the name of Parricidium.
See Rüpke () and Feeney (, –). For a fuller treatment see Weinstock (); Gesche (); Gradel (, –, see also –). Hor. Carm. ..–; see Williams (). Suet. Iul. .. Translated by Reed (, Perseus project).
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F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H Caesar has been hardly dealt with as a religious actor in its own right, even if many biographies touch on this. Research has concentrated on his calendar reform and his divinization. For the former, Feeney () and Rüpke (b) are basic, for the latter Weinstock () is still valuable. Gradel () places it within the longer development of the cult of rulers. The many aspects of what we consider to be religious deeds were certainly parts of different repertoires of action for a Roman noble. Original and traditional patterns were combined. It would be helpful to see this not only on a piecemeal basis, but as a bundle of actions compared with other contemporary agents (e.g. Rüpke () and Hölkeskamp ()). How typical were they for a patrician (cf. Rüpke (c))? For a member of a family of secondary importance? As for the calendar reform, we need to investigate further the developments in Italy and the provinces and the knowledge of these developments at Rome; this would allow us to assess the strategic component in Caesar’s course of action and his place in intellectual discourses beyond immediate political advantage.
The Politics of Geography Andrew M. Riggsby
Introduction In the modern imagination, perhaps the most dramatic moment of Caesar’s career is his crossing of the Rubicon. Nor is this a purely modern interpretation; ancient narratives such as those of Suetonius (Iul. -) and Plutarch (Caes. ) choose to dramatize precisely this event. Yet in Caesar’s own account there is no Rubicon. He gives a speech of justification to his men at Ravenna, then “sets out for Ariminum.” Only a reader’s outside knowledge would indicate that the river even existed, that Ravenna and Ariminum were on opposite sides, or that it constituted a boundary between two entities not even named here: Italy proper and Caesar’s province of Cisalpine Gaul. Even Caesar’s original location at Ravenna had been mentioned two sections earlier, and might have been forgotten already. Nothing suggests that this is the moment that “the die was cast” or that Caesar was almost certainly in violation of the law at this point, having left his province in arms and without permission. Caesar is parsimonious with his geographical information to avoid both raising the legal issue and more generally feeding a view that he, rather than his opponents, had forced the issue. At the beginning of the BG, Caesar uses (according to Walser) a different geographical tactic. There he suggests the contiguity of the Helvetii and Germans (despite the fact that they were separated by the Celtic Rauraci) and slightly later exaggerates how close the Helvetii would come to the Roman province if they marched through the territory of the Sequani and Aedui. Here Caesar is likely playing on his audience’s lack of familiarity with geography outside Roman territory to suggest that influences and dangers were closer at hand than they really were and this in turn
Cf. Batstone and Damon (, , , ); Grillo (, –). Walser (). Germans and Helvetii BG ..; Helvetii and the province BG ...
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justified his going to war in circumstances where his political enemies might have been able to claim it was unnecessary. The present chapter attempts a more general account of how Caesar shaped his geography to make political points. I should offer two points of definition. I take the key term of the chapter title – geography – both broadly and narrowly. By it, I mean essentially any aspect of spatial representation. That definition might be too expansive in some contexts (say, the movement of characters on the dramatic stage), but is not unreasonable here. I do not, by contrast, have much to say about ethnography except to that extent that it interacts with the spatial.
Gallic War (Forms) Fundamental observations on Caesar’s depiction of space were made more than forty years ago in a paper by Michel Rambaud (); subsequent scholars have added important additions, qualifications, and corrections, but the framework remains extremely useful. Spaces are described quite differently depending on the scale of what is being represented. There are three modes, which Rambaud names (starting from the largest areas) “geographical,” “strategic,” and “tactical.” Geographical space takes in the largest regions, like the descriptions of Gaul or Britain. From a modern point of view they would be quite unhelpful for almost any practical purpose – partly because of some geographical errors, but primarily because of their marked vagueness. Geographic spaces form a general backdrop, rather than the specific location of action. Next in order “[Caesar] conceived of strategic space directly before himself, essentially along a line of sight, in the sense of a movement which carries the army from one point to another.” That “space is not felt as a continuous surface but as a network of lines.” Finally, at the highest resolution and in direct contrast to strategic space, the tactical “vision of space, embracing a much wider field, is more precise, making us no longer see a simple line, but a surface, and that even in relief.” Three observations may be added to Rambaud’s in the present context. The first point I would make has to do with abstraction from experience. The different spatial modes can be defined not just by scale but by use (setting, movement, battle), and in fact it is the latter which seems to account for most of their properties. What we see appears to be a fairly
See Johnston – in this volume.
Rambaud (, ).
Rambaud (, ).
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general feature of cognitive modeling. Humans absorb far more sensory information than is necessary (or even useful) to navigate most situations we find ourselves in. Our minds simplify and abstract the most relevant data from this flow and organize them around particular purposes. So, for instance, strategic space is home to travel. It is built out of routes and landmarks (the instruments of that travel), and is almost automatically quantified either by listing series of landmarks or by counting days of march. In the combat to which tactical space is home, the general must be aware of attack from any direction and must be sensitive to differences in elevation, hence the elaborate three-dimensional representations. I have argued that some specialized types of terrain (e.g. forests, swamps) are treated in this way in the BG. But in fact such abstraction is the rule even in the three kinds of non-specialized space. And this suggests an additional conclusion of a different kind. These abstractions are all carried out from the point of view of a participant, that is a character actually trying to accomplish goals within the text. Caesar the author seems to reproduce the “reality” of Caesar’s subjective experience as general. My second observation is that Caesar’s geography in the BG is characterized by radical fragmentation. Strategic space is fragmented simply by its nature. Most of the two-dimensional space we know today from our maps is not on the strategic networks and therefore functionally does not even exist. And even within networks, only the nodes (not the paths) are ever shared spaces. Thus events happen only at discrete points. But the fragmentation also exists much more generally. There are not (nearly) enough components described at any given level to make up even the smallest elements of description at the larger level. For instance, the components of the opening tableau (Gallia, Aquitania, Belgium, and Germany) are larger than the entire area of the next smaller-scale representations in the work, e.g. the territory of the Remi. Such description sets limits and conditions for action, but is too big a stage to be affected by agents or even allow them to be seen. Then there is another large jump in scale between tactical and strategic space. Areas described at the tactical level are spaced widely enough that their sum total does not bring any new order at the strategic level. And in fact, the kinds of space are structured and measured in such
Riggsby (, –). Riggsby (, –). It has been suggested to me that Caesar’s more detailed tactical description is a side-effect of his more vivid description of the most dramatic moments in the narrative. This is surely a valuable feature, but the example of Livy’s much more schematic battle scenes shows that “more detailed” need not entail the spatial sophistication that Caesar displays. Rather, the experiences of the general provide the author with a ready-made toolkit for enargeia.
The Politics of Geography
different ways that they are fundamentally incommensurable. Lines cannot add up to areas or vice versa. Third, Caesar’s geography is closely tied to his ethnography. For instance, the strategic level of description is almost entirely involved with human occupation. The beginning and end points of marches are most often either oppida or (even more often) the territory of a people or even simply (as literally phrased in the text) the people themselves. At the “geographic” level of description, things are a little more complicated. The opening description of Gaul is demarcated by elements of four different types: cosmological (e.g. constellations, the rising/setting sun), geographical proper (e.g. rivers, mountains), ethnic (e.g. tribal names), and hybrids of the last two (e.g. “. . . is bordered by the territory of the Belgae”, “Aquitania” [vs. “Aquitani”]). These various kinds of description are not arranged hierarchically, but are used more or less interchangeably and in combination. This last point leads us to further observations outside Rambaud’s framework. The Belgae, we are told, are particularly tough because of the constant wars they wage with “the Germans, who live across the Rhine.” The elaborate ethnographic digression of .- (with the very similar description of the Germanic Suebi at .-) make it clear that this is a fundamental border. It is a line between two completely different civilizations or even between civilization and not-civilization. Finally, space itself is different on the two sides of the river. Gaul is divided, subdivided, and demarcated in all the ways listed above. Germany is featureless except for the functionally infinite Hercynian forest (..–) and the literally infinite forest called Bacenis (..). Yet elsewhere in the narrative, Caesar mentions or implies crossings and shadings across the river, both historically and in the course of the main narrative. That is to say, Caesar’s explicit and emphatic insistence on the Rhine as the division between Gaul and Germany is all the more striking for the fact that it seems to be a fiction, even in the text.
Gallic War (Consequences) The geographical world of the BG as I have described it is a complicated one, and that complexity has consequences for how we read a number of aspects of the work. I will structure my discussion first by talking about
Riggsby (, ). Krebs (, –); Riggsby (, -); Schadee (, –). .., .; ..; .., .; ..–. See already Walser (, –, –). This does not seem to correspond to archaeological fact either, though Polverini () and Loicq () argue that Caesar did have cultural raw material already to work with.
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how we understand the character of Caesar, and then move on to the presentation of his project(s) in Gaul. Caesar is famous today for his swiftness (celeritas), and this reputation goes back to his own lifetime. Presumably much of that had to do with actual fact, but it is certainly a perception his writing encouraged. In part, this is simply because Caesar says he was fast. Frequently he tells us of traveling by “long” or “as long as possible” marches magnis or quam maximis potest itineribus. He is also happy to point out occasions when he got to some point before the enemy expected or were even aware of his movements. But the very structure of spatial representation emphasizes speed by itself. In strategic space, motion happens along a utopian path; interaction (and so action itself) is always at the landmark nodes. But the lack of events means no reference points to measure time. Even when Caesar does occasionally tell us that a given journey took so many days, it has not actually taken up time in the text. Moreover, as Krebs has observed, the dominant descriptive mode in Caesar’s depiction of Gaul (contrasted here with Germany) is precisely the strategic. Thus we are constantly reminded of his celeritas. Less discussed outside the text, but perhaps more important to its internal workings, is the sense of mastery that Caesar projects through his control of geography. This is true in several different senses. First, his elaborately articulated version of Gaul appears to be very different from previous ones. Contemporary accounts suggest that much of Gaul was unfamiliar at Rome. And traces of the pre-existing (mostly Greek) literary tradition on the Gauls/Celts show it followed a northern nomad pattern, and the land they inhabited became a figure for the people themselves: trackless and indistinct. But Caesar’s Gauls are locked in defined seats by his network of peoples, places, geographical features, and directions. A variety of lists assert his knowledge of previously unheard-of peoples throughout Gaul. The numerical measurements he offers of Helvetia and Britain claim extreme precision for his knowledge of these far-off places. Moreover, his model is explanatory, telling us, for instance, why the Belgae are the fiercest fighters among the Gauls (..). Second, the knowledge Caesar displays also asserts superiority over the reader. As I’ve just suggested, much of the information in the BG would
Grillo (, ); Ramage (, –). Six times total for Caesar; once for all others combined. The use of the phrase is more complex in the BC. E.g. BG .., .., ..; BC .., .., ... Krebs (, –).
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simply have been new to contemporary Romans. But Krebs has shown that, additionally, Caesar corrects “facts” that those readers likely thought they did know already. Caesar of course opens the work with his famous division of “all Gaul” into three parts. But it is likely that this version of “Gaul” is both broader and narrower than that imagined by contemporary readers. The lumping together of all the peoples west of the Rhine appears to be novel, as does the exclusion of the two Roman provinces which bore that name (one here called just “the province” and the other part of “Italy”). The latter omission is perhaps the more striking for the fact that Caesar’s formal authority was as governor of those provinces (and of Illyricum). Thus not only is Caesar knowledgeable, he is uniquely so. We already noted the radical division Caesar declares at the Rhine. Most of the effects I’ve just been describing are in fact specific to the Gallic side of that divide. The land of Gaul is pre-packaged and ready to be appropriated. Germany is entirely unlike this. There is no Germanic landscape, no features except forests and those seem to be literally infinite. There is no “there” there to conquer. And with no structure, movement becomes meaningless (as we expect generally in “geographical” space), and so Caesar’s celeritas disappears. At the very least, Germany is not a desirable target. At worst, it is a dangerous trap. This marks out limits to expectations for his conquest. His ventures across the Rhine and his battles are not failures even if they do not result in new provinces. Logically, the two regions are different entities, and Caesar is no more responsible for conquering Germany than he is for Parthia. Practically, there is (on this account) no reason for the conquest of Germany. At the same time as Caesar’s geography limits the scope of his operations, it also makes them more expansive than they might have been. The sharp division at the Rhine also implies the self-sameness of everything that lies to the west of the river. The opening sentence of the work asserts the existence of both a totality (Gallia omnis) and of subdivisions (divisa in partes tres). The former claim is particularly striking because, as we have noted already, this seems to be a novel use of the geographical term and because, as Caesar himself recounts, the term could also be given the more restricted meaning of the center of the “three parts.” The narrator and characters of all nationalities reinforce the existence of this Gaul-as-a-whole
Krebs (, –). For Caesar’s commands Suet. Iul. . For the terminology apparently before Caesar, see Liv. Per. , . Krebs (, –). Norden (, –). Cf. Walser ().
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throughout the work with phrases like omnis Gallia ( times) and tota Gallia ( times), and in the mouths of narrator and characters on both sides. Gaul is frequently thought of as subject to a single ruler, and by the end of the work (..) forms a source of moral obligation. This has several advantages for Caesar. In general in a similar situation, Caesar could well have been recalled if his work were “over.” The broader the mission, the less likely it would be aborted or shared out. Moreover, Caesar seems to imply what Cicero argued explicitly on his behalf in de Provinciis Consularibus (-). Rome had lived under a Gallic threat for centuries. Caesar had a chance not just to win glory, but to end that threat once and for all, but only if he were allowed to carry his campaigns to their “logical” conclusion. Finally, indifference to internal Gallic divisions helps legitimize the war. A casus belli good (or at least well fabricated) against one group suggests the propriety of war against many or all.
Civil War (Forms) The spatial aspects of the BC have received much less attention than those of the BG. This is in part because the BC lacks the set-piece geographical sections of the earlier work and because it also lacks the related ethnographic connections that have been important to modern national identities. In any case, the lack of attention does not mean that the topic is unworthy of consideration. At the formal level, space in the BC is stylized in broadly the same fashion as in the BG, but its regime is somewhat looser. Battles are fought in the same tactical spaces and movement is often through the same kind of strategic space. One difference from the BG, however, is that tactical space, though conforming to the earlier definition, is rendered in less detail in the BC. There are fewer measurements, fewer reference objects, and less “special” terrain (marshes, forests). Another is that the distinction between the tactical and strategic is sometimes blurred. In part this is because of the impoverishment of tactical representations just described, but additionally there are some truly hybrid spaces with some of the characteristics of both. The Cinga and Sicoris rivers near Ilerda and the thirty miles between them mark out an area for action, not just a set of occasionally intersecting
A notable exception is the section on “Raum” in Oppermann (, –), though that too emphasizes the BG. There are, of course, incisive local comments in various places, such as those of Batstone and Damon (, , , , and –). Oppermann (, ).
The Politics of Geography
lines (., ). Similarly, the description of the area from Utica to Castra Cornelia (.) gives slopes and alternative routes (tactical) but is explicitly divided by a ridge and is larger than anything in the BG (strategic). This is further evidence, as I had already suggested above, that the key distinction between modes is not scale as such, but use. Two large armies operating over mutually well-known terrain can interact at a distance, not merely when nearly in battle. And when they do so over relatively passable terrain, the generals can and do have to take account of the full possibilities of movement in two dimensions. The other major difference is in the appeal to geographical space in the narrower sense. On the one hand, there are, as we just noted, no elaborate geographical passages such as are found in the BG. On the other hand, there are causal references to quite large geographical units such as regions of Italy (e.g. Apulia, Campania) and provinces of the empire (e.g. Sicily, Cilicia). I’ll have more to say about the range of reference below, but here we may note that each of the provinces represents an area of roughly the same size as the “parts” of Gaul or even Gaul as a whole. Moreover, this collection of areas shows a completeness that we do not see at the lower levels. Caesar mentions every existing Roman province and a number of as-yet unincorporated regions (e.g. Mauretania, Egypt, Britain), tessellating the entire Mediterranean basin and some distance beyond. At the same time, this completeness is not remarked on by the text itself. There is no general orientation, nor are individual provinces or sets of provinces assigned properties or descriptions that would allow the reader to build up an overall picture over time. In fact, some of the regional names appear only in lists, such as Thessaly, Crete, and Cyrene. In the BC we imagine an ideal reader who already had some mental map of the world. Even if the reader is not literally checking a list to see that Caesar has covered “all the bases,” the impression given will be of the scope and completeness of the thing itself. In the BG Rome is set clearly at the periphery. The city is recognized only to the extent necessary to set it clearly out of bounds. Its role is more complicated in the BC. The action of the whole starts in the city, as does that of the third book, and there is another significant interlude in the city in the middle of book . There are several explicit remarks about the importance of the city. On the other hand, it is hardly the center of the
Note the inherently two-dimensional aspect of Caesar’s flanking move at BC .–. For a very different use of a superficially similar device in BG, see Riggsby (, ). BC ..; ..; .., .
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universe. Only about ten of sections are set there, none in the last third of the work. Characters are once (..) criticized for staying in Rome during the fighting. The word urbs frequently means Rome (as so often in Latin), but unlike most of the BG, the BC admits the existence of many other urbes as well (esp. at ..). It might be argued that Rome is central in another sense. It appears at first glance to be a default location. When we arrive there at the opening of the BC, and then again at ., there is no explicit toponym. Sometimes Rome is just urbs, even though that word is potentially ambiguous in this work. But in fact the location is overdetermined. First, both books open with operations of the Roman government that could only be imagined in the city itself. Second, and more important for the work as a whole, the reader is apparently expected to remember Caesar’s own location throughout the narrative, since reference to the presence of his character often seems to stand in for an explicitly geographical reference. The reader was told at . that he had been elected dictator and therefore set out for Rome; it is expected that we will remember that when Caesar next appears at the beginning of book . Nor is this phenomenon limited to this one instance. There are a number of other instances in which a change of scene is indicated not by an overtly geographical term, but by Caesar’s reappearance. This worldwide space, though in fact far larger than the frame of the BG, does not work the same way as the “geographical space” of that text. In the BG the largest frame was essentially static. Nothing “happened” in it because it was too large. In the BC movement or other forms of influence from one zone to another are common. Of course, Pompey and his allies flee Italy early on, and Caesar moves between Gaul, Italy, Spain, and finally Egypt. But there are more casual instances as well: the journey of Nasidius to Massilia via Sicily (.), Caesar sending troops ahead to Spain (.), Gauls coming to Spain to meet Caesar (.), and rumors traveling between Rome and the provinces (., .). Additionally, there are frequent bursts of activity in which a number of characters set out to different destinations from a single point, as when Caesar’s opponents flee his approach at ..
There are a few exceptions in BG . BC .., ... E.g. BC .., .; ., , . The same phenomenon also occurs occasionally around Pompey: BC .; ., . Also ., ; .; ..
The Politics of Geography
Conversely, a similar point can be made by looking at some instances of simultaneity at a distance. Both commentarii frequently (and in varying degrees of precision) point out that events at two different locations happened at the same time: interim, eodem tempore, dum haec geruntur, etc. Most of the time in both works, these are fairly local comparisons, say, across a battlefield. When they are a little further apart, this phenomenon still generally follows another tendency of Caesarian narrative. Görler has pointed out that, when the text is not focused strictly on the character of Caesar, it is often instead caught up in a back and forth between the two sides. But in the BC we also have pure simultaneity – movement of the narrative between theaters not motivated by anything in the substance of the story, but rather by the need to do something to bring those theaters into some kind of unity. That is, the narrative jumps from one area to another not only to follow some character on such a route (though that certainly happens), but also just to make sure the narrative in one area does not get too far “ahead” of that in another. We might also contrast here the practice of Tacitus, who notionally writes on a similar spatial scale. As Pomeroy () has pointed out, however, events in the periphery are not fully real until news of them reaches Rome. This is in contrast to Caesar’s world in which substantial action takes place in many locales, potentially at the same time. Information flows not only to Rome, but from Rome, and often between points that have nothing to do with Rome. This is a fully geographic view in that it takes in most of the known world on equal terms. It is also worth noting another sense in which the world of the BC is geographic. Unlike the BG, it largely lacks a real ethnographic component. And the absence of variation in types of terrain noted above also means that the geography does not become a stand-in for ethnography as it had in the BG. That is, not only are foreign peoples not described directly, but descriptions of the lands they inhabit do not become indirect, metonymic ways of describing them either; terrain cannot become a metonym for the people living there. The most dramatic irruption of the alien into the narrative is probably in the catalog of Pompey’s forces at BC .. Most of the section is taken up by a detailed catalog of fairly small alien contingents (a small fraction of the army), specifying both origins and commanders with strange-sounding “foreign” names. Caesar himself, of course, has Gallic and Germanic units, but they are not given individual leaders, nor
See Carter () ad loc. and Grillo (, –).
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divided by tribe (thus much less time is devoted to their foreignness), and they are treated almost as booty from his earlier campaigns, rather than a contagion. But even this does not much play into the geography. The references are limited to a fairly small bit of text. More importantly, no particular connection (thematic or narrative) is drawn between particular people and their national origins. The toponyms do not clearly suggest anything beyond the generic alienness of the personal names. Many of Caesar’s readers would have had familiarity with at least individual bits of the world described, and most would have had at least second-hand or literary awareness of all of it. It would have been difficult to try to claim special knowledge in the way that the Caesar of the BG did, nor do any of the specific motivations to define the limits of that war apply here.
Civil War (Consequences) Some eighty years ago Oppermann addressed some of the spatial differences between the BG and the BC, noting that the latter’s descriptions were sketchier than the former’s, and were more closely tied to the narrative than the set-pieces of the BG. He explains this as an essentially accidental side-effect of the broader scope of the work. [In the BG] a province is the theater of war, [in the BC] it is the whole world. Correspondingly, Civil War thinks in grander areas than Gallic War. As space expands, details disappear in the expanse and the vividness of districts whose size almost surpasses human comprehension diminishes.
This would make sense if each work were written at a single level of resolution; “zooming out” in the BC would naturally give rise to a loss of fine detail. But in fact they are both written at multiple levels, and at least the lowest, tactical level seems to be at the same scale at least some of the time. And certainly Caesar devotes enough attention to some of the scenes (especially the siege of Massilia) that we cannot imagine that he no longer had the time or attention to describe precisely. It might make more sense to begin from the claim (made above) that Caesar’s style of spatial representation is tied only indirectly to scale and is shaped more by the nature of the action taking place in that space. First, Caesar stands in a different relationship to the events of the BC than he
With the exception of the Allobroges Raucillus and Egus, whose defection has to be explained away (BC .). Oppermann (, ).
The Politics of Geography
had to the BG. While he was not present for all the events of the earlier work, the main narrative is certainly that of his adventures (with the exception of BG and good part of BG ). For larger parts of the BC, he narrates other people’s activities. Second, he stands in a different relationship to the physical geography than he had in the earlier work. He (and his opponents) are maneuvering in known territory. They have a better sense of the lay of the land in eastern Spain or Thessaly than would have been possible in Gallia Comata. The result of these combined factors is to create what might be described as a more “literary” work, or, more precisely, a spatial world more shaped by Roman general knowledge than particular experience. That said, I would not want to suggest that in either work Caesar was merely reproducing his earlier experiences. After all, even Caesar’s experience must have been multifarious, and space and geography are certainly shaped to his political advantage in the BG. One of the strategies of that text was to frame the war as between Romans (even if Caesar was their principal asset) and their opponents. This set up a conventional Roman vs. alien dichotomy and forced the Roman-identifying reader to align himself with Caesar. The BC does not do the same, at least not in a sustained way. Instead there is homogeneity across both armies at all locations. (This is not merely a matter of fact. The later example of Augustus’ treatment of his war against Antony in alienating terms shows the “foreign” elements among Caesar’s enemies could have been emphasized.) Caesar’s goal here is perhaps again de-politicization, but not in quite the same sense. Caesar’s opponents portrayed him as a standard aspiring tyrant. This image included the notions that () he was fighting as an individual against the collective that represented Rome in practice and () he had no respect for law and tradition that constituted it in theory. The distributed and decentralized world of the BC quietly resists both of the characterizations. Caesar is not even present for most of the fighting in two of the major theaters of operations (Massilia, Africa). At the same time, his opponents are isolated from one another. The mere fact that they are dispersed over huge spaces makes them appear to be free agents rather than representatives of any kind of centralizing SPQR. We don’t have Rome vs. usurper or even (for most of the work) Caesar vs. Pompey, but also Trebonius vs. Domitius, Curio vs. Varus, Cassius and Domitius vs. Scipio and Favonius, etc. Moreover, the worldwide character of the war normalizes it. If everyone is fighting everywhere, then the mere fact of
Riggsby (, –, –).
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waging war does not make one a rebel. The overtly argumentative sections of the work make a case for the justice of Caesar’s cause and for his moral superiority. The structure of the work makes a weaker, fall-back case. It neutralizes the differences between the two sides and makes the distinction technical rather than passionate or political. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H There was considerable discussion of the geographical set-pieces of the BG in the early part of the twentieth century, emphasizing the ethnographic element and (unfortunately) claims of interpolation. So even Beckmann’s monograph defending authenticity deals primarily with linguistic and formal issues. Rambaud brought genuinely spatial issues to the fore, and his notion of déformation historique has been attractive to some as a way of looking at the use of geography. Several papers in the collection of Poli () touch on geographic themes, though often from the point of view of Caesar’s sources (whether textual or “real”), as do Harmand () and France (). Much of the discussion above was shaped by three pieces that appeared more or less simultaneously and independently of each other: Krebs (), Riggsby (, –), and Schadee (); the bibliographies of the first and last are additionally useful for gathering the scattered earlier material. In addition to Oppermann () cited above, Nützel () treats the BC (along with the BG and the rest of the corpus Caesarianum) at a stylistic level. As noted above, the topic of geography in the BC (let alone the corpus Caesarianum) has been understudied. Of particular interest would be the role of the sea in the BC, which is not only particular to that work (as opposed to the BG), but perhaps unique in Latin historiography more generally. It would also be valuable to exploit existing source-critical research in an attempt to find whether Caesar relies on/manipulates specific geographical expectations about the “known” spaces of this work. In BG literature, there is unresolved disagreement on whether geography should be understood to have a direct causal influence on national character (the “Hippocratic” view). Above I briefly discussed “simultaneity at a distance” in the BC, but the general relationship of space in time would repay more extensive research into both works.
Nostri and “The Other(s)” Andrew C. Johnston
Introduction Caesar’s Commentarii on the Gallic wars are a traveler’s tale, and like all such tales, they tell of “others” to an audience of “selves.” In the telling, both the barbarian other and the Roman self are subject to the author’s power of (re)presentation. By developing a rhetoric of otherness throughout the text, Caesar as ethnographer works to “translate” the barbari whom he encounters, to make them meaningful to his Roman readership, at the same time as he presents that readership with his own carefully wrought image of themselves, nostri. The classical “ethnographic mode” employed by Caesar in this project consisted of a constellation of topics, tropes, and rhetorical devices from which cultural accounts were composed within various genres. Since the “postmodern turn,” work in the fields of sociology and cultural anthropology has striven to come to terms with the intricate nature of the relationships between the writer, reader, and subject matter of ethnography. From this scholarship it has become apparent that the making of all ethnographic texts necessarily implicates a process of self-fashioning as much as it does a discursive construction of the other. Images of the other are, in fact, a reflection of the self; the writer of ethnography is “the looker looked at, the questioner questioned.” In the end, all ethnographies are a kind of cultural fiction, determined, in part, by the historical, political, and intellectual contexts of their author-observers.
On travelers’ tales, translation, and the rhetoric of otherness with regard to Herodotus, the fountainhead of classical ethnography, see Hartog (, –). On ethnographic writing as a part of late Republican intellectual culture, see Rawson (, –). The BG contains three formal ethnographic excursus: .– (Suebi), .– (Britons), and .– (Gauls and Germani). Cf. Erickson and Murphy (, –); Clifford (). For the concept of “discourse” with respect to Caesar, see Riggsby (, –). Hartog (, xxiii).
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The Gauls had figured prominently in the Roman imagination since their sack of Rome in the early fourth century BCE. In the successive centuries, the extension of Roman imperium mutually shaped and was shaped by the memory of that primordial, archetypal conflict, engendering in the Roman mentality an ingrained mistrust of and enmity for the Gallic other. Articulations and manipulations of this sentiment were commonplace in the discourse of the late Republic, recurring frequently in Cicero’s public speeches and letters; its influence is even detectable in contemporary municipal statutes. Therefore, for Caesar, the Gauls had significant rhetorical potential. Of the fledgling Latin ethnographic tradition within which Caesar was writing, little survives. The Origines of Cato, written in the mid-second century , afford a rare glimpse of nascent Roman literary tropes and stereotypes of the Gauls of northern Italy. From the generation before Caesar, a well-known fragment of Claudius Quadrigarius concerning Manlius Torquatus exemplifies the Roman “ethnographic gaze” directed at the Gallic other. But the most pivotal author in shaping the Roman ethnographic tradition on the peoples of Gaul was the Greek polymath Posidonius, writing in the early first century , who integrated a lengthy ethnographic digression on the Celtae into his historical work. This seems to have been the first systematic account of the peoples of Gaul, and accordingly it redefined the parameters and terms of the discourse that governed what was “sayable” about the Gauls.
The Mirror of Caesar: Images of the Gallic “Other” The BG was thus situated within a discursive field of positions created by an array of other texts. From a survey of the fragmentary remains of this
Gruen (, –) argues unconvincingly that this metus Gallicus was merely “a convenient ploy, often slung about in Latin writings but hard to reckon as a deep-seated fear in Roman consciousness.” For contrary opinions, see Drinkwater (, ), who interprets Roman fears as “a fundamental theme in the dealings between Rome and Gaul”, and Woolf (, –), who notes that these very real “prejudices and anxieties” regarding the Gauls “were frequently mobilized to serve political ends.” Cf. Williams (, –). The studies by Bellen () and Kremer () are important counterpoints. Cic. Font. ; Cat. ., .; Att. ... See Gardner (, ), Linderski (a, –), Williams (, ), and Grillo (, –). Cato FrHist F; Claudius Quadrigarius FrHist F. On the “ethnographic gaze,” see Madden (, ). On the Celtic ethnography of Posidonius, the classic works are Norden (, –) and Tierney (). Nash () is a salutary corrective to this older “Pan-Posidonian” approach. Framing the BG more generally within a discourse allows us to escape the vexed and long-standing question of the direct dependence of Caesar upon Posidonius; cf. Riggsby (, –; –).
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pre-Caesarian ethnographic discourse emerges a variegated image of “the” Gaul, which could be adapted to the particular demands of the context. Nevertheless, despite the potential breadth of what was sayable, there were certain themes and stereotypes essential to the character of the Gauls. At the core of this image were an ethicized disorder, fluidity, volatility, and changeability – qualities epitomized, in the collective memory, in the sacks of Rome and Delphi. Polybius, from whom we can get a sense of the reputation of the Gauls in the mid-second century, frequently highlights their ἀθεσία, an uncommon word that effectively encapsulates this essence: an inclination to set aside one thing in favor of another. This innate tendency made them susceptible to those who were able to speak well, and hence this was supposedly a skill that the Gauls actively cultivated. Gallic fluidity took on spatial as well as socio-cultural dimensions: the Gauls were thought to be especially prone to migrate, and, as such, to live in unwalled villages, with only portable property. But all these traits were epiphenomena that stemmed from the most fundamental difference between the constructed Gallic other and the Greek or Roman self: that between emotionality and rationality. Emotionality had long been typical of barbarian peoples in Greek thought, but the trope is most fully realized in the Gauls. That they are ruled so wholly by passion makes them a study in extremes and contradictions, alternately dangerously powerful and almost comically impotent. While easily incited to war, within a single fight or in the course of a campaign they are unable in their disorder or unwilling in their fickleness to sustain the initial impetus. Even the renowned courage of the Gauls was, according to Aristotle, ultimately irrational, merely the reflex of a lack of self-control and excessive emotionality. Caesar manipulated this image of the Gauls to great effect. Each season of the Roman campaign is inextricably entwined with the character
For an overview of Gallic ethnographies before Caesar, see Jervis (, –), who rightly points to the multiplicity within the tradition. See also the recent summaries of Williams (, –), Riggsby (, –), and Gruen (, –). On “the general reputation of the Gauls,” see Polybius ... On the Gallic fondness for rhetoric, see Cato FrHist F. Cf. Williams (, –). Polybius ..–. In many respects, they resemble the prototypical nomadic barbarians in the Greek ethnographic tradition, the Scythians. For the clearest formulation of this, see Polybius ... Cf. Jervis (, –). See Hall (, –) on the Persians. Arist. Eth. Eud. b. For Gallic fickleness, see e.g. Polybius .; ..; ... Strabo (..), echoing Posidonius, links their emotional nature with their eagerness for war. On Caesar’s artful “déformation historique,” see Rambaud (); on the balance between tradition and innovation in Caesar’s representation of northern barbarians, see Pallavisini ().
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of “the other,” and therefore each book of the Commentarii is concerned with the representation of that otherness. This concern is in evidence from the very outset of the work, in the account of the Helvetian migration. Conspicuous in this initial episode are those two Gallic qualities that would have been most familiar to the Roman reader, bellicosity and eloquent speaking, as well as the traditional topoi of emotionality and spatial fluidity. Caesar characterizes the Helvetii as “men who lust for war,” and who “are afflicted by great emotional distress” by the constraints that have been imposed upon their ability to “wander widely” and to “wage war upon their neighbors” (BG .). As the would-be Helvetian king Orgetorix hatches his conspiracy, in the space of only two chapters forms of the verb persuadere occur four times and Gallic actors or listeners are “won over” or “moved” by their own emotions or by the speeches of others four times, which – reflecting a stereotypical Gallic softness – make frequent appeals to “ease.” All of this gives a vivid impression of the intrinsic danger their changeable nature posed to ordered, Roman space. By strategically presenting the Helvetii in terms that accommodate the ethnographic expectations of his audience, Caesar is able subtly yet evocatively to frame his military actions within a larger cultural paradigm before he even appears on the stage of his own narrative. This is but the first of many formulations of the rhetoric of otherness that is integral to Caesar’s project, and recent revisionist arguments that marginalize its significance are ultimately untenable. But the construction of the other is only one side of this project, for in the mirror that was Gaul, Caesar inevitably gazed upon Rome. As previously mentioned, the necessary corollary of the (re)invention of the Gallic other is the imagination of the Roman self and community: nostri. This concern is to be viewed in the broader context of the increasingly complex renegotiations of Roman identity in the first half of the first century . Contemporary debates revolved around questions of the meaning and inclusivity of “Romanness” – visible in, for example, the development of a cultural vocabulary of urbanitas and humanitas, and
BG .–. The theme of persuasion recurs at ., where the Helvetii expect to convince the Allobroges to join them. See e.g. . (changeability), . (softness), . (susceptibility to rumor), . (fickleness), . (innate rashness). Gruen (, ) misleadingly interprets the traditional ethnographic stereotypes of the Gauls in the Commentarii as only “occasional allusions” or “isolated comments”. And while Riggsby (, ) is right that “Caesar refuses numerous self-created opportunities to draw a sharp distinction between Roman self and alien other,” any reading must also take into account the fact that he intentionally created numerous opportunities to emphasize that very distinction.
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anxieties over language and dress. These questions are implicated in the intellectual works and political agenda of Caesar, for whom the quintessence of Roman identity was order, broadly conceived. As in the ethnography of Herodotus the imaginary nomadic Scythian other had fulfilled a need of the equally imaginary autochthonous Athenian self, so too in the Commentarii of Caesar the disordered Gaul is the necessary counterpoint of the ordered Roman. The function of the Gallic mirror in representing this vision of Romanness is illustrated in microcosm in an eloquent “tale of two camps” told by Caesar in book two. The amorphous castra of the Belgae, discernible only by the smoke of their fires, sprawl across eight miles of the landscape. During the second watch of the night, the Belgae break camp with great uproar and turmoil, in complete disorder and with no semblance of command as each man seeks to get on the road first, giving retreat the appearance of flight. In the Roman camp – which has been carefully constructed, both physically by Caesar-as-actor and textually by Caesar-as-narrator – the imperator initially learns of the commotion through his scouts, but takes no action until he has conducted further reconnaissance. At dawn, with the information confirmed, he appoints his commanders, then sends out the cavalry, followed by three legions. As the unordered Belgae shout and scatter, the seemingly inexorable victory of nostri is achieved without any danger. The consequent slaughter of the enemy is almost mechanical. At dusk, the Romans return to camp in accordance with orders. The captivating image of Roman ratio that emerges from this tale is reinforced by Caesar’s style, the superficially casual and straightforward – though actually artfully deliberate – structuring and ordering of the narrative arc of the Roman actions: camp, report, inquiry, strategy, command, conquest, camp. As a mise-en-abîme, the structure of this single episode can be extrapolated to apply on a broader scale to the rhetorical shaping of the campaign of book two as a whole. War as waged by the Romans, especially in the BG, was, above all, methodical work, exemplified in the regular, iterative, almost ritualistic fortification of the military camp, which became a kind of
On the question of Roman identities in the late Republic, see Dench (, esp. –). For constructions of “Romanness” in the BG, see Riggsby (,–) and Hall (). On the link between Caesar’s position in the linguistic debate and his politics, see Garcea (, –). Cf. Pezzini – in this volume. Ames (–, ) propounds a similar view of Roman identity in the BG. Cf. Hartog (, ), from whom the concept of the “mirror” is borrowed. See BG .–; . See Ames (–, ) on this and Caesar’s textual construction of Romanness.
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cultural symbol. That the Gauls do not fortify their camps – a point later emphasized by Caesar – reflects their otherness: they are as unaccustomed to work as they are to suffering commands (BG .). Thus, although the forces of the Belgae are the foremost among the Gauls in virtus, in the face of Roman ratio it ultimately avails them naught. The superiority of the ratio identified with the Roman self over the chaotic virtus identified with the Gallic other is a theme elaborated elsewhere in the text. Addressing his troops at Gergovia after a nearly catastrophic overpursuit of the enemy against his orders, Caesar upbraids them for succumbing to those defects often ascribed by him to the Gauls: temeritas, licentia, and arrogantia (BG .). Although he praises his men’s virtus and magnitudo animi, he emphasizes that these qualities are, in themselves, insufficient; even the barbari are capable of exhibiting both. What are no less required of Caesar’s Romans – what are, in fact, the defining features of their Romanness – are moderation and selfrestraint (modestia, continentia). These disciplinary, ordering concepts set nostri apart from, and in contradistinction to, the vain disorder of the Gauls. Perhaps the most programmatic performance of Romanness staged by Caesar takes place at the boundary of Roman imperium, on the banks of the Rhine. Having determined to cross the river into Germania, the imperator judges it “unworthy of himself and the Roman people to make the crossing by boat,” and so resolves to build a bridge. At this point Caesar inserts an extended technical ekphrasis on the design of the bridge, appropriating the authority of the discourses of architecture and engineering, which were key to late Republican constructions of Roman identity. It is one of the longest descriptive passages in the entire work, the laborious detail of which emblematizes the methodical labor of Caesar’s campaign (BG .). Caesar’s statement can be interpreted in part as aemulatio of Pompey, whose bridging of the similarly liminal Araxes
BG ..; cf. ... On the inferiority of Gallic virtus, see Ames (–, –). Virtus in the BG has received several treatments with discrepant conclusions, none of which is entirely satisfactory: see, inter alios, Jervis (), Riggsby (, esp. –), McDonnell (, –), Gruen (, –). Erickson () uses the Veneti as a case study of Caesar’s “ethnography of virtus.” There are other examples of Caesar critiquing the temeritas of his commanders (.), or of his commanders making efforts to avoid acting temere (.). Caesar explicitly attributes virtus to the Gauls thirty-one times. As for Gallic magnitudo animi, the great exemplum comes at ., where the Nervii fight bravely to the bitter end. Both modestia and continentia were traditional virtues emotively credited to the maiores: e.g. Cic. Leg. Man. ; Cael. ; Phil. .; Dom. . On Vitruvius and Roman identity, for example, see Wallace-Hadrill (, –). The description is rivaled only by the account of the siege works at Alesia (.–).
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during his Armenian campaign had impressed his contemporaries and become symbolic of Roman imperium. But Caesar’s written bridge over the Rhine also represents Roman domination of the natural world, the control and ordering of space through ratio and scientia, the lack of which defines the Caesarian barbarus. Upon his return, Caesar dismantles the bridge, but the textual monument to his intrepid exploration of the vast unknown remains, a symbol all the more laden with meaning standing as it does, like the altars of Alexander, at the ends of the earth.
(B)ordering the Gauls With the iconic opening words of the first book, Caesar, in his presentation of Gaul as an intellectually mastered space, is already at work imposing order, limiting fluidity. The conception of Gallia omnis in his “imaginary geography” – an overviewed, unified “whole” bounded and bordered on all sides – is, as has been demonstrated by Christopher Krebs, revolutionary, a subversion of the expectations of his readers, for whom Gallia would instinctively have signified something quite different (BG .). Equally important in this passage, however, is the existence of internal divisions – cultural, linguistic, and political – within Gaul. While in this initial snapshot, only three people groups – the Galli, Aquitani, and Belgae – constitute the “whole,” Caesar gradually pixelates the image. In a contemporary speech, Cicero asserted that his ears were bombarded daily by the letters and messengers of Caesar with news of previously unknown peoples and places. Indeed, some eighty civitates are ultimately named within Caesar’s Gallia, often in long “catalogs,” an aggressive and possessive practice that calls to mind the labels (tituli) paraded in the Roman triumph. Moreover,
See Appian, Mith. with Vergil, Aen. .. Ndiaye (, –) shows that, when applied to the Gauls in the BG, the term barbarus has predominantly the connotation of ignorance (imperitia, inscientia, vanitas). On ratio in the BG, see Hall (). Diodorus .. is a testament to the evocative power of Caesar’s monument. On the symbolic significance of Caesar’s exploration of Germania, see Krebs (, –), who interprets it in the context of the campaigns of Pompey, Alexander, and Darius at various ends of the earth; on the bridge as symbol, see Krebs (, –). On Caesar’s Germania as a place to explore rather than to conquer, and the role of that exploration in his political maneuverings back at Rome, cf. Schadee (, –). On the literary aspects of the bridge episode, see Brown (). See Krebs (, –), to which I am greatly indebted. Cf. Riggsby (, –). Cic. Prov. Cons. , with Grillo (). On these letters see e.g. BG .. with Krebs (, n. ); on the correspondence between Cicero and Caesar during the Gallic campaigns, see Nice (). For example at BG ., ., ., ., ., ., and .. Cf. Riggsby (, ); Beard (, –)
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the elaborate textual “microgeography” places emphasis on territory and boundaries between civitates: Caesar explicitly mentions the fines of twentythree different Gallic civitates. Although the internal diversity of language, practices, and institutions among the peoples of Gaul alluded to in the opening paragraph of the work is never fully realized, Caesar does provide occasional glimpses into local customs: the Aedui, for example, are governed by an annually elected magistrate, whom they call a vergobretus, who holds the power of life and death over them (BG ..). Caesar’s insistent mode of reference to ethnic subdivisions and to internal geographical borders reinforces the reader’s impression of, on the one hand, the potential disorder and chaos inherent in a naturally “Balkanized” Gaul, and on the other, of Caesar’s intellectual mastery of and imposition of order upon Gallic space. Order is the fundamental theme of the ethnographic excursus in book six, which is now acknowledged to bear little resemblance to the realities of late Iron Age culture in pre-conquest Gaul; indeed, the rubric of “factuality” has limited explanatory value for any ancient ethnographic representation. Thus disentangled from “the facts,” the digression must be interpreted as a thoroughly rhetorical construct, motivated by Caesar’s textual aims. His stated objective in the first sentence is simply put: to describe and to contrast Gallia and Germania (BG ..). But the underlying project of Caesar’s ethnography is to impose order on the Gallic other and to render them compatible with integration into the Roman world, that he might ultimately cast into sharper relief the barbarity and externality of the Germani, the “other other,” to borrow Andrew Riggsby’s evocative phrase. Caesar opens the digression with a brief narrative of how his structuring presence in Gaul has brought about the (re)establishment of order (BG .–). The whole account is organized around a system of binary oppositions, most famously the division of the elite into only two classes of any repute: the cursorily sketched knights and the more elaborately described druids (BG .–). While Caesar departs markedly from
For the rhetorical function of the bounding of “tribal territories” within Gallic space, cf. Krebs (, ); as Krebs notes elsewhere (, n. ), Caesar’s geographic remodeling of Gallia is understudied. On this vergobretus, see Lamoine (). For Caesar’s contribution of such foreign words to Latin ethnographic discourse, see Bell (). See Lund (). See Schadee (, –) for a persuasive reading of the excursus. Riggsby (, ). On the thorny question of the historical druids, there is a vast bibliography: see e.g. Bachelier (), Chadwick (), and Webster ().
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the earlier Posidonian view of Gallic society, his conventional representation of the druids as enigmatic, barbarian philosophers is still intelligibly situated within the discursive field of positions. The practice of human sacrifice, potentially destabilizing to social and textual order (BG .), is balanced by the druids’ concern with questions that simulate the titles of the kinds of treatises being written by contemporary Roman intellectuals: “On the Stars and their Motion”; “On the Size of the Universe and the Earth”; “On the Nature of the World” (BG .). In the rest of the excursus, Caesar subverts traditional stereotypes of Gallic disorder, many of which he himself deploys elsewhere in the text. Greed and lust for spoil is one example. Contrary to the reader’s expectations, he claims that after a battle in which they are victorious, the Gauls gather together the spoils and dedicate them in one place; restrained by religious scruples, no one ever smuggles anything taken on the battlefield into his own home, or removes anything from the heap once it has been placed there (BG ..–). Susceptibility to rumor is another. Caesar states that those civitates that are better governed have realized the potentially destructive consequences of acting hastily on matters of great importance based on hearsay, and so they have established laws regulating the dissemination of information (BG .). Together, the ethnographic excursus and the imaginary geography of Gaul serve a powerful rhetorical purpose: Gallia is integrated in the orbis Romanus, while Germania, excluded, begins the orbis alter.
The Double Mirror: the “Invention” of the Germani The BG is inevitably involved in what has been referred to as the “historical predicament of ethnography,” that is, “the fact that it is always caught up in the invention, not the representation, of cultures.” Caesar’s Germani are an eloquent illustration of this principle. As the primus
The Posidonian view – a tripartite division of the elite into classes of bards, diviners, and druids – is elaborated most clearly by Strabo (..); cf. Diodorus .. and ..–; Timagenes FGrHist F. The function of this passage has resisted convincing interpretation: for extreme views on either side – apologetic or critical – see Gruen (, ). The familiarity that a Roman audience of this period could be expected to have with this practice of the druids is shown by Cicero, Font. . On the relationship between Caesar’s Commentarii and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, see Krebs (a). Contrast Polybius ..–. Contrast BG .. Cf. Krebs (, ). Clifford (, ).
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inventor Germaniae, he quite literally put them on the map, but the sharp geographical and cultural distinction he drew between the Galli and Germani is an illusory one, a cultural fiction of imperial power, which “had little significance for local groups and individuals and bore no correspondence to political formations.” From the beginning of the text, the Germani are constructed as the “other other.” If the Gauls were the bogeymen that Roman parents conjured up in bedtime stories to frighten their children, then the Germani were stuff of Gallic nightmares. To authorize this portrait of the dwellers across the Rhine, Caesar frequently focalizes his ethnographic statements through the lens of internal narrators. Speaking to Caesar, the Gallic princeps Diviciacus characterizes the Germanic king Ariovistus as haughty, cruel, savage, easily provoked, and thoughtless. Soon thereafter, Caesar learns from the Gauls that the Germani are, even to them, enormous and unbelievably brave, and that often when they meet the Germani they are unable to bear the fierceness of their eyes (BG .; .). This is the reflection of the “double mirror:” the Gauls, “others” when contrasted with the Romans, become familiar in comparison to the Germani; to make Germanic otherness more intelligible, the ethnography, in a sense, turns Gauls into “Romans.” Ancient ethnographies tend to follow this principle of the “excluded middle” when coping with two “others” at once, since a twofold otherness is difficult to translate. The impression of “Gauls in the middle” is reinforced by the ethicizing geography of the BG: the Gauls are ambiguously positioned on a “moral map” wherein humanitas and fortitudo are functions of distance from Rome and Germania, respectively. In the second half of the ethnographic excursus in book six, Caesar gazes still deeper into the “double mirror.” Here Germanic otherness is translated through a rhetorical trope of negation typical of imperializing ethnographic discourses, “whereby ‘natives’ are described in terms of lacks and
See Krebs (, esp. –); cf. Krebs (, esp. –), with Lund () and (), who have demonstrated Caesar’s role as “Erfinder der Germanen Germaniens.” Roymans (, –); cf. also Lund (). On internal focalization in narrative, see Genette (, –). See Hartog (, –), who explores the concept in relation to the Greeks, Persians, and Scythians in Herodotus; see – for the principle of the excluded middle. Cf. Schadee (, n. ), who applies the concept of the “double mirror” to the BG; for a discussion of the principle of the excluded middle with relation to Romans, Gauls, and Germans, see O’Gorman (, ). BG ... For other points plotted on this map, cf. BG . (Nervii), . (Ubii), . (Britanni), and . (Gauls in general). For the idea of the “moral maps” constructed by Caesar in the BG, see Jervis (, –).
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absences.” In contrast to the Gauls, the Germani have no druids to preside over religion, they perform no rituals nor do they worship any real gods. Placed by Caesar in a kind of mundus inversus typical of the ethnographic mode, they wear almost no clothing, they practice no agriculture, they have no concept of ownership, and there is no real social stratification. They have no presence in the landscape, and there is no chief magistrate. Ultimately, the space of Germania has no internal differentiation and its extent cannot be measured because the Germani have no means to do so, but it seems to have no end (BG .–). Their fluidity and boundlessness render them, like the classic Scythian nomad, unconquerable. As opposed to the Gauls, who gradually become ordered by Caesar’s presence, the Germani remain unaffected. Thus while the otherness of the Gauls – disorder, broadly conceived – serves as the motivation for and the explanation of their conquest, the otherness of the Germani – emptiness, broadly conceived – serves as the motivation for and explanation of their abandonment.
Otherizing Romans in the Bellum Civile To this point, we have looked at the construction of selves and others exclusively in the BG. But, as Luca Grillo has recently emphasized, Caesar employs a “barbarology” in his narrative of the civil wars as well, a rhetoric of otherness by which he redefines the “true” Roman community – now a far more problematic nostri – in contradistinction to the Pompeians, who are subtly assimilated to the barbari. As in the BG, from the very opening scene of the BC Caesar works to characterize his antagonists as stereotypical “others” as an anticipatory justification of his campaigns, even before he introduces himself into the narrative. The four major players are represented as lacking self-control – a lack that typifies the Caesarian barbarian – and at the mercy of a malignant emotionality. This picture is reinforced by the syntax, wherein the Pompeians seem to
See Riggsby (, ), with Spurr (, –). The mundus inversus or “symbolic inversion” is defined by Babcock (, ) as “any act of expressive behavior which inverts, contradicts, abrogates, or in some fashion presents an alternative to commonly held cultural codes, values, and norms be they linguistic, literary or artistic, religious or social and political.” On Germania’s boundlessness and lack of differentiation, and the consequences for Caesar’s strategy and its representation, see Krebs (, –). Schadee (, ); see Rambaud (, –) on Caesar’s view of the possibility of assimilating Gallia versus Germania. Grillo (, –).
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have no agency: Cato is driven, Lentulus is moved, Scipio is impelled, Pompey is spurred (BC .). Caesar’s barbarization of the Pompeians is achieved through a variety of narrative choices. For example, only the foreign auxiliary forces of the Pompeians are referred to as barbari, never those on “our” side. The Pompeian other increasingly takes on stock traits of the barbarus familiar from the BG: cruelty, arrogance, changeability, recklessness, susceptibility to rumor and hearsay. Caesar as narrator works to de-Romanize them: the soldiers of Afranius in Spain, for instance, have devolved into fighting in the disordered, backward style of the Lusitanians (BC .). Moreover, in the topsy-turvy world of the Pompeians constructed by Caesar, the roles of Roman and barbarian are inverted, as in a powerful scene at the end of book two after the resounding defeat of Caesar’s general Curio near Utica. Here, the Numidian king Juba plays in carnivalesque fashion the triumphant Roman general, parading Roman senators in his train, and dictating terms to the impotent Varus. In turn, Varus himself, at this old Punic city, with his broken faith, is transformed into a kind of Carthaginian through a barbarizing play on the infamous Punica fides (BC .). A similarly effective aspect of Caesar’s rhetoric of otherness in its profound alienation of the opposing faction is the contemptuous description of the camp of Pompey after Pharsalus (BC .–), the narrative of which battle is itself a masterpiece of ratio over emptiness and frustratio (BC .–). The archetype for this Orientalizing scene of decadence, echoed frequently in Hellenistic historiography, is Herodotus’ description of the Persian camp after their defeat at Plataea. The deployment of the topos here undermines Pompey’s own self-representation as a new Alexander, implicitly rendering him instead as an Eastern despot, and thus resolving the fundamental tension of the work by recasting a bellum civile as a bellum externum: ultimately a war against Roman selves becomes a war against barbarian others.
Conclusion: Other Readings and Others’ Readings In the wake of the reinterpretation of the north effected by Caesar’s Commentarii, subsequent writers were compelled to negotiate an altered ethnographic and geographic landscape. The impact of the invention of
Cf. Lendon (, –). See Rossi (). On Caesar and Greek historians, see Pitcher – in this volume. On Pompey as a “Roman Alexander,” see more recently Spencer (), esp. –.
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the Germani cannot be overstated: even Greek writers of the imperial period, who tended toward ethnographic conservatism, almost universally adopt the Germani as a major ethnos in the north. But Caesar’s Gallic ethnography, unlike his revolutionary imaginary geographies or his representation of the Germani, appears to have made a lesser impact on later authors, who preferred the Posidonian tradition. Such were, in brief, the basic contours of other, post-Caesarian readings of Gallia and Germania. But what of the “other’s” reading of Caesar? That is, as the peoples of Gaul were incorporated into the empire, what did they make of Caesar’s representation of themselves? There is little evidence to answer this question before the emergence of western provincial literatures in the third century, but thereafter, a picture emerges of a discourse of local identity in which the BG had become a foundational text. Orators from among the Aedui often recalled their ancestral kinship with the Romans as found in Caesar, and in one speech, the story of the ancient princeps Diviciacus is related as an exemplum of the loyalty of the Aedui to Rome and of their collaboration in the establishment of Roman imperium in Gaul. In the late fourth century, when Protadius, a native of the civitas of the Treveri, conceived an interest in composing a work on the history of Gaul, he consulted a copy of Caesar’s Commentarii sent to him by Symmachus, who told him that therein he would find information on “the origin, geography, battles, customs, and laws of the Gauls.” A late but fascinating reader of Caesar was Flodoard, a tenth-century Christian priest at Rheims, in the country of the Remi. He compiled a local church history, the first chapter of which is concerned with the origin myths of the Remi and the still extant Roman monuments from antiquity. Flodoard then turns to the earliest written record of the Remi, the BG. Through extensive quotations from the text, he offers a detailed account of the amicitia between the Romans and the Remi and of the unbroken fides
On the development of the Roman discourse of “Borealism,” for example, see Krebs (). For a different view of the Greek tradition on the north under Rome, cf. Krebs (, n. ) and Lund (). Diodorus does not adopt the Germani (see ..–, where the dwellers across the Rhine are not differentiated from the Gauls), unlike his successors: e.g. Dionysius .; Strabo ..–; Appian, Celtica fr. ; Herodian ... A notable exception is the third-century historian Cassius Dio. Ammianus .– is a case in point; on this ethnography, see Woolf () –. Mela (.–) does, however, betray the influence of Caesar. Pan. Lat. ..; ( ); Pan. Lat. .– ( ). On the difficulties of this latter speech, see Nixon and Rodgers (, –). Symmachus, Ep. .; see also .. On these letters, see Wightman () and Cameron (, –). Flodoard, Hist. Rem. Eccl. ..
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exhibited to Caesar by his people, who could boast of being the only Gallic civitas never to have taken up arms against the Romans. Thus, in the end, “the others” too found themselves in Caesar’s text. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H Gruen () is a challenging revisionist approach to ancient ethnography, and the chapter on Caesar’s treatment of the Gauls will offer the reader a different perspective on his aims. Riggsby () is the most important monograph-length treatment of constructions of Romans and Gauls in the BG since Rambaud (). The unpublished dissertation of Jervis () informs much work done on Caesar’s construction of “the other” over the last decade. The recent arguments of Krebs (; ) have shed new light on the intellectual influence of Caesar as geographer and ethnographer. Grillo () has illuminated complex dynamics of the rhetoric of otherness in the BC. For the intellectual background outside of Rome, Hartog () is the most significant contribution in the last quartercentury, but this should now be read alongside Skinner () on the pre-Herodotean invention of Greek ethnography. In the field of cultural anthropology, the theoretical framework for rethinking ethnography developed in Clifford () has been influential. On the subject of Caesar’s construction of selves and others, many directions for further scholarship remain; there are three that I suggest here. First is the historicization of otherness and the complex role of memory in the BG. While it is not conventional historiography, the past does conspicuously inform the present of Caesar’s work, and in turn undergoes a process of remaking in the course of the narrative; Roman perceptions of and attitudes toward the Gauls – and vice versa – are represented as the products of historical developments. Secondly, more is to be said about the textual “assimilation” of the conquered, the collapse of the distinction between “self” and “other” through the appropriation of the perspective of the Gauls and the “translation” of their anxieties into the terms of a distinctly late Republican Roman political discourse. A final direction that merits further inquiry is the reception of Caesar’s ethnography and geography, from the Corpus Caesarianum to Greek literature of the imperial period to the Middle Ages.
Genre, Rhetoric, Language, and Style
Genres and Generic Contaminations: The Commentarii Debra L. Nousek
Generic Identity Defining the genre of Caesar’s Commentarii would be an easier task if there were other extant examples of works similarly titled, either earlier or contemporary with Caesar. But Caesar’s texts are the earliest so-called commentarii to survive; and while there are references to documents called commentarii in other ancient authors and various later works so labeled, none has the same scope, literary panache, or fully developed historical narrative. In consequence, we have very little to go on in assessing what Caesar meant by that designation. This chapter has two aims: first, to establish what Romans of Caesar’s period (and later) may have associated with the term commentarius; and, second, to argue for classification of Caesar’s Commentarii in the genre of historiography. Before discussing Caesar’s Commentarii specifically it is necessary to consider the way we define “genre” for Latin prose texts. In the modern era we think of literary genres as demarcated by large-scale features such as length, type of content (e.g. fiction or non-fiction), or style. Genre in ancient literature is a more elusive concept. Ancient critics were more inclined to define genres, at least in the case of poetry, on the basis of formal characteristics such as meter or dialect, or a sense of a work’s performative setting (that is, whether it was meant to be performed or read). A text’s “genre-identity”
Frontinus, for example, explicitly identifies his treatise on aqueducts (De Aquaeductibus Urbis Romae) as being a commentarius (Aq. ., .). Given the success of Caesar’s Commentarii and the praise accorded them by later authors (e.g. Suet. Iul. ), Frontinus’ decision to mark out his treatise by the same label is likely to have been a deliberate choice. Peachin (, , with Appendix ) notes the presence of “literary embellishments” in this ostensibly technical treatise, a feature that surely suggests Caesar as a model. Roughly contemporary ( ), and related (though not precisely termed a commentarius) is the Commentariolum Petitionis, an essay that purports to be a “handbook” of electioneering advice from Quintus Cicero to his brother Marcus. Standard works on ancient genres include, e.g., Rossi (); Rosenmeyer (); Conte (a); cf. the discussion in Depew and Obbink (), especially –. Still fundamental is ‘Die Kreuzung
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depended first and foremost on the tradition with which it aligned itself through paratextual elements or reference to the genre’s primus inventor. These markers raised generic expectations among the audience, which “were an important constituent of meaning and interpretation” and influenced the way texts were read. Roman authors – Caesar included – subverted, toyed with, challenged, and expanded these expectations, choosing alternative directions for traditional form or content. As for historical texts, a second difficulty arises, since prose works cannot be categorized into genres on the basis of criteria such as meter or dialect. But based on content or context, prose texts have been divided into categories of history, oratory, biography, technical treatises, and epistolography, to name but the most common. In the Roman world, historical texts themselves were referred to by a number of labels – e.g., annales, historia, res gestae, vitae; while, in content, they all largely accounted for the achievements of SPQR and its representatives, their chronological scope and degree of literary refinement varied. Moreover, the conventions of ancient historiography emphasized the need to entertain the reader in addition to presenting “the facts.” It is this quality above all that makes ancient histories generic orphans in modern critical literature – as texts that strive to entertain (like modern fiction) while reporting historical facts (like modern history). Where, then, ought we to put texts known as “commentarii”? The traditional definition of the word commentarius, deriving etymologically from the verb “to think up,” comminiscor, which is related to memoria, suggests a text intended as an aide-mémoire. Known commentarii cover a
der Gattungen,’ in Kroll (); cf. Barchiesi (). Harrison (, –) offers an excellent survey of the theoretical background, both ancient and modern; cf. Harrison () for an updated discussion. Braund (, ). Kraus (, ). See Horsfall (–); Conte (a, –). The need to categorize prose texts was not as strongly felt in antiquity: see Arist. Poet. b; Rh. ..a. Roman authors rarely define historical subgenres; but see FrHist F and on annales and historia (with Krebs () arguing for a tradition of “programmatic titulature” among the historians). Late Republican evidence comes from Cicero’s statements on historians such as Cato, Fabius Pictor, and Piso (De Or. .–) and on the characteristics of historia (De Or. .–, Fam. ., Leg. .–), discussed below. On the ambiguity of annales, see Verbrugghe () and Chassignet – in this volume. See the influential studies of the ancient historians’ rhetorical ambitions by Wiseman (, ) and especially Woodman (). Woodman (, ) summarizes the differences between ancient and modern conceptions of historiography, which have recently received a fuller treatment by Heldmann (). For theoretical discussion of the ancient genre(s) of historical writing, see Kraus . TLL s.v. commentarius, vol. III, col. , ll. –. While the corresponding term in Greek, ὑπόμνημα, also appeals to memory, they are not equivalent: see, e.g. Riggsby (, –).
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wide range: from the records of state officials to scholarly accounts and highly specialized works by philosophers or grammarians. Very few of these references to commentarii predate Caesar, however. Any definition that aimed to comprise most known instances, such as “simply ‘notes’ on some topic or other,” would be too broad to be useful. But Riggsby’s slightly less general suggestion that commentarii could be understood as what the author had to say about a topic hits the mark. From this perspective, Caesar’s Commentarii can be broadly understood as being what Caesar thought was important to convey about the Gallic and civil wars; that is, they purport to be narratives that merely offer Caesar’s perspective on these historical events. Another component of the traditional definition of commentarius is that it is said to refer to a text written to serve as “raw material” for a more elaborate history. This may be true of other texts, such as the commentarius Cicero sent to Posidonius (Att. .) or the later exchange between Lucius Verus and his tutor Fronto; it is now generally recognized that Caesar must have intended his works to stand as polished literary products, even though he seems to have toyed with his audience’s expectations of works more in keeping with the traditional commentarius type. Most studies of the Commentarii have approached the question of genre from a narrow perspective of determining the identifying characteristics of a commentarius genre. For the most part, this approach has proven unsatisfactory: not only are we lacking sufficient evidence outside of Caesar’s works, but even those we do have, namely Caesar’s, are attested as being exceptional. It seems best, given the paucity of examples, to admit that
For a collection of instances of the use of commentarius, see von Premerstein (). Thorough analysis of the nature of the commentarius can be found in Bömer (), Rüpke () and now Riggsby (, –). For the full list of instances, see Riggsby (, with nn. –). Of the nearly eighty citations, only twelve are contemporary with Caesar. Cicero uses commentarius in reference to official records (Brut. , Verr. .., Rab. Perd. ) and to specialized treatises of philosophers (e.g. Fin. . [Aristotle], Div. . [Zeno]) or legal experts (De Or. .). Varro similarly uses the term twice in De Lingua Latina: .: commentariis consularibus; .: in M. Iunii Commentariis (a jurist). Riggsby (, ). Riggsby (, –). He adduces as a parallel the opening of Comm. Pet. : “Even Quintus Cicero describes the composition of his electioneering commentary as ‘the things that came into my mind as I pondered your candidacy’” (ea quae mihi veniebant in mentem . . . de petitione tua cogitanti). See Riggsby (, –). For Cicero’s commentarius see Raaflaub in this volume. On Caesar’s Commentarii as fully developed literary works, see, e.g. von Albrecht (, ); Kraus (, ); Raaflaub (, ); and Walter (). Despite this, some scholars conceive of a commentarius genre as they discuss Caesar’s works. For example, although Riggsby (, –) rightly points out the difficulty involved in identifying and defining the genre of Caesar’s Commentarii, he nevertheless has the idea of a commentarius
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the evidence does not permit us to determine whether the Romans considered commentarii sufficiently distinctive from other types of texts. Unfortunately, we have no record of what Caesar himself called his works on the Gallic and civil wars. But to judge from contemporary and later references, it is clear that the designation “commentarii” must derive from the author himself. Moreover, as Kelsey notes, the commentarii must have had a limiting genitive attached, for which the most probable candidate is “rerum gestarum,” as contemporary evidence suggests (, –). The earliest references appear in Cicero (Brut. ) and Hirtius’ continuation of the Bellum Gallicum (BG . praef. –) in and in roughly respectively. In the first passage, Cicero offers his literary estimation of Caesar’s work: Then spoke Brutus: “Indeed, in my opinion his speeches are highly recommended. For I have read many of them and also the commentarii which he wrote about his accomplishments.” “Absolutely recommended,” I replied, “for they are bare, upright and charming, with all oratorical embellishment removed just like clothing (nudi enim sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta). But while he wanted others to have ready material from which anyone who wanted to write history [qui vellent scribere historiam] might choose, he has perhaps done a favor to the fools who will want to polish them up with curling tongs: men of sense, however, he has discouraged from writing; for there is nothing sweeter in history than pure and brilliant conciseness.”
Two points call for comment here: first, we note that Cicero refers to the works as “commentarii which he wrote about his accomplishments” (quos idem scripsit rerum suarum) confirming that the works were labeled as commentarii and that they were an account of his achievements (rerum suarum). Second, we see that Cicero’s estimation of Caesar’s Commentarii already recognized them as artistically refined. Hirtius, too, comments on Caesar’s accomplishment in the Commentarii and agrees that they were quite different from the usual expectation of a work with that title.
“genre” in mind. Rüpke () treats the commentarius as a genre, though he recognizes the complexity of generic classification. Batstone and Damon (, –) focus their analysis on readers’ expectations of a commentarius genre. Grillo (, ) observes that “[t]he evidence . . . is sparse and suggests that commentarii as a genre, if such a genre ever existed, was as widespread and protean for ancient Romans as it is scattered and problematic for modern scholars.” Cf. Kraus (); Raaflaub (). Kelsey () is still the best study of the evidence for the titles of the Commentarii. On the aesthetics of Cicero’s judgment here, see especially Kraus (a) and Pelling (a). On the difference between Cicero’s res suae (“his affairs”) and Hirtius’ res gestae (“his achievements”), see Riggsby (, ).
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These early “reviews” thus confirm the suggestion above that Caesar intended to write commentarii that focused on his achievements (res gestae or res suae), as opposed to any other attested type of commentarii. Both critics comment on what was understood to be the ostensible purpose of commentarii, namely to serve as source material for historical writers though both likewise indicate that Caesar’s literary achievement instead created an obstacle for later authors. Indeed, Cicero’s final comment in the quoted passage, “for there is nothing sweeter in history than pure and brilliant conciseness (nihil est enim in historia pura et inlustri brevitate dulcius)” may imply that he already equated Caesar’s ostensible “raw material” (commentarii) with fully-developed history (historia).
Generic Possibilities Caesar’s Commentarii were thus recognized as unusual by his contemporary audience. Cicero has already provided a clue in associating Caesar’s works with historia, but some features suggest affinities with other types of literature (if not necessarily genres). We find, for example, elements that are reminiscent of (auto)biography, the war monograph, and the legalistic language of state affairs. Caesar’s multiple roles in these narratives – as an author with self-commemoration in mind, as a commander in the wars themselves, and as a magistrate of the res publica – have surely influenced the production of the Commentarii. Thus even if, in the overall scheme, the Commentarii are a kind of historiography (historia, in Cicero’s terms), it is worth exploring how these other types of literature find expression in Caesar’s texts. Because of Caesar’s double function as author and participant in the narrative, the Commentarii seem to resemble autobiography or memoirs. This genre was relatively recent at Rome; in the early first century , eminent statesmen turned in retirement to composing an account of their accomplishments and careers, perhaps as a safeguard against later recriminations from political opponents. These political memoirs were often apologetic or polemical in nature, and from what we can tell – for only fragments of these works survive – were concerned with recent events in
Not all “reviews” were so positive, however. Suetonius reports (Iul. .) that Caesar’s contemporary Asinius Pollio considered the Commentarii to have been carelessly composed and inaccurate. Cf. Chassignet – in this volume and Bérard (); cf. also Pelling (b, especially –) for discussion of the problems inherent in identifying a specific genre of autobiography in the Republic.
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which their author had taken part. Similarly, there is the autobiography of the dictator L. Cornelius Sulla, written at the end of his life, about a generation before Caesar wrote the Commentarii. It differs from other political memoirs in that it covered Sulla’s whole life, as well as his family background, and not just his political career, stretching to twenty-two books; the title is uncertain, but seems to have been something along the lines of L. Sulla de rebus gestis. We cannot state with certainty what the scope and content of any of these memoirs may have been beyond what we can tell from the surviving testimonia and fragments. But even if we should place Caesar’s Commentarii in the category of autobiographical texts – as some have done (e.g., Mellor (, –)) – it is an imperfect fit: not only was Caesar still politically active when he wrote the Commentarii, but his works have a broader focus than simply an account of his life. A second possibility for classifying the Commentarii generically might be alongside those texts that are known as “war monographs.” As far back as Herodotus and (especially) Thucydides, warfare – its causes, events, and outcomes – was a major theme in Greek and Roman historical texts. In terms of content, Caesar’s accounts fit squarely into this category, taking as their narrative focus a single military conflict, as opposed to the universal history of Polybius, for instance, or the vast chronological range of typical “AUC” (“from the foundation of the city”) history among Roman authors. But the complicated question of publication of the BG, at least, calls into question the idea that this text can be classified as a monograph at all. This “war monograph” category, then, aptly describes Caesar’s Commentarii, but like the so-called commentarius genre discussed above, there are as many problems raised by such a classification as solutions. Caesar’s long experience as a Roman magistrate will have honed his skills in drafting succinct and accurate reports, as was expected of Roman officials. Moreover, he was well versed in the careful and precise language needed for drafting legislation, as his extensive legislative program during his consulship and beyond attests. These types of written expression were
M. Aemilius Scaurus (cos. ), P. Rutilius Rufus (cos. ), and Q. Lutatius Catulus (cos. ) are the main pre-Caesarian examples. For the fragments of their political memoirs, see Chassignet (a, vol. ); Candau ( with further references) discusses the development of political autobiography at Rome. Thus suggested by R. G. Lewis (). On Sulla’s autobiography, see most recently Smith (), Tatum (), and Chassignet – in this volume. On this type of historical writing, see Jacoby (, –); cf. Fornara (, –). Rood (, –) identifies some problems in defining the war monograph. For Caesar’s texts as monographs, see Nousek (, –). On the legislation, see, e.g., Taylor (); cf. Krebs – in this volume.
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the common inheritance of a Roman aristocrat, whose rhetorical training for the law courts was balanced by the bureaucratic necessity of reportwriting, what Odelman () has called “le Style Administratif.” Commanders in the field were expected to send reports back to the senate, and there are indications in the BG that these reports may have been the basis for the more fully developed narrative. Again, though features of this style of writing are present in the Commentarii, the texts are much more than a series of military reports.
The Commentarii as Historia As we have seen, Cicero’s reference to historia suggests a home for the Commentarii in the genre of historiography, and we may reasonably follow Cicero’s example. The question of how to write history was in vogue among Rome’s intellectual elite in this period. Our best evidence comes from Cicero himself who, although he did not compose a history, has left to posterity his own views on the topic. Cicero voiced his opinion about how history should be written on several occasions during the period that was roughly contemporaneous with the production of Caesar’s Commentarii. The major evidence comes from three texts: a treatise on oratory (De Oratore), a letter to the historian Lucius Lucceius (Fam. .), and a treatise on political theory (De Legibus). In De Oratore (.–), the topic of historiography occurs in the context of a long discussion of the orator’s subject matter. Here Cicero (through the voice of the interlocutor M. Antonius, (cos. )) concentrates on what he calls the foundations (fundamenta, .) and the rhetorical superstructure (exaedificatio) as two essential elements for the orator who would write history. Cicero argues for chronological arrangement, geographical description, and treatment of the causes and outcomes of historical events; stylistically, history ought to be “ample and excessively flowing, with a kind of lightness, without the harshness of the forum.” These features describe a style of historiography that was, in Cicero’s view, more
Cf. Krebs – in this volume. Cicero’s letters to the senate during his governorship of Cilicia (Fam. ., .) form a useful comparison for the expected form and content of such reports. Wiseman argues that such reports were read out in Rome as a means of publicizing Caesar’s exploits in Gaul. See also Rambaud (, –). Cf. Woodman (, –). Translation adapted from May and Wisse (, ). The full passage from De Oratore has been much discussed; the principal treatments are Leeman (, –); Brunt (, –); Woodman (, –); Fantham (, –); and Fox (, –).
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sophisticated than that practiced by Rome’s earliest historians. According to the model here presented, the historical narrative should be as much concerned with character and motives as with the reporting of events. Since Cicero’s remarks occur in a treatise on oratory, it is hardly surprising that he makes Antonius argue for a style of history-writing that suits the particular talents of an orator much like himself: the prescribed style (§) is very much in keeping with Cicero’s own literary “middle” style. Cicero states his views even more explicitly in the letter to Lucceius (Fam. .), where he asks Lucceius to commemorate the events of his consulship. Cicero envisions a single-subject history, ideally a monograph on Cicero’s “aristeia,” separated from the main narrative of a larger project (§, §). The piece should also have a lively style with dramatic “changes of circumstance and reversals of fortune” (§). Cicero describes a kind of history that focuses on a single individual (himself) as hero, a vir excellens (§) for whom long-lasting gloria will be secured through the composition of a respected historian. The fact that Cicero cites only Greek models as examples suggests that the sort of history he wants has not yet been accomplished at Rome – at least none that is up to his standard. Finally, in De Legibus (.–), Cicero (as a character in the dialogue) is urged to take up historiography himself, as a duty to the patria. Cicero once more emphasizes the link between history and oratory (quippe cum sit opus . . . unum hoc oratorium maxime, .). In addition, he addresses the question of temporal scope – that is, whether historiography undertaken in his era should begin de Romulo et Remo or focus on contemporary events; the latter is presented as the preferred option, “in order that it may cover those events in which he has taken part” (ut ea complectatur quibus ipse interfuit). This emphasis on contemporary history reflects a growing
Cicero’s poor estimation of these early historians (De Or. .–) has long been taken at face value, but Beck (), e.g., has shown that Cicero’s description of early Roman historical prose, and especially his statements about Cato’s Origines, are incorrect. On the Origines see the introduction to Chassignet’s edition (); cf. Sciarrino () and Chassignet (). On Cicero’s style, Woodman (, –) has shown that the prescriptions for historiography here in De Oratore are largely the same as Cicero elsewhere recommends for the narratio of a speech. On this letter in general see Leeman (, –). See also Wiseman (, ); Brunt (). That the letter was circulated among his friends (and possibly to Caesar) is evident from his remarks to Atticus at Att. ... A similar idea marks the opening of Tacitus’ Agricola. For a fuller discussion of this passage, see Krebs (). Thuc. .. is the locus classicus for this idea. Aulus Gellius (NA ..), introducing a discussion of the difference between historia and annales in Sempronius Asellio, drew the distinction that historia properly ought to be used to describe a historical text in which the narrator took part. On Gellius’ observation and the fragments of Asellio, see further FrHist III..
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tendency for history writing at Rome in the late Republic to focus on more recent events, especially those works contemplated or composed by men of elite status. Taken together, Cicero’s statements thus offer an idea of what late Republican intellectuals may have expected for the genre of Latin historiography. While we cannot know the extent to which Caesar was aware of Cicero’s precepts, we do have evidence that the two men sparred on a number of issues related to linguistics, rhetoric, and politics. The correct way to speak Latin (Latinitas) was the subject of one of these debates, in the form of two theoretical treatises, first Cicero’s De Oratore, to which Caesar responded with his De Analogia. According to Cicero, authentic Latin was the result of consuetudo, familiarity with proper conversation and model texts; Caesar rejected this notion and argued instead that correct Latin could be acquired through rational principles (the analogia of his title). These disagreements extended to rhetorical embellishment as well, for one of Cicero’s central tenets for oratory was that correct Latin style required textual polish through figures of style and thought (ornatus). Caesar’s stance, by contrast, was that the source of eloquence lay in the correct choice of words (verborum dilectus). Indeed, as seen above, it is likely that Cicero’s judgment on the Commentarii in the Brutus as being omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta (“with all stylistic embellishment removed, as clothing”) alludes to the opposing positions that the two men took on these topics. In the heated political climate of the late Republic, language and literary expression carried political undertones as well. Caesar’s rationalizing stance for correct Latin expression can be viewed as a means of “democratizing” the language, while Cicero’s insistence on consuetudo and similar principles serves to protect his own position as a member of Rome’s intellectual and political elite. Certainly, Cicero was intensely concerned to protect the prestige he had gained in his political and oratorical career; this is nowhere clearer than in his campaign to have his res gestae memorialized by a respected historian
Rawson (, ). On De Analogia see more fully Pezzini – in this volume; cf. Garcea (). Dugan (, –) discusses precisely the interplay between Cicero and Caesar on this topic. Dugan (, ) summarizes their stances aptly: “Caesar’s privileging of clarity and simplicity in speech thus conflicts with the importance Cicero places in copia and ornatus, hallmarks of the high style. Their disagreement over Latinitas is the theoretical basis for a broader disagreement over stylistic values: Caesar avoided ornament and richness as much as Cicero embraced them.” See also Garcea (, –). Cic. Brut. = Caes. De Anal. F Garcea (see also pp. –); cf. Dugan (, –). Dugan (, ).
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such as Posidonius or Lucceius. But Cicero was not the only politician to do so, although our records for his activities are the most complete. Some, such as Pompey, had no literary ambitions themselves. Instead, his Greek cliens Theophanes of Mytilene composed an account of Pompey’s res gestae. Other prominent intellectuals were in Pompey’s circle: L. Lucceius, for example, and the polymath Varro, though they were not perhaps enlisted to memorialize Pompey’s accomplishments in quite the same way. What emerges from this brief snapshot is that the political and intellectual culture of the late Republic fostered the desire of prominent men to establish accounts of their deeds that would serve as the authoritative narrative. From this perspective, Caesar’s Commentarii function as his literary self-fashioning: where Cicero failed to secure the fame of being the subject of a historical text, because his requests of others went unfulfilled, Caesar simply wrote his own narrative. Still, Cicero may have had an influence on Caesar. Echoes of Cicero’s precepts for the content and arrangement of historiographical narratives can be found in Caesar’s texts: both the BG and BC are organized chronologically; there is abundant evidence of Caesar’s geographical descriptions (e.g. BG .; .; BC .; .–); he offers explanations of motives and outcomes (e.g. BG .; BC .); and there are character sketches portrayed through actions and speeches (e.g., Cotta and Sabinus, BG .–; Labienus’ speech at BC .). Of course, such features are not unique to a Ciceronian perspective on historiography, but arguably represent the genre as a whole. The similarity between the aristeia-like narrative Cicero envisioned for Lucceius’ history and the dynamic account Caesar composed to memorialize his own deeds
See, e.g. Cic. Arch. ; Att. ..; Att. ... On the relationship between commander and historian, see Gold (); for an analysis of Pompey’s friendships with literary men, see Anderson (); cf. Astbury (); Gold (); Rawson (, –). Varro’s political career shows strong ties to Pompey on a number of occasions, though a passage of Appian (BCiv. ..) suggests that it was not always smooth sailing. Cf. Raaflaub – in this volume; cf. also the prevalence of political pamphlets, as those about Younger Cato (on which see Corbeill – in this volume). As Eden (, ) observes, they are in effect annalistic: each book of the BG represents one campaign year, with A. Hirtius explicitly drawing attention (BG .) to his own breaking of the pattern by covering two years in one book. The BC is less obviously “annalistic” in that its structural divisions do not adhere to the expected year-by-year arrangement. On the structure of the latter, see Batstone and Damon (, –; especially –) and Grillo (, –); cf. Chassignet in this volume. Throughout the texts Caesar routinely introduces the reader to the landscape at hand. On geographic descriptions in Caesar, see especially Rambaud () and, on the BG, Krebs () and Riggsby (, –) and – in this volume. See further Grillo – and – in this volume.
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suggests, however, that the two men had a shared vision of the appropriate content for Roman historiography. One aspect of the Commentarii that stands in stark contrast to Cicero’s concept of historiography is Caesar’s highly visible use of a third-person narrator. In the same letter to Lucceius, Cicero comments bluntly on the commonly accepted danger of historiographical self-promotion: Suppose, however, I am refused . . . I shall perhaps be driven to a course often censured by some, namely to write about myself . . . But . . . this genre has certain disadvantages. An autobiographer must needs write over-modestly where praise is due and pass over anything that calls for censure. Moreover, his credit and authority are less and many, finally, will blame him.
Caesar’s use of the third person for his narrative is perhaps the most widely recognized feature of the Commentarii. In so doing, he created a character in the text that is distinguished from the persona of the author, but who becomes the narrative’s central hero, thereby inserting a small space between auctor and actor. It is impossible to know whether Caesar was aware of the precise anxiety Cicero expresses in the letter to Lucceius, although one may suppose that given their shared interest in Latinitas in this period, the topic was not unfamiliar. The notoriously insoluble problem of the composition of the BG – that is, whether the work was written year-by-year or all at once – adds another layer of possibility to the relationship between Caesar and Cicero. Given that marks the date of many of these exchanges between the two men, it is striking that, according to some critics, a noticeable change in the literariness is discernible in the latter half of the BG, precisely those books that narrate the events of and later. Whether or not Caesar intended his Commentarii to serve (in part) as a practical solution to Cicero’s theoretical historiographical anxieties, it is
For example, the famous battle of the Sambre (BG .–), the siege of Alesia and Caesar’s ultimate victory (BG .–), the changes of fortune at Dyrrachium (BC .–, –) and Pharsalus (BC .–). Cic. Fam. ..; Sall. Cat. . has similar remarks on the challenge of establishing one’s authority in writing history; cf. Marincola (, – and passim) and Chassignet – in this volume. On Caesar’s strategy for resolving this problem, see Grillo (). For discussion see, e.g., Adcock (, –); Görler (); Rüpke (); Reijgwart (); Marincola (, –); Nousek (, –); Grillo (). For a survey of the arguments, see, e.g. Riggsby (, –), with references; Wiseman () argues for both seriatim composition and publication. However, as Kraus (, ) suggests, following Adcock (), an argument can be made that allows for an initial stage of serial composition, with a final polish given to the seven books as a “unitary narrative” at the end of the war.
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interesting to note that although the BG and BC are not without stylistic elegance, they lack precisely the type of ornatus that Cicero advocated. What is more, the Commentarii were able to secure for Caesar the literary fame and authoritative record of his res gestae that Cicero had been seeking for his own. The Commentarii have endured as the main evidence for the Gallic war, to be sure, and the fullest account of at least one side’s perspective on the civil war. A later author once described Caesar’s De Analogia as having been composed inter tela volantia (“amidst flying weapons”), alluding to the fact that Caesar wrote that treatise in the winter of –, right in the middle of the Gallic war. The Commentarii might be said to have been created in an atmosphere of metaphorical tela – the barbs of a lively intellectual debate between men who, despite their prodigious influence in the politics of the period, can also justifiably be called literary scholars. But the works were more than just another stage in this debate; they were Caesar’s record of his accomplishments in his two wars. As an account of contemporary history, with the unique features of Caesar’s style, they demonstrate the wide range of Caesar’s talents, from his knowledge of military affairs, his experience in Roman administration, his keen intellect and shrewd political awareness. Above all, however, Caesar’s Commentarii are his account of the events of his war in Gaul and against his opponents in the civil war. They are our only evidence for narrative commentarii, and at the same time the earliest extant Latin historiographical narrative. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H The question of genre in relation to Caesar’s Commentarii is often treated implicitly within wider studies of the works as literature. Two now classic studies of these aspects of the Commentarii are Adcock () and Eden (). Clear and engaging introductions to the works, including questions of genre, can be found in Kraus (), on the BG, and Raaflaub (), on the BC. Riggsby () examines the BG in its cultural context; for the intersection of literature and politics in the BC, see Batstone and Damon () and Grillo (). Scholarship on genre in Latin literature typically focuses on verse; readers will find a more inclusive overview in Harrison (). Rawson () offers a comprehensive study of the intellectual culture of the late Republic. On the theories of writing literary Latin historical prose, see Garcea () on De Analogia and Dugan () on Cicero’s rhetorical works, and Marincola () on the role of the author in ancient historiography more generally.
On the characteristics of Caesar’s style see especially Eden () and Damon (). Fronto Parth. ; cf. Pezzini – in this volume.
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Caesar’s literary achievements in the Commentarii are now widely recognized and appreciated by scholars and students of Latin; it is no longer necessary to argue that the texts are more than just political propaganda. Work remains to be done, however, on whether (and in what ways) the BG and BC reflect and respond to innovations in Latin literature in the late Republic, such as the contemporary appearance of neoteric poetry. In addition, we need to study Caesar’s texts in the context of the development of Latin historiography: is their influence (in style, content, or form) detectable in Sallust, or Livy? Careful study of not just these later famous authors, but even the anonymous continuators of the BC, can shed light on the influence of Caesar’s contribution to historical literature.
A Style of Choice Christopher B. Krebs
The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise (Edward Gibbon).*
It is wise counsel to start with a survey of more or less contemporary testimonia when approaching an ancient author’s style. In Caesar’s case, they highlight his “faultless” Latinity, ascribed to instilled practice, diligent studies, and careful word choice. They play on the notion of “the style is the man” when they comment on the speed of his pen or his command of words; and, while mostly lauding the unadorned simplicity of his Commentarii, they also insinuate lack of finish, especially when juxtaposed with fully decked-out history. Cognizance of these pronouncements is all the more appropriate as they have, to this day, determined later views on the Commentarii, and possibly none more than Cicero’s polysemous praise of them as nudi . . . recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta, “naked . . . straight and charming, with all embellishment of speech stripped off just like clothes” (Brut. ). Caesar himself declares a stylistic credo of sorts when, in his linguistic treatise, he singles out dilectus verborum, “word choice,” as origo eloquentiae, “the source of eloquence.” Whether or not in response hereto, his earliest critics all extol his elegantia repeatedly (and only once, it seems, ambiguously), which was etymologically linked to eligere, “to select.” In point of fact, elegantia may well be said to have stood out as the signature *
I should like to thank Luca Grillo, Christina Kraus, and Tony Woodman for their comments on an earlier draft. Cf. Latte (, ). The following is based on Hirt. .praef.–, Cic. Brut. , , Pollio (as in n. ), Quint. .., Fronto Ep. p. – some of which address the speaker more than the “historian.” For other testimonia: Klotz (a, –) and Premerstein (, –); generally for these earliest critics: Kraus (a, –). Caes. Anal. FA. References to elegantia: Wölfflin (b, –). On Cicero’s damning praise (Brut. ): Garcea (, –); etymology: Cic. Opt. Gen. , Nat. D. . (with Hendrickson (, )). Pollio’s criticism of Caesar for writing parum diligenter (apud Suet. Iul. .), while addressing his bias, may in its word choice acknowledge Caesar’s foremost characteristic too.
A Style of Choice
of Caesar’s style, and the term has enjoyed considerable currency in modern scholarship also – albeit often in misconceived form. Fortunately, there exists a clear definition (Rhet. Her. .): Elegantia makes each and every topic (locus) seem expressed with purity and clarity (pure et aperte). It comprises correct Latinity (Latinitas) and perspicuity (explanatio). It is correct Latinity that keeps one’s language pure and free of any fault (purum . . . ab omni vitio remotum). There are two types of fault in language that spoil its correct Latinity: solecism and barbarism . . . Perspicuity, meanwhile, renders a speech clear and intelligible (apertam et dilucidam orationem). It is achieved by two means: the use of current terms and proper ones (usitatis verbis et propriis).
This definition covers most of what critics, ancient and modern, have deemed noteworthy of Caesar’s style; it will also provide the blueprint for this discussion of his () “Command of Language,” () “Rhetoric of Stringency,” and () “Choice (of) Words.” As will appear time and again, Caesar did not weld his style in isolation: an active contributor to current linguistic and rhetorical debates, he set his own rules, borrowed heavily from the texts of the Roman state (including laws and military reports) and, less clearly, from the traditions of the commentarius and historiography, and occasionally allowed barracks lingo. Caesar’s style is one of choice, and the subsequent pages will sketch what these choices were and how they changed, but also what makes Caesar Caesar, and, in the final section, what makes Caesar a classic – questions often overlooked in the past by those focused on specific problems in a text (especially the BG) that served first and foremost as a textbook of Latin. It has been, in Pascucci’s fine words, “la (s)fortuna di Cesare” that the school author overshadowed the classical author.
The Command of Language: Caesaris Latinitas The first century was a turbulent period for the Latin language. Of riotous variety in orthography, morphology, and syntax, it slowly succumbed to the regularity later sanctified as classical. In this process, alternatives were discarded, a “clean” standard set. This limitation concurred with an expansion,
Barwick (, –), however, is exemplary. See Garcea (, n. ) for misconceptions, Lomanto (–, ) for a helpful discussion. Rambaud (, –), Odelman (), and Fraenkel (). Oppermann () emphasizes Caesar’s debt to the commentarius genre, Eden () his reliance upon the annalistic tradition – both are problematic. On soldierly language see below, p. . Wyss (, ), Pascucci (, –, ); also n. . See Clackson (a) for an overview and Adams (, –) for cautionary remarks.
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in part in response to new issues such as philosophical questions (cf. Lucr. .–), and new forms, words, and meanings appeared in good number. All these developments were reviewed in a lively linguistic debate (on which see Pezzini, –). While any language is always “refined in response to the . . . ever-changing demands of society,” the later years of the Republic saw the climactic effort to turn Latin into a fine-tuned literary tool. In the midst of this logomachy, Caesar took a stance and formed his lapidary and noted regular idiom, “correct[ing] faulty and corrupt usage with his pure and uncorrupted usage (pura et incorrupta consuetudine) applying theory (rationem adhibens)” (Cic. Brut. ). When he referred to Terence as an “aficionado of pure style” (Caes. carm. fr. K), he talked in part about himself. Caesar’s major contributions to Latinitas comprise the treatise De Analogia, an exposition of his ratio (which favored morphological regularity but not at all costs), and the Commentarii, expressions of his consuetudo. While their exact relation remains unclear, they clearly complement each other: the former elevates correct Latinity – passed over by Cicero in favor of embellishment (De Or. .) – to a primary stylistic quality, which the latter realize in a simple style with disregard for embellishment. Because of their regularity, the BG (more than the BC) came to enjoy the status of a “citadel of classical Latinity,” so much so that philologists would question attested readings that deviated from their author’s usus scribendi. But even Caesar may have nodded occasionally, and the rare inconsistency renders the overwhelming self-imposed consistency all the more impressive; other discrepancies, esp. between theory and praxis, may result from his reluctance to force an unheard-of but regular formation on an established but irregular one. He was not Sisenna (Cic. Brut. ). Joint Rule: Regularity and Convention in Orthography, Morphology, Syntax Pronouncements on the original orthography are hazardous, as both dictation and transmission must have interfered. But collateral evidence
Palmer (, ). Hall (, –) neatly styles Caesar’s language “D-I-Y.” Cf. Casali – in this volume. Cf. Willi (, and ). Their affinity holds true despite the discrepancies revealed by Oldfather and Bloom (), as discussed by Pezzini, – in this volume. Views on how (dis) similar Caesar’s oratory was stylistically to his Commentarii vary: Rambaud (, –, ), von Albrecht (, ), and van der Blom – in this volume. Frese (, , my transl.), whose own view of the BG is more accommodating. Cf. Klotz’s remark on editors eager to make “Caesars Sprache noch einheitlicher” (RE X., ), Eden (, ) on the risks of Caesar’s preeminence, and Kroll (, n. ) on Cicero’s similar fate.
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can validate manuscript readings, and a few phenomena suggest that Caesar stayed clear of archaisms and that he firmed up regularities. There is next to no evidence of geminate “ss” following a diphthong or long vowel, even though both Cicero and Vergil spelled caussa (Quint. ..). Nor do we find “quo-” for “cu-” (as in quom, quoi) or “-os,” “-om” for “-us,” “-um” (in the nominative and accusative singular of the second declension), the former a hallmark of Sallust, the latter on occasion used by Cicero. We also happen to know that it is not coincidence that Caesar’s Gauls extol pulcherrimam . . . urbem, “the most beautiful city” (..), whereas Sallust’s Cato evokes rem publicam . . . pulcherrumam, “the most beautiful state” (Cat. .): according to Varro (reported by Cassiod. De Orth. ..), Caesar advocated “i” where usage vacillated between “i” and “u,” and he made it standard. As for assimilation, however, between prefix and simple verb, Caesar bowed to the conventional inconsistency (e.g. . appetissent but adtulissent, cf. Quint. ..). In his morphology – as revealed by the contrast with the varieties Cicero reviews in his Orator (esp. –) – Caesar similarly “aimed at and accomplished a certain regularity.” He never employs the archaic genitive singular familias (B. Alex. ., B. Hisp. .) instead of familiae, nor, in the plural, Sisenna’s über-regular familiarum. The rare occassion of the common ending “–um” in the genitive plural of the first and second declension also bespeaks the moderate regulator: he chooses deorum over deum but accepts the entrenched praefectus fabrum (BC ..) and distributive numerals (e.g. .. intervallo pedum quadragenum, “at a distance of forty feet”). The alternatives qui or quis for quo (Cic. Vat. ) or quibus (Cic. Fam. .. (possibly), Sall. Iug. .) make no appearance, the perfect active ending “–ere” in the third person plural, marked by Cicero as less correct (Orat. ), only the rarest appearance, and the scarcity of nouns ending in “–tudo” may result from their contemporary falling out of favor. Caesar does not, however, refrain from syncopated forms (e.g. .. collocasse, cf. Cic. Orat. ), and, while he advocates the genitive singular endings die and specie and, in the fourth declension,
See Pascucci (, –) and Clackson (a, –) for further examples, Kühner and Holzweissig (, ) on “-os,” “-om,” and Clackson (a, ) on inconsistent assimilation. See also Pezzini – in this volume. Frese (, , my transl.). For instances of familiae, deorum, and, once, deum, see Pascucci (, nn., ), on patres familiarum: Varro, Ling. ., and for further noteworthy genitives, Fischer (, .). E.g. .. circumvenere. See Rosén (, –) for discussion. On nouns on “–tudo,” see Clackson (a, ), on the genitive and dative Garcea (, –, –), and Fischer (, .) for noteworthy dative forms.
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dative singular endings in “–u” in his linguistic treatise (Caes. Anal. F, F), the manuscript tradition of the Commentarii does not bear this out – though whether because of the author’s inconsistency or scribes’ audacity is unclear. More than orthography and morphology, Caesar’s syntax has contributed to his reputation as “the most ‘correct’ of the classical authors.” And here, too, his striving for consistency shows, as in his construal of plenus, “full,” with the genitive (except BC .., cf. Hofmann and Szantyr (, )), potiri, “to obtain,” with the ablative (once with the genitive, .., never with the accusative, as in B. Afr. , cf. Hofmann and Szantyr (, )), his different construals of the synonyms for “to command,” iubere (never with ut, as e.g. Cic. Ver. .) and imperare (not followed by the accusative with infinitive except .., .., BC ..), his consistent employment of the subjunctive in indirect questions (unlike Cicero “in his early works and letters,” Hofmann and Szantyr (, )), skillful usage of tenses in general and of the pluperfect subjunctive in antecedent cum clauses in particular (the indicative: Cic. Att. .., in B. Hisp. frequent, cf. Hofmann and Szantyr (, )), his avoidance of quod to introduce indirect statements instead of an accusative with an infinitive (BC .. comes close, B. Hisp. ., cf. Hofmann and Szantyr (, )), or his cuttingedge mastery of participial syntax and indirect speech. Time and again, circumspect choice imposes order. And yet no other area provides more evidence of the untamed sprawling, living language: infinitive constructions drop and keep esse (.., DKM ad ..), historical infinitives occur for no apparent reason, the subject accusative is often omitted, the addition of prepositions to various ablatives appears stochastic, his treatment of the historic present vacillates, and the so-called constructio ad sensum (when agreement between words in gender or number is to an implied rather than actual form) is “not so very rare”; nowhere, however, is the reign of consuetudo in Caesar’s Latinitas more glaring than in his usage of cases, as Fischer’s study documents.
Hall (, ), who emphasizes the circularity in deeming Caesar’s Latinity “correct.” On the development of participial syntax and indirect speech: Clackson and Horrocks (, , ). See Kraner, Dittenberger and Meusel (, th edn) (DKM) ad .. for instances; add BC .., .., .., .. See Hofmann and Szantyr (, ) and Lebreton (, –) for ellipsis of subj. acc. Contrast .. iniquo loco to .. in locis desertis, .. omnibus copiis contenderunt to .. cum omnibus copiis exirent, and note the frequency of cum in modal expressions with an adjective, such as .. magno cum dolore, on which see Little (, ). For instances of constructio ad sensum: DKM ad .., ...
A Style of Choice
Economy and Expansiveness of Expression Caesar’s generally “faultless” Latinity stood out as characteristic to contemporaries; there exist more specific habits too. A few examples: datives expressing purpose, aim, and interest, as in BC .. legionem . . . subsidio suis duxit, “he led a legion to support his men,” populate his prose (especially in conjunction with “esse”). Periphrasis with “facere” does easy duty for dozens of verbs; particularly frequent collocations include: facere eruptionem ( times), finem ( times), impetum ( times), initium ( times), iter ( times), potestatem ( times), and proelium ( times). He readily contrues transitive verbs with the preposition de (instead of the simple object), as in .. where he intends de eorum postulatis cognosceret, “to learn of their demands,” and has a penchant for causa following a genitive gerund(ive), as at .. praedandi frumentandique causa, “for the sake of plunder and foraging,” and habere with a perfect participle, as at .. effectum habere, “to have (this) accomplished.” Both the two last-mentioned and the periphrasis can be traced back to the socalled bureaucratic style (as evinced in legal writing, inscriptions, and administrative letters by, say, Cicero and Pliny). It may ultimately be the source also of the two overarching (and contradictory) characteristics of the Commentarii: economy and expansiveness of expression, each employed for clarity. Economy of expression is most clearly expressed in Caesar’s deft manipulation of the ablative, a case more frequent than any other in BG, occasionally construed in a way that pushes the envelope, and frequently strung together in multiples of differing function (..): uno die intermisso Galli atque hoc spatio magno cratium, scalarum, harpagonum numero effecto media nocte silentio ex castris egressi . . ., “the Gauls, after one day had passed, during which period they produced hurdles, ladders, and hooks in good number, left camp at midnight in silence . . .” Similarly conspicuous is Caesar’s penchant for the ablative absolute, a hallmark of the military report, as Plautus’ parody (Pers. –) or the so-called tabulae
See Fischer (, .–), and for the following: Menge and Preuss (, .–.), with Clackson and Horrocks (, –), Fischer (, .), and Odelmann (, –, ). Rambaud (, ): “[l’aspect] le plus charactéristique et le plus attendu . . .” On the bureaucratic style see Odelman () and, more recently, Coleman (). See Kollmann (, –), Little (, –), and Eden (, –). Similar concise strings are formed with genitives, and these too of occasionally varying type: see DKM ad .. for instances (and .. for an alternative construction). Once in a while, this form of concision puts clarity at risk: see Eden (, –) and Fischer (, –) for various lurches into obscurity.
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triumphales reveal. The construction is, with instances in the BG alone, relatively much more frequent with Caesar than Cicero, may appear in up to five consecutive instances, and includes anomalous types, as at .. languidioribus nostris, “with our men growing tired.” Just as noteworthy, in comparison with Cicero, are Caesar’s expansions of the construction with dependent clauses (..): instructo exercitu magis ut loci natura deiectusque collis et necessitas temporis quam ut rei militaris ratio atque ordo postulabat, “the army had been drawn up more in accordance with the nature of the location and the slope of the hill and the urgency of the moment than military order and rationale.” He frequently juxtaposes two absolutes, with one specifying the circumstances of the other – .. exaudito clamore perturbatis ordinibus, “they broke up the ranks when they heard the shouts” – and, quite regularly, prefers this construction to the smoother and fully subordinated participial construction, thus either leaving a direct object to be inferred, as in .. Vercingetorix . . . convocatis suis clientibus facile incendit, “Vercingetorix . . . called his vassals and fired them up with ease,” or compromising the absoluteness of the construction, as in .. principibus Treverorum ad se convocatis hos singillatim Cingetorigi conciliavit, “he called together the leaders of the Treveri and reconciled them with Cingetorix one at a time.” By using the absolute, Caesar gives greater independence and emphasis to its content, often marking chronology; occasionally, however, no reason other than habit can be discerned. Quite contrary to concision runs the tendency to expand and repeat, often with the help of demonstratives, be it in anticipation of a subordinate construction (.. est enim hoc Gallicae consuetudinis, uti . . ., “for this is a Gallic habit, that . . .”) or infinitival construction (.. quis hoc sibi persuaderet, sine certa re Ambiorigem ad eiusmodi consilium descendisse, “who could persuade himself of this, that Ambiorix had taken to such a design without sure cause”), be it in resuming a word, expression, or sentence (BC .. nactus planitiem in hac aciem instruit, “having found a plain he drew up his battle line in it,” cf. BG .. eam rem; typical is also
The total number: Little (, ), the proportion: Adams (, ). Odelman (, –) specifies that five consecutive abl. abs. occur four times (.., .., .., BC ..), four once (BC .. and possibly BG ..), and three more than forty times! DKM ad .. illustrate further anomalous instances. See Gotoff (, ) for further examples. Kühner and Holzweissig (, ) list a few instances in Cicero. See DKM ad .. for further instances. Caesar could have written convocatos suos clientes . . . incendit and principes . . . convocatos . . . Cingetorigi conciliavit. For further instances of the former and the latter see DKM ad .. and .. respectively, Eden (, –) for discussion, and Kühner and Holzweissig (, –) for instances in other authors.
A Style of Choice
.. transire conantes insecuti gladiis magnam partem eorum impeditam interfecerunt, “chasing them as they endeavored to cross over, they killed with their swords a great part of them while hindered (by the river),” with which one should compare the compromised ablative absolute, discussed above). The anaphoric usage of demonstratives is especially pronounced, as in Caesar’s account of his pas de deux with Ariovistus, wherein, furthermore forms of dies and locus occur seven and five times (in as many lines): eodem die . . . postridie eius diei . . . ex eo die dies . . . his omnibus diebus . . . cotidie. But there are many more instances of what Hellwig calls “grammatical pleonasm”; compound verbs expanded by a noun coterminous with the prefix (BC .. subsidio submittere, “to send support in support,” contrasting BG .. subsidio misit), expressions such as propterea quod, “on account of the fact that” ( times in BG alone), .. postridie eius diei, “on the day after this day,” .. perfacile factu (a figura etymologica), “a very easy deed to do,” or .. ut eius voluntate id sibi facere liceat, “that they might be permitted to do this with his good will,” not to mention the repetition of the antecedent in the relative clause, as in .. itinera duo quibus itineribus, “two ways, on which ways.” Many of these expansive expressions are owed to the bureaucratic style, as Odelman has demonstrated; the kinds of words repeated are also telling (locus, dies etc.). She has also documented how several of them decline in frequency over the course of the commentarii: expressions of the type “postridie eius diei,” for example, are discontinued after BG , and the repetition of the antecedent in the relative clause grows similarly less frequent. This is indicative of the bureaucratic style loosening its grip on Caesar’s writing, though it never loses it. Another stylistic development appears in the varying relative frequencies of subordinate constructions, participial constructions, and ablative absolutes.
A Rhetoric of Stringency: Caesaris Explanatio Cicero’s sketch of the Commentarii employs language suggestive of the genus tenue, “plain type,” the lowest of the traditional three types of speech. Its paradigm is clarity, effected by, generally, short and paratactic
..–, and in ..–: eum locum, quo in loco . . . idoneum locum . . . ad eum locum . . . is locus. See Odelman (, –) for numerous examples. Eden (, , , ) considers this a characteristic of the annalistic tradition but concedes that it also featured in legal writing. Hellwig (, , –, my transl.). Odelman (, –), Schlicher (, –); cf. nn. , on further (rhetorical and lexical) changes.
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sentences, common and non-figurative vocabulary, and understated adornment. It is best suited to probare, “proving,” and docere, “informing,” and therefore particularly to the part of speech known as narratio, “statement of facts.” Many also considered such plainness the proper stylistic type for Atticism (Cic. Orat. , –), to which Caesar was tied. Modern readers have largely concurred with Cicero’s assessment, deeming the Commentarii “plain” and bare of rhetorical polish, even artfulness. But even the plain style allows for polish, occasional embellishment, and excellence in its own right, as “each type . . . obtains distinction (dignitate) from rhetorical figures (exornationes)” (Rhet. Her. .., my emph.). Second, Caesar’s style is not as plain as all that, as he mixes in extraneous elements, first and foremost the carefully crafted periodic sentence. A comparison with Cicero’s Pro Caecina, specified by its author as written in the “plain style” (Orat. –), and more particularly its narratio (Caecin. .–), is instructive for both similarities and dissimilarities. Naked But Made-up, Modestly Most of Caesar’s rhetorical make-up is unassuming; some of it may be considered characteristic: Erant hae difficultates belli gerendi quas supra ostendimus, sed tamen multa Caesarem ad id bellum incitabant: iniuria retentorum equitum Romanorum, rebellio facta post deditionem, defectio datis obsidibus, tot civitatum coniuratio, in primis ne hac parte neglecta reliquae nationes sibi idem licere arbitrarentur. Itaque cum intellegeret omnes fere Gallos novis rebus studere et ad bellum mobiliter celeriterque excitari, omnes autem homines natura libertati studere et condicionem servitutis odisse, prius quam plures civitates conspirarent, partiendum sibi ac latius distribuendum exercitum putavit. “The difficulties of waging war were those which we have shown above, but nevertheless many things impelled Caesar to the war: the insulting detention of the Roman knights, the revolt embarked on after the surrender, the defection after the giving of hostages, the oath of allegiance of so many communities, and especially the fear that, if this element were neglected,
See Cic. Orat. –, Brut. (partly quoted above, p. ), and Krostenko (, esp. –, –). On “nudus,” “rectus,” and “venustus” in rhetoric, see Lausberg (, s.vv.), for an overview of the genera and historical discussion, ibid. (.–) and Russell (, –). On Caesar’s Atticism: Pezzini – in this volume. Gotoff comments on how “Caesar has succeeded all too well in disguising his art . . .” (, ), and Kraus suggests that “part of [the] invisibility [of ornament] is due to critics’ assumptions that Caesar’s language . . . will not contain them” (a, n. ).
A Style of Choice
other nations might think the same license was permitted to them. And so, since he understood that almost all the Gauls supported revolution and were easily and quickly spurred on to war, and that all men naturally support freedom and hate the condition of servitude, he thought that he should divide his army and spread it more widely before more communities could conspire” (.).
Almost any passage of the Commentarii will reveal an assortment of the most common rhetorical devices, such as chiasm (defectio . . . coniuratio), parallelism (omnes . . . excitari, omnes . . . odisse), isocolon (ibid.), anaphora (omnes . . . omnes), or assonance and alliteration (particularly glaring at .. aggerisque altitudinem acervi armorum adaequarent, “and the heaps of arms equalled the height of the rampart”) – none to be highlighted as typically “Caesarian.” Among those that are typical, we find, especially in the early books, a strong preference for the verb in final position (e.g. incitabant), a preference shared with the bureaucratic style. But exceptions abound. They tend to fall into the standard categories and chime with Caesar’s general manipulation of word order “due to considerations that were not aesthetic but functional.” Aside from “descriptive” esse (as above), verbs in first position highlight a command (..), affirmation (..), or contrast (BC ..); they also help to accelerate the narrative (..–). Monotone passages occur (., .), but the overall effect is varied, thanks in part to Caesar’s fondness for varying the position of the verb in ablative absolutes (and gerundival constructions) and of esse in compound tenses as well as the (increasingly) frequent verbal hyperbaton (.. resque esset iam ad extremum perducta casum, “and the matter had already been brought to its extreme”). Prose rhythm occurs – dichorees (incitabant, exercitum putavit) and cretic-spondee (arbitrarentur) mark the heavy caesurae in the passage above – but appears of lesser concern. Nor is it coincidence that this excerpt comprises shorter and paratactical units in its first half but a skillful period in its second. Caesar uses short paratactic units, and occasionally strings thereof, which Fraenkel tied back to the conventional military bulletin. But comparison with Cicero’s Pro
The oft-quoted study of “die Stellung des Verbs” is by Linde (); his characterization of Caesar as “Fanatiker der Endstellung” () lacks nuance, and another look may be welcomed. Rambaud (, ) and Coleman (, ) discuss final position in bureaucratic texts. On verbs in initial position: Kühner and Stegmann (, –) and Schneider (). The following quotation: von Albrecht (, ). Adams (, ). See also von Albrecht (, ). On Rambaud’s () attempt to find the BC to be noticeably metrical see Richter (, n. ). Fraenkel (). See the next section for discussion of Caesarian periods.
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Caecina reveals that they are fewer and less truncated in Caesar and throws into relief the frequent and very elaborate periods – such as the seventeenline sentence-drama in the Nervii episode (..–) – which were traditionally associated with the genus grande and appear rather more characteristic of Caesar’s style (esp. in the form discussed below). Third, cross-references (quas supra . . .), a hypertrophic version of the resumptive demonstrative discussed in the previous section (and here represented by id bellum), abound and mark yet another feature that Caesar’s style shares with the language of bureaucracy. The enumeratio, meanwhile, which specifies the offenses grammatically anticipated by multa, employs asyndeton, which Caesar uses to great effect with nouns (.. lingua, institutis, legibus, “by language, institutions, and laws”), verbs (.. accipere, non dare, “to receive, not to give”), and whole clauses (..) to express speed (.. hostes . . . decurrere, lapides . . . conicere, “the enemy ran down and threw stones”), contrast (.. concilium dimittit, Liscum retinet, “he dismissed the meeting but held back Liscus”), emphasis (..) or consequence (..–). The frequency of bellum may here exemplify Caesar’s ready acceptance of repetition (another feature of the genus tenue), and not only of words, as in ..– where quod occurs nine times or in BC ..–. where quidam occurs six times, but also of whole formulae, such as .. eo cum . . . venisset, “when he had arrived there,” .. qua re nuntiata, “following the report of this development,” .. se fugae mandare, “to commit oneself to flight,” or .. cuius pater principatum Galliae totius obtinuerat, “whose father had occupied the supreme position in all of Gaul.” These formulaic expressions, many of which can be traced back to military reports, imbue Caesar’s narrative with seductive ease and ritualistic familiarity. Variation can be found too, of course (as in the enumeratio above), but is certainly not a Caesarian hallmark. Last but not least, pairings such as mobiliter celeriterque, yet another form of pleonasm, crowd the pages of the Commentarii, often with only minor semantic pay-off (.. subita et repentina consilia, “plans
Odelman (, –), who also traces Caesar’s predilection for supra to the same origin. For cross-references in the narratio of the Caeciana: , ; for general observations: Starr (). This is not to deny the occurrence of polysyndeta: four parts are coordinated at .., .., .., .., and BC .. (neque, neque, atque, -que); three and two parts too often to mention. The narratio of the Caeciana is full of asyndeta, but there too polysyndeta occur (, , , ). Cf. Cic. Caecin. – usum et fructum . . . frueretur . . . frueretur . . . maximum fructum . . . hunc fructum, and the four instances of fundus in . For the last-mentioned see Odelman (, –), who offers more examples. See Klotz (, –) for repetitions in BG , Barwick (, –) for a few instances in BC, and Frese (, ) on peculiar “local” repetitions (e.g., e regione, “opposite to,” occurs times in BG but not before).
A Style of Choice
sudden and rapid”). These too can be found in Cicero’s Pro Caecina and certainly resonate with the legalistic effort to eliminate uncertainty by overspecificity. Not in evidence in the passage above but a trademark of Caesar nonetheless is the conveyance of pertinent (often ethnographic or geographic) information in indirect speech, as when he introduces the Nervii (..–), “about whose character and customs he received the following information upon inquiry (. . .).” The long and short of the preceding analysis is that colors shimmer below the monochrome. More glaring ornaments, while certainly not typical, may be found too, including sententiae (as the one above on homines), adnominatio (.. propinquitatem . . . iniquitatem), congeries (.. sub vesperum dispersi ac dissipati discedunt, “as dusk drew on they departed and dispersed in different directions”), mimetic word order (.. Gallia est omnis divisa), paraprosdokian (BC .. Scipio detrimentis . . . acceptis imperatorem se appellaverat, “Scipio, having suffered defeat, had pronounced himself imperator”), and subtle word-play: when Caesar describes Dumnorix’s power with the unusual words largiter posse (..), he alludes wittily to the source of the Gaul’s influence, i.e. bribery, mentioned a few lines before (facultates ad largiendum). But rarely, if ever, do they distract from the narrative. Caesar’s Razor Cicero twice uses the adverb enucleate, “to the point,” in his discussion of the simple style (Orat. , ), and he praises Caesar’s Commentarii for their pura et illustris brevitas, “clear and luminous brevity” (Brut. ). While Rambaud was certainly right to point out that a general reporting back to Rome was expected to account concisely for his intentions and purposes, it is noteworthy that not just Cicero deemed this feature of Caesar’s writing worthy of particular praise but Hirtius too, who singled out his late leader’s “skill in explaining his plans” (Hirt. .praef.). This skill is based first and foremost on the careful choice of the facts to be
Cic. Caecin. continentia . . . atque adiuncta, viduitate ac solitudine, inepti ac stulti. See Hellwig (, –) for “eine Übersicht sämtlicher pleonastischen Verbindungen von synonymen Wörtern mit gleicher Begriffssphäre.” Cf. Coleman (, ). On indirect speech see Grillo in this volume, –. On sententiae see Preiswerk (), on largiter Rolfe (). The Caeciana knows these too; note, e.g., the conspicuous figurative language at viduitate ac solitudine aleretur, the refractio (fructum, partem) and adnominatio (cupiebat . . . capiebat) at , or the skilful epanalepsis at quam personam . . . hanc personam. Rambaud (, –).
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included in the narrative. Generally speaking, whatever is not regarded integral to the explanation of a situation or the motivation of an action is cut. Such stringency of description renders “world history . . . palatable (mundgerecht) . . . to school students” – but at the expense of the particuliars of the “there and then”: historical agents are rarely more than pieces in a timeless board game, and the battles are “simplified” to the extent that they should have deterred military historians from taking them “at face value.” A typical presentation, from the first invasion of Britain, when Caesar, his fleet wrecked by storm and tide, finds himself hard pressed: “When the Briton chiefs learned of these developments (quibus rebus cognitis), they talked amongst one another, assembled, as they were, at Caesar’s headquarters after the (most recent) battle, and since they understood that the Romans lacked cavalry, ships, and corn (cum et equites . . . Romanis deesse intellegerent) and gathered from the smallness of their camp the scantiness of their soldiers . . ., they decided that the best thing to do was to renew the war, to cut off our corn and other supplies, and to prolong the affair into the winter” (..). Typically – for Caesar favors the binary narrative – the enemy’s reaction (principes Britanniae) to the Roman disaster now comes into focus (then again .. at Caesar). Two Roman difficulties to these recently subdued leaders recommend renewal of war and a strategy; all else, save their hope that this one victory would spare them future hardship, is omitted. Just as this hopeful prospect is a commonplace, most of the data the Commentarii provide in any given episode, such as the lie of the land, the contingents and strength of each army, or motivations like power and injury, are also commonplaces, of sorts. In its finest form, such stringency arranges the select circumstances and considerations into a matrix wherein the final action appears all but ineluctable and may therefore be expressed in a terse clause or sentence. In a single periodic sentence, this is commonly accomplished by a string of participles and subordinate clauses, and, more particularly, the combination used above of ablative absolute with a cum-clause. Such sentences
Fränkel (, , my transl.), Pelling (, –, esp. ), Keegan (, –, esp. ); cf. Lendon (, with n. , –) for a different take on the “grammar of battle description” (). In stinting on dates and distances Caesar deviates from the traditional report (as adumbrated by Rambaud (, )). The discussion in the next paragraph adapts the “practical criticism” by Fränkel (); cf. Gotoff (). Rambaud (, –). See also Batstone () on “narrative gestalt” in BC. See also . with von Albrecht (, –). On the combination with cum, see Rambaud (, –), who also reveals its provenance in military reports. Cf. Williams’s comment (, , my emph.): “finally the main clause.”
A Style of Choice
seem to accelerate toward their end, the conclusive main clause, in a pull of necessity, as, in fact, in . (above, p. ) or in ., when Caesar prepares his first crossing of the English Channel and is approached by the Morini who seek a treaty: “Caesar considered (arbitratus) this a most opportune (satis opportune) development, as (quod), first, he did not wish to leave an enemy behind at his back, nor, second, was he in any position to wage war at this time of year, nor did he believe that such distractions should be given priority over (the invasion of) Britain – (and therefore) he demanded of them a great number of hostages.” It may be this quality of the accelerating inevitability of the Caesarian narrative that caused Quintilian to remark admiringly that Caesar “spoke as spiritedly as he fought” (.). He was not to be the last one. In its rhetorical aspects, Caesar’s style undergoes changes just as in its syntax (see above). On the smaller scale, as indicated above, he loosens up his word order (especially with regard to the position of the finite verb and the “verbal hyperbaton”); on the larger scale, he introduces more and more vivid elements of proper historiography, such as direct speech, the fullyfledged (ethnographic or geographic) digression, and the heroic individual (such as the vir fortissimus Piso Aquitanus, ..).
Choice (of) Words Contemporary rhetoric stresses word choice as integral to elegantia. The Rhetorica ad Herennium (.; cf. Cic. De Or. .) differentiates verba usitata from verba propria, defining the former as “belong[ing] to everyday speech; whereas ‘proper terms’ are such as are, or can be, particular to the designated object (quae eius rei uerba sunt aut esse possunt qua de loquemur).” Scholarship on Caesar’s vocabulary has understandably focused on his “common words” – often with reference to his advice “to avoid like a rock a word unheard-of and uncommon” (apud Gell. ..) – underlined their unpretentious urbanity, and measured out their paucity: , words, it was long and erroneously believed, suffice for the BG. Though the actual figure is higher, Caesar’s lexicon is still characteristically selective and repetitive – and yet, whenever necessary, stunningly precise.
See Schlicher (, –), Rasmussen (), and Mutschler (, esp. –). For discussion see also Görler (, –) and Grillo – in this volume. This figure goes back to Hubbell (, ), whose qualifications subsequent discussions often dropped. Gaertner and Hausburg (, ) propose , lexemes for both commentarii.
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Common, Not Coarse Some lexical limitations may be owed to his Atticist leanings, adherence to generic standards, or, most fundamentally, linguistic pragmatism. The elusive genre may also explain the narrow(ed) range of topics addressed in the Commentarii and, in consequence, missing lexical fields – but some restrictions seem self-imposed, such as the notably scarce attention paid to sacrality (as Rüpke details p. –), which, in turn, readily but not entirely accounts for the absence of auspicium, “divination, sign,” pius, “dutiful,” or prodigium, “omen.” Harder still to explain are the absences of most common words of the kind that Sallust’s Caesar wields in the Catilinarian Conspiracy, including divitiae, “wealth,” libido, “lust,” memorare, “to mention,” miseria, “wretchedness,” and profecto, “indeed.” Other absentees are synonyms, the consistent rejection of which marks another telling feature of Caesars’s style. Caesar chose carefully, as his choice of Quirites, “citizens,” instead of commilitones, “fellow-soldiers,” in an address to restive soldiers memorably indicates, and his usage of missum facere, “to dismiss, dispatch,” may further show: an everyday expression, it is attested repeatedly in the corpus and once in a Caesarian letter but banned from the Commentarii as, in all likelihood, too everyday. His other reasons, as can be discerned, range from generic to semantic. Among the many preferences demonstrably owed to the bureaucratic style are flumen, mulier, existimare, posse, and causa, “river, woman, to think, to be able, because of,” which he favors over, respectively, fluvius (amnis; rivus occurs times), femina, arbitrari (putare), quire, and gratia (.., BC ..). Many more expressions have a ring of “officialese,” such as se suaque omnia, “themselves and all their possessions,” which is part of the formula of the deditio in fidem and occurs seven times in BG. His noteworthy avoidance of metuere (though not of metus), meanwhile, may indicate the verb’s contemporary falling out of common use (and, as an archaism, it would soon embellish historiographic texts); Caesar instead uses timere (vereri) for “to fear.” But aedes,
Cf. Richter (, f.) for the first two, Willi () for the last. Weise (, ); cf. Richter (, –). Suet. Iul. with Rambaud (, ) and Cic. Att. ..c with Wölfflin and Miodoński (, ad B. Afr. .) and TLL ..–. (Fleischer). For discussion of synonyms see Weise (, –), Barwick (, –), and Richter (, –). See Odelman (): – (but with van der Hayde ()), – (and Adams ()), – (but putare + gerundive is common: ibid. –), –, –. Further instances of officialese: Adams (, –). Particularly revealing of the deditio in fidem is ... Adams (, ). The same may be true of porrigere: Wölfflin and Miodoński (, ).
A Style of Choice
alloqui, ordiri, and principium, “building, to address, to begin, beginning” seem to be eschewed for their poetic ring, and aedificium, adhortari, incipere, and initium serve instead. Then again, the choice of polliceri over promittere may be due to a difference in meaning later stated by Servius (“we promise (pollicemur) voluntarily, but give assurance (promittimus) when asked,” Aen. .), while more graphic verbs of killing, such as interimere, mactare, caedere, confodere, seem to have been excluded for reasons of political sensibility. In some instances, however, chance or idiosyncrasy must be reckoned with: Caesar favors inopinatus over necopin(at)us for “unexpected,” and shuns nescire, “to be ignorant,” nequire, “to be unable” (considered a colloquialism, cf. Cic. Orat. ), and necubi, “that nowhere” (only .., BC ..); on the other hand, neglegere, “to neglect,” and negotium, “occupation” are frequent. These selections reveal tendencies: Caesar generally aims at common, but not coarse diction and eschews archaisms, poeticisms, vulgarisms, and loud expressions of the sermo castrensis – but he is not totally devoid of them. The primary problem lies in determining them. To stay with the soldier’s language, whereto Caesar, partly tongue-in-cheek, laid claim (Plut. Caes. ): he rarely volunteers information on a term’s provenance himself (as, exceptionally, in .), nor do other authors (as Gellius when, at .., he identifies aquari, “to fetch water,” copiari, “to secure supplies,” lignari, “to procure wood,” and pabulari, “to forage,” as verba castrensia – Caesar lacks copiari only). In most cases patterns of attestations provide the only clue, and in the instance of aquari, say, we could be fairly confident in its provenance even without Gellius: with few exceptions, it occurs in historical or technical writings; and while the parallel between Caesar’s aquandi causa egredi e castris, “leaving camp to procure water” (BC ..) and Sallust’s castris aquatum egressus (Iug. .) could be coincidental, other most similar instances suggest that not only the verb but a formula like “to go/lead out to procure water” was military.
Odelman (, –); Richter (, ). Odelman () and Opelt (). Some poeticisms include verutum (..) and silentio noctis (.., ., cf. Cic. Div. .); for some Lucretian echoes see Krebs (a). Otherwise noteworthy expressions in BG are listed in Barwick (, –) and Richter (, –). For the methodological problem see Adams (, –, –) et al., and Adams’ criticism of Eden (ibid., ). See also .. stimuli (along with Wölfflin and Miodoński (, )). For aquari see Wölfflin and Miodoński ad B. Afr. .. Adams (, ) makes a similar argument for ad unum omnes incolumes . . . se receperunt (..), and one could add: imperata facere (.. with Wölfflin and Miodoński ad B. Afr. .), instar legionis (BC .. with TLL ...–), navicula parvula (BC .. with Wölfflin and Miodoński ad B. Afr. .), and vetustissima navis (apud Suet. Iul. with Rambaud (, )).
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Rare, Precise, Caesarian Though most of the words are common, notable and notably rare ones, including those attested only once (hapax legomena, emphasized below), also appear. They merit attention, if for nothing other than being “proper terms,” that other class constitutive of clarity. They include Greek and Celtic loanwords like malacia, “dead calm” (..), ephippiatus, “furnished with a saddle” (..), or salum, “sea-sickness” (BC ..), and matara, “a Celtic pike” (..), soldurii, “vassals of a chieftain” (..), or vergobretus, “chief magistrate” (..). Used for lack of a proper Latin term or greater authenticity, they tend to be elucidated by a Latin supplement or contextual information. Then there are technical terms – and not only in the extensive technical descriptions: pabulatio, “foraging,” occurs eleven times in Caesar, five times in Hirtius’ supplement, and then virtually vanishes. The fascinating adverb at .. cuneatim, “wedge-formed,” found favor with five authors in all, while accīdere, the exact verb to express “cutting into a tree,” is used just once by Caesar and in just that sense (..). A third group comprises seemingly simple but rare words, such as potentatus, “supremacy,” and incitatio, “vehemence” (.., BC ..), irridicule, “unwittily,” and promutuus, “advanced” (.., BC ..), or inaequare, “to level” (BC ..) and admaturare, the last in Caesar’s misgiving “that their (the Aeduan) departure would ‘hasten’ (OLD s.v. admaturare) the defection of the (whole) tribe” (..). Attested this once in all of Latin literature, this verb has intrigued and chafed editors of Caesar, some of whom emended it. But its parts are grasped readily: the standard (polyvalent) prefix ad-, “toward,” attached to the simple verb maturare. Caesar would probably have fallen back on the common maturare, if indeed admaturare were its mere equivalent (as the OLD proposes). But it is not. The prefix “ad-” may express the idea of “toward completion,” and, accordingly, the next we hear about the Aedui is that they have indeed defected. So what Caesar feared was that their departure would “bring the whole tribe’s defection to a conclusion.” If nothing else, it is precisely the word required in this context: the verbum vere proprium, and a fine example of the oft-neglected aspect of elegantia. Some may even want to entertain the thought that the
Eden (, –). TLL ...– (Kruse), ..– (Lommatzsch), ..– (Hey). Van Laer (, ). BG .. de Aeduorum defectione. I am currently preparing a longer discussion of this: Krebs (forthcoming a). For ens: Caes. Anal. F; for commilito: ALL : – (Fisch).
A Style of Choice
man who introduced ens as the participle of esse and innovated commilito may have coined this verb or others himself. Irrespective of whether Caesar himself contributed neologisms to the Latin language, he may, given his literary cachet, be assumed to have coopted and contributed expressions to the historiographical tradition. The verb complere, as a military term signifying “to man,” is a frequent Caesarian usage, e.g. at .. portas claudere, murum complere coeperunt, “they began closing the gates and manning the wall,” which occurs, noticeably similarly, in Vergil: Teucri portas et moenia complent (Aen. .), and then predominantly in historical texts. Similarly, the participial adjective praeustus of the very rare verb praeurere is attested for the first time in Caesar when he notes, at .., multae praeustae sudes, “many stakes scorched at the end,” were got ready. The same collocation recurs in Vergil (Aen. .) and Tacitus (A. ..), the adjective in other collocations in Livy and, again, Tacitus (and three others). The distribution of attestations of desiderare (..) in reference to those lost in battle is interesting too. More research in this area would be welcomed. Just as Caesar limits the scope of words, he occasionally also narrows the range of meaning of one word. Five more noteworthy examples: the Gauls’ trust in their position, fiducia loci, (..) will appear misplaced. In fact, fiducia occurs three times in BG (., ., .) and nine times in BC and each time signifying such misguided confidence. Second, Caesar’s damning comment (BC ..) on Pompeius’ employment of the two legions, “which he had diverted from their route via Asia and Syria to his own power and supremacy (ad suam potentiam dominatumque),” contains a particularly telling instance of potentia. While, in contrast to potestas, it generally signifies personal rather than constitutional and usurped rather than bestowed power, authors often used them interchangeably. Not so Caesar who applies potentia solely to his enemies. Similarly, though concilium and consilium occur as variants in the manuscripts (cf. TLL , .– (Gudeman)), Caesar appears to have reserved the former for Gallic and the latter for Roman war councils. Finally, when Caesar writes that he leaves his army per causam supplementi equitatusque cogendi, “to gather supplies and cavalry” (..), per causam is not a simple alternative to causā, since the propositional
TLL ...– (Wulff); the following: ...– (Terkelsen), ...– (Kieckers). On Caesar and Vergil, cf. Joseph – in this volume. See Mutschler (, –). Hirt. (.., .) employs it equally. A similar argument can be made for the usage of “perfacile.” On potestas and potentia: Hellegouarc’h (, ). The manuscript readings agree on Gallic concilia in eight instances, but nowhere on consilia.
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expression, in all instances, signifies a pretext. The reasons for these Caesarian semantics are obscure. To complicate matters further, Caesar’s vocabulary changed subtly, even though, by and large, the Commentarii resemble one another closely, and differences between BG and the preceding books as well as “the” BG and “the” BC have often been overstated. Both BG and the BC employ words unemployed in the other; and while the reason for the almost exclusive presence of adversarius, “opponent,” in the BC is clear (once BG ..), most changes in vocabulary do not add up to anything resembling a stylistic “development” (as it can be observed in, e.g., Tacitus). Yet Caesar’s lexicon became less strict: technical terms, such as ancorarius, “of an anchor,” contignare, “to join with beams,” stativus, “stationary,” colloquial or otherwise “unclassical” expressions, such as adaquor, “to fetch water,” firmamentum, “support,” ordinatim, “regularly,” and vulgar compound verbs with prae- and dis- become significantly more numerous in the BC. All of this may be indicative of its hurried and quite possibly aborted production.
Portrait of a Classic But for a stroke of good fortune, we would not know of Caesar’s authoritative choice of the vowel “i” over “u” in the suffix of the superlative; if not for the general misfortune inflicted upon his literary output, we might know of more such consequential choices – this could explain why Gellius turned to Caesar as an authority in Latin about years after his death (..). Unfortunately, while contextualization of his style allows us to recognize the many choices he had to make, their particular effects on Latin and its literature, for the most part, can at best only be guessed. Yet some evidence pertains: if indeed the ablative absolute is “the most favored [forward-moving colon] and . . . something like a genre-signal” in Roman historiography, Caesar’s numerous and various employment thereof may well have had something to do with it;
Menge and Preuss () (s.v. causa) rightly assign the meaning “Vorwand” to all instances of per causam. See Ihm () for new words in BG , Richter (, ) for emphasis on the commonalities between BG and BC, ibid. (–) for a circumspect discussion of the semantic differences, and Dernoscheck (, ) for discussion of the compound verbs. Gärnter and Hausburg (, app. F) helpfully give “the distribution of hapax legomena in the Caesarian commentarii.” Kraus (, ). For the following: Kühner and Stegmann (, .), who also list instances in Cicero, Nepos, Sallust.
A Style of Choice
especially his frequent insertion of the subject of the main clause into the middle of the absolute construction (as in .. hac re statim Caesar per speculatores cognita . . . exercitum . . . castris continuit, “Caesar, who learned of this right away through scouts, kept his army in his camp”) so as to render its agent beyond doubt or emphatic found favor with Livy, Curtius, Tacitus. His deceptively limpid periods inspired Livy and quite possibly others – though it seems impossible to ever “know how much [they] learnt from Caesar in the constructing of [them].” And while similar difficulties complicate inquiries into his lexical contributions, here too his influence can hardly be doubted, as the previous section has argued. But most tantalizing (and speculative) is the thought that Caesar, with his advocated and enacted elegantia, helped to lay to rest the pressing question in the late Roman Republic of what precisely constituted good Latin, “pure and free from any fault” – a concern noted for its absence from discussions of the Latin language in Quintilian’s Institutiones a century later. Whatever its specific immediate effect, Caesar’s neat, formulaic, and seductively simple Latinity surely contributed to his elevation to classic status (obtained in the Renaissance, not since relinquished). But, just as surely, it alone cannot account for the fascination engendered in intellectuals as diverse in interests, epochs, and cultures as Michel de Montaigne, Francis Bacon, and Johann Gottfried Herder. At least as important was a simplicity of a different (and more troubling) kind, effected by his rhetoric of stringency: it transforms disorderly realities on far-flung westernEuropean grounds and largest-scale sanguinary mayhem inflicted and suffered by the hundreds of thousands into seemingly rational and ineluctable moves in a game of wits on the board of Gallia omnis. In so removing the war from the contingencies of the “there and then,” it elevates it to a timeless tale of superior power, as told in the third person by an Olympian observer by the name of Caesar, whose formulaic narrative, in plot as well as language, generates a beguiling sense of familiarity. And, to turn to the final aspect of Caesar’s classic, the rational swiftness of the writing appears but a mirror of the forceful swiftness of the warring: Caesar’s narrative “march[es] along, orderly as a legion.” The same mind, it seems, imposes order on the fields of battle and the accounts of battle; its style is its image.
Oakley (, ), speaking of Livy’s debt only. Clackson (a, ). As Schadee details, – in this volume. On Gallia omnis see Riggsby – and Johnson – in this volume. Adcock (, ).
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F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H Among more recent general discussions of Caesar’s style, Pascucci (), von Albrecht (), and Hall () stand out; among the older studies, Frese () deserves special mention for numerous valuable observations. There is a host of Einzelstudien of the nineteenth century (mostly in Latin or German), amongst which Fischer () offers the most comprehensive study (still) of Caesar’s use of cases, Hellwig () surveys and documents Caesar’s penchant for pleonasm, and Lebreton () details differences between Caesar’s and Cicero’s syntax. Other influential contributions to our understanding of Caesar’s style include Hermann Fränkel’s demonstration of philological interpretation (), continued by Gotoff (), Eduard Fraenkel’s Kriegsbulletin (), and esp. Odelman’s study of Caesar’s style administratif. Willi () relates Caesar’s style to his linguistic doctrine and suggests possible philosophical underpinnings, and Gaertner and Hausburg () provide copious insights on Caesar’s style in comparison to the style(s) of the authors of the corpus. Caesar’s contribution to the formation of classical Latin is understudied. Further desiderata include an investigation of his linguistic and stylistic impact on (esp.) Roman historiography and an updated comprehensive account of his style.
Speeches in the Commentarii Luca Grillo
Speeches in Greek and Latin Historiography The presence of speeches in classical historiography is one of the most striking differences from the modern writing of history. Speeches are prominent not only in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius, to mention the most famous Greek examples, but also in Roman Republican authors. Annalists like Fabius Pictor, Fannius, and Quadrigarius included speeches in their works, and Cato did the same in his Origines. Unfortunately, few fragments have survived from this Roman tradition, and this loss has problematic implications: Caesar did not write in a vacuum, but his access to many works (and the speeches within them) is beyond the reach of modern scholars, so that we can compare him more easily with his Greek than with his Roman predecessors. Caesar’s Greek predecessors demonstrate that speeches can have multiple properties and functions: through speeches writers elucidate their historical method, as do Thucydides (.) and Polybius (.b); they characterize key figures, as Herodotus does with Croesus and Solon (.–); engage in broad historical reflections, as Pericles does in the funeral oration (.–); or oppose contrasting views, as the Athenians do in the Melian dialogue (.–). Scholars have isolated some
Of course, speeches predate the birth of Greek and of Roman historiography, as proven by Homer and Ennius. Almost all Greek historians used speeches, with the exception of Cratippus and Pompeius Trogus (Walbank , n. ). FrHist Chassignet .– and . (, –, speech by Tarpeia, , , speech by Romulus) and Cornell F (, vol. , –). Cic. Brut. ; FrHist Chassignet (, , Metellus Macedonicus versus Ti. Gracchus) and Cornell T (, vol. , –). FrHist Chassignet and (a, –) and Cornell F, and (, vol. –). A famous example is his own oration for the Rhodians, Livy ..; FrHist Chassignet (, –) and Cornell T (, vol. , –). Pitcher – in this volume.
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characteristics typical of different authors. Christopher Pelling (b, ) has noted that in Herodotus speeches often help us to locate “great events against patterns of human behavior in East and West”; James Morrison (, ) notes that Thucydides frequently marks off his speeches, creating a dynamic interaction between narrative and the speech itself; Vivienne Gray (, –) has emphasized that Xenophon often uses speeches to celebrate moral values or to account for important changes; and Craige Champion () has observed that through speeches Polybius criticizes Rome obliquely. As an ancient writer offers the stage to one of his creatures he also places himself on it, showcasing his own rhetorical skills, and exposing himself to criticism: Callisthenes disapproved of Thucydides for writing speeches which were not fitting for the speaker (FGrHist F), and Cicero considered them obscure and bad models for oratory (Brut. and Orat. ); Polybius instead accused the speeches of Timaeus of being purely rhetorical inventions (.a), as did Dionysius with Xenophon and Philistus. In short, the importance of speeches in classical historiography cannot be overstated, even if different authors used them differently. Unfortunately, for the Commentarii it is often difficult to assess whether speeches were actually delivered or how wide the gap is between what Caesar wrote and what was actually said. The best we can do, then, is to analyze these speeches within their literary and historical context, taking into account that Caesar was an extremely successful orator who had access to a rich Greco-Roman tradition of theory and practice.
Oratio Recta, Oratio Obliqua, and Speeches in the Commentarii Latin, like English, distinguishes between oratio recta (direct speech) and oratio obliqua (indirect speech). In fact, this terminology can be misleading, since either oratio can also serve to report thoughts, letters, or dialogues. Accordingly, Caesar often employs oratio obliqua to clarify unspoken judgments or concerns (e.g. BG .), to summarize the messages of envoys or exchanges among people (e.g. BG .. and BC ..), and to report salient parts of one or more individuals’ views (e.g. BG .); oratio recta, however, is reserved for words which (Caesar says) were actually pronounced, but can be limited to a short piece of
Cf. Fornara (, ) and Hornblower (, –). Walbank (, ). Cf. van der Blom – in this volume. Dangel (, –).
Speeches in the Commentarii
Table .: Occurrences of oratio obliqua and oratio recta in the BG and BC
Total lines Obl.# lines % Rec.# lines %
Total lines Obl.# lines % Rec.# lines %
BG
BG
BG
BG
BG
BG
BG
total
. -
. -
. -
. .
. .
. .
.
. .
BC
BC
BC
total
. -
. .
. .
. .
information (e.g. BG .), to an exclamation (e.g. BC .), or to an exhortation (e.g. BG . and .; BC . and .). The Commentarii display a pronounced preference for indirect speech: to the instances of oratio obliqua correspond only twenty-four instances of oratio recta, and these instances are unequally distributed throughout the BG and the BC. The synoptic table above (Table .), adapted from Hyart, gives the number of occurrences of oratio obliqua (Obl.#) and oratio recta (Rec.#), specifying the number of lines and percentages in the BG and in the BC. The absence of oratio recta at the beginning of both Commentarii is striking: direct speech does not occur until the middle of each work (BG and BC ) and then it more or less consistently increases. By contrast oratio obliqua, which is present throughout, peaks both in the BG and in the BC with book (thirty-eight and thirty-seven occurrences respectively) and then tends to decrease (though it rises again with the last book of either work). Scholars have tried to account for these disparities. Alfred Klotz, assuming that direct speech did not belong to the genre of commentarii, affirmed that the movement from oratio obliqua toward oratio recta reflects Caesar’s
Hyart (, ).
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transition from commentarii, intended as material for writing history, to proper historia. Similarly, Hyart ascribes this movement to Caesar’s initial “scruples about composing a work according to the rules accepted by his predecessors” (). Klotz’ view has proven very influential, but fragments demonstrate that Sulla’s commentarii did include speeches, as most probably did the Memoirs of M. Aemilius Scaurus and P. Rutilius Rufus, the predecessors of the genre of the commentarii. Rasmussen () attempted to explain the disparity (–) by noting that in Caesar direct speeches move the action forward, affecting its course more than indirect speeches do. As it will be argued below, however, indirect speeches can also deeply affect the course of the action. Perhaps, given the protean and (for us) obscure genre of the commentarii, and given that both orationes can have multiple effects (Dangel , ), it is better to analyze Caesar’s speeches and to isolate their main characteristics without trying to explain them by a single model.
Speeches in Oratio Obliqua: The Test Case of BG The first book of the BG, one third of which is in oratio obliqua, provides a good starting point for observing Caesar’s use of indirect speech. After the successful mission against the Helvetians (BG .–), the Aeduan Diviciacus tells Caesar about Ariovistus leading German tribes into Gaul: “and after these wild and barbarian men (homines feri ac barbari) began to enjoy the Gauls’ lands, civilization, and wealth, more crossed the Rhine; and now there were about , of them in Gaul . . . As soon as Ariovistus had defeated the Gauls in battle, he began to rule with arrogance and cruelty (superbe et crudeliter imperare) . . . he was a barbarian, an irascible and rash man (hominem esse barbarum, iracundum, temerarium) . . . his rule could no longer be endured” (.). Diviciacus’ language is indicative, since some key words of his appeal, such as crudeliter and barbarus, return later to connote Ariovistus
Critognatus’ speech “is actually unthinkable in Commentarii,” Klotz (RE X. Suppl. ); cf. von Albrecht (, –); Riggsby (, –). To Hyart the decrease of indirect speech in favor of oratio recta illustrates the broader pattern of Caesar’s work, which becomes less and less “administrative” while gaining in artistry. Cf. Krebs – in this volume. E.g. Miller (, –), Di Lorenzo (, ). Gellius reports a fragment of a speech in oratio recta (..); cf. FrHist Chassignet (a, ) and Cornell F (, vol. , –; cf. vol. , ). Chassignet (a, xciii and xcv) and – in this volume. “The nature of direct speech in Caesar is its close connection to movement.”
Speeches in the Commentarii
(.. and ..). In particular, this is the first time that the word barbarus appears in the BG, and it portrays Germans as barbarian even to Gauls’ eyes. The narrator makes no direct comment on Diviciacus’ words, but Caesar’s view, reported in oratio obliqua, demonstrates that he agrees that Ariovistus cannot be borne: “he considered it most shameful that the Aedui, who were friends and brothers of the Roman people, should be enslaved to the Germans . . . and he deemed it dangerous for the Romans that the Germans . . . should enter Gaul en masse . . . as the Cimbri and Teutons had done before . . . Ariovistus himself had assumed such pride and such arrogance (tantos sibi spiritus, tantam adrogantiam sumpserat), that he could not be tolerated” (..). The Roman soldiers’ point of view further colors our perception of Ariovistus: they are so frightened by rumors about him and the Germans that they threaten mutiny. Caesar summons his scared centurions and in his address reminds them that Ariovistus won no easy victory against the Gauls but defeated them by a cunning plan, which worked only because the Gauls were inexperienced barbarians; but “not even Ariovistus could hope to catch us with the same strategy” (.). Caesar persuades the soldiers, but soon Ariovistus declares himself ready to fight, specifying that “he was not such a barbarian nor so ignorant of affairs . . .” (.). In other words, Ariovistus responds both to Diviciacus, who had called him hominem barbarum, iracundum, temerarium and to Caesar, who reassured his soldiers that Ariovistus could not hope to defeat them. Battle ensues, and this time Ariovistus himself, for all his self-confidence, is defeated. Without interrupting the flow of the narrative, these various bits of oratio obliqua give a vivid sense of clashing points of view, developing the plot through multiple voices, which are harmonized into a coherent narrative. Ariovistus’ words to Caesar confirm Diviciacus’ revelation about his arrogance, but Caesar’s victory trounces such arrogance, demonstrating that his self-confidence, unlike Ariovistus’, was justified. Similarly, Caesar calls Gauls barbarians (.), Gauls call Germans barbarians (.), and, even if Ariovistus refuses such a designation (.), at the end Romans prove superior to both. This effective control over various voices is typically Caesarian, as three examples from the BC demonstrate. At the outbreak of the conflict, Pompey promises in the senate that everything is ready for the war (..); but soon Cato complains in public that “he had been abandoned
Diller (, –); Johnston – in this volume. Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (, –).
James ().
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and betrayed by Gn. Pompey, who had undertaken an unnecessary war in a state of complete un-readiness” (..). Similarly, at Ilerda, Pompeian soldiers voice their desire for peace, lamenting that “they had fought against men who were their friends and kinsmen” (..); and before Pharsalus, Pompeians accuse Pompey of acting slowly and tyrannically: “he liked to count among his slaves former consuls and praetors” (..). All these remarks carry more weight by virtue of coming from Pompeians and thus reinforce key points of Caesar’s propagandistic message; even the Pompeians – one gathers – acknowledged that Pompey started an unnecessary war, going against the will of the Roman soldiers because of love for power. Greek historians also enjoy juxtaposing speeches expressing different points of view, and Thucydides often creates irreconcilable tension between different speeches (e.g. .– and .–; . and .–) or between speeches and the rest of the narrative (e.g. .. and ..); this tension provokes the readers to question their assumptions and conclusions. The same device of presenting different or contrary points of view, however, achieves the opposite effect in Caesar: by giving voice to his characters Thucydides often challenges and complicates our interpretation of the events, whereas Caesar puts characters on stage precisely in order to gather support for his own point of view and to lead the readers toward his conclusion. There is another telling difference between Caesar and Thucydides: Caesar does not state his intent or method in reporting speeches, and from the beginning of the BG he simply reports various voices in oratio obliqua. This choice of indirect speech allows Caesar to select some abridged excerpts, without inviting the reader to ask how he knows, how faithfully he adheres to the original words and how he chooses what to record and what to leave out. Caesar introduces oratio obliqua without methodological premises, like Herodotus, who has no reflection on the writing of speeches; Caesar’s decision, however, stands out, since after Herodotus both Thucydides (.) and Polybius (.b) explained their use of speeches. The first book of the Bellum Gallicum also exemplifies other functions of indirect speech. One of these is characterization: oratio obliqua portrays Diviciacus as trustworthy and loyal to Rome, Caesar as courageous but
Krebs – in this volume. Arnold (, ), Morrison (). Rasmussen (, –); Grillo (, –). The introduction to Critognatus’ speech (BG .., with Krebs forthcoming b) is an exception. Grillo (, –).
Speeches in the Commentarii
realistic, and Ariovistus as arrogant. Characterization remains a typical function of indirect speech throughout the Commentarii, as the examples of Ambiorix and Vercingetorix (BG . and .) or of Afranius and the Massilians (BC . and .) show. In particular, indirect speeches present the narrator as factual and straightforward while casting Caesar (who is present in more than two thirds of the exchanges) as a fair diplomat. Moreover, as seen above, speeches play a critical role in advancing the plot toward the victorious battle which concludes book . Frequently speeches trigger action: for example, Diviciacus’ words spare the Bellovaci (BG .); and Caesar’s rekindle his soldiers’ desire to fight between the debacle of Dyrrachium and the victory at Pharsalus (BC .). Diviciacus’ speech is pivotal also in another respect. In the Bellum Gallicum, and especially in book , Caesar is at pains to justify his aggressive campaign: theoretically the Gallic war might have come to a stop after the defeat of the Helvetians (.–), which is presented as a dutiful defense of Roman borders and allies (the Aedui). After such a “defense,” Caesar needed to substantiate the case for continuing the war, but in Ariovistus was no unproblematic enemy. In fact, just one year before, Caesar, as consul, had enlisted Ariovistus among the friends of the Roman people (Dio Cass. ..–; cf. ..): hence he needed a justification for fighting against him, lest he look like the betrayer of a bond, a serious charge in Roman eyes. Speeches help the narrator out of the conundrum: in particular, Diviciacus’ words (.) cast the foundation for Caesar’s aggression toward the Germans, thus bridging the gap between a circumscribed event and a long-lasting war. Therefore, the expedition against Ariovistus is presented as Caesar’s response to some Roman allies’ request for protection; but, tellingly, the first to question such a response were the Roman soldiers themselves, who mutinied, forcing Caesar to justify his action. Caesar’s speech to the mutinous centurions serves both to change their minds and to blame the war on Ariovistus. Their former and positive diplomatic relation, amicitia, which Cassius Dio sees as an embarrassing theme, is transformed to Caesar’s advantage: since Ariovistus sought the Romans’ amicitia, “why would anyone believe that he would so recklessly depart from his obligation? (ab officio discessurum) . . . and if, led by
Gelzer (, –); Meier (, ) and James (). On Caesar’s characterization of Ariovistus, see Murphy (, –); on speeches and characterization, see Utard (, –) and Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (, –). On the factual narrator, see Miller (, ); on Caesar’s presence Utard (, ). Albert (, –) and Raaflaub – in this volume. Walser (), Latacz ().
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irrational folly, he waged war (bellum intulisset), why should they fear?” (..–). Both the centurions and the readers of the BG are led to believe that Ariovistus is breaking the officium of amicitia by “bringing in war,” while in fact it was the other way around. Remarkably, in Dio’s version of the same speech, Caesar convinces his army by justifying rather than by denying his aggression. Both Dio (..) and the BG (..), however, agree that Caesar’s speech transformed the morale and attitude of his soldiers (cf. also Livy, Per. .). According to the BG, five examples help Caesar to effect this transformation: first, three references to previous battles demonstrate that the Germans are beatable (..–); then Caesar points at himself as an ideal general (..–), and lastly he uses the exemplary loyalty of the tenth legion (..), concluding on an emotional note and suggesting the proper reaction to his words to his internal audience. Such a reaction (.), in turn, elicits the proper response from the readers. In short, through an indirect speech Caesar justifies his conduct, and through the response of the internal audience he presents his justification as convincing. It must be noted that, since the Commentarii were read also as war manuals, Caesar casts himself as a model leader dealing with mutinous soldiers, a locus of such manuals (e.g. Xen. An. ..– and Front. Strat. .). It must also be noted that Caesar similarly legitimizes the civil war. According to the BC Pompey withdrew from his amicitia (..); hence Caesar explains the wrongs he suffered to his soldiers (.), and their response affects that of the readers. To sum up, the test case of BG demonstrates that speeches achieve multiple effects as they interact with each other and with narrative sections.
Critognatus’ and Curio’s Speeches in Oratio Recta: Two Test Cases Alesia, late summer . A confederation of Gallic tribes is resisting Roman conquest, and the narrative structure of book builds toward the grand finale, when a formidable battle seems set to decide the outcome of the whole war. The Gauls, left without food supplies under Roman siege, summon a council: some propose to surrender, some would rather attempt
Dio has Caesar argue that the only alternative to conquering is being conquered ..–; Gabba (, –) and Millar (, –). James (, –). Roller (, –). Similarly, Dio observes that after Caesar’s speech “some were prone to obey because they had been preferred, and the others by imitating these” (..). Rüpke (, –) and Nousek – and Schadee – in this volume. Raaflaub (, and –); Grillo (, –).
Speeches in the Commentarii
sallying though the Roman fortifications, but Critognatus, a noble leader of the Arverni, gives a speech famously recommending stern resistance. This speech, which Caesar reports on account of its “unique and wicked cruelty” (..), is by far the longest in oratio recta in the BG and deserves some attention. Critognatus structures his arguments according to some precepts of manuals of rhetoric. A beginning in medias res – “I say nothing of the proposal of those who give the name of surrender to the most disgraceful slavery” (..) – serves the purpose of an exordium: it introduces one of the major themes of the speech (the opposition between freedom and slavery), it establishes a connection between Critognatus’ and the others’ proposals in order to dismiss previous recommendations, and especially it establishes his persona as upright. The main body of the speech is divided into two parts of almost equal length: in the first (..–) Critognatus invites steadiness and constantia, and dismisses the suggestion of attempting a sally with a refutatio presenting it as a weak (..–), inopportune (..–), and unnecessary solution (..–); and in the second (..–) he proposes resistance at any cost, even cannibalism. This recommendation is buoyed up by arguing that the Romans are worse than the Cimbri and Teutons (..), as shown by the situation of Gaul, languishing “under eternal enslavement.” Hence the oratio ends on an emotional note and with a ring composition, recalling the concept and language of slavery, servitus, with which it opened. The ring composition functions also on the level of the macro-structure of the Bellum Gallicum. As seen above, at the beginning of the BG Caesar employs the same strategy, appealing to the ancestors’ deeds; likewise, the same example of the war against Cimbri and Teutons helps him first to justify his aggression toward Ariovistus (..) as a defense of Roman allies from slavery (in servitute . . . videbat Germanorum teneri, ..), and then to exhort his soldiers to steadiness, constantia (..–). The same exemplum, then, in the same context of supremacy and slavery is presented at the beginning and at the end of the work from two opposite points of view.
Schieffer (). Fabia calls this speech “pulcherrimum Caesarianae eloquentiae monumentum” (, ). For an overview of scholars’ interpretations, see Riggsby (, –) and Krebs (forthcoming b, ad loc.). The same applies to some speeches in oratio obliqua, e.g. BG ., with Murphy (, –). Lausberg (, §–). Lausberg (, §). On emotions in the peroratio, see Lausberg (, §–). Noticeably, servitus occurs three times in BG , seven times in BG (four of them in Critognatus’ speech) and only four times between BG and .
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Similarly, at the beginning of the BG, Caesar invokes steadiness against Ariovistus, and at the end Critognatus invokes it against Caesar (..): constantia never otherwise occurs in the BG, and the same is true of crudelitas, which describes Ariovistus (..) and Critognatus (..) but no one else, and which is reserved for the Pompeians in the BC (.. and ..). In short, Critognatus’ speech seems to look back at the speeches given by Caesar in oratio obliqua at the beginning of the BG: cruelty always belongs to the Roman enemies, but the same values (steadiness and desire for freedom) and experiences (against Cimbri and Teutons) which in book accounted for Caesar’s decision to wage war also account for the Gauls’ decision to resist in book . Critognatus uses various figures recommended by manuals of rhetoric. The speech is pervaded by rhetorical questions (..– and ..), references to vivid images (..), examples (..) and repetitions of key concepts such as servitus (four times), libertas, ius, and leges (twice). A high concentration of figures also marks this speech off from the usual style of the Commentarii, especially when these figures create rhythmical unit endings, or clausulae, typical of oratory. For instance, to reject the proposal of a sally Critognatus opposes cowardice to valor (animi est ista mollitia non virtus, ..): the switch in word order juxtaposes mollitia with virtus, highlighting the antithesis and giving an elegant clausula (ista mollitia gives a cretic and a resolved trochee). Similarly, the exhortation against “causing the downfall of Gaul and casting it all under eternal enslavement” is emphatically expressed through alliteration of “p” and “s” linking two cola of increasing length (Galliam prosternere et perpetuae servituti subicere, ..); two infinitives repeat the same concept (iteratio), creating pathos and closing with another elegant clausula (molossus and resolved trochee). By the same device Critognatus stresses that the Romans have slaughtered thousands of Gauls called “relatives of the same blood” (propinquis consanguineisque, ..): pathetic iteratio exemplifies the copia verborum typical of Caesar’s orations, and ends with another rhythmical clausula (con-sāngu˘ ine˘ īsque gives a resolved cretic and spondee), on the model of Cicero’s famous esse videatur. Thus structure, language, figures and rhythm mark Critognatus’ speech as a proper oration, written
Pascucci (). Critognatus’ speech thus also invites one to reflect on Roman imperialism; Canali (, –); Fuchs (). Fabia (, –), Holtz (, –) and van der Blom – in this volume. Holtz (, –).
Speeches in the Commentarii
according to the canons of oratory and making this “barbarian” almost Roman in his oratorical abilities. The same finesse is applied to Curio’s speech in the BC. In August some Caesarian soldiers, led by Curio in North Africa face some Pompeians, led by Domitius: the Caesarians are so scared by reports about the enemy that they consider deserting to Domitius, under whom they had served until they changed over to Caesar’s side at Corfinium (.–). As a response, Curio first gives a speech to a war council (.) and then one to all of his soldiers (.). These are the first and longest speeches in oratio recta in the BC and, like Critognatus’, they parade many rhetorical embellishments typical of oratory. I will analyze the second, that is, Curio’s contio to the soldiers. Like most orations, Curio’s speech is structured in three main parts: beginning, or exordium, main body, or narratio, and conclusion, or peroratio. With a brief captatio benevolentiae (..–), switching from oratio obliqua to oratio recta (as Greek and Roman historians often do), Curio praises the soldiers’ proven loyalty to Caesar, making them well disposed and introducing the main theme of his speech, the goal of the exordium. The exordium also presents Caesar as successful in contrast to the defeated Pompey (pulsus, ..), thus introducing the thesis that Caesarian soldiers should not desert to Pompey. In the narratio Curio develops three major arguments, each dealing with a possible objection to his thesis. With the first confutatio (..–) he restores the morale of the troops: “having followed Caesar when the outcome of the war was still unsure, do you want now to follow one who has been defeated, after the outcome of the war has been settled?” (..). The rhetorical question brings the soldiers back to the episode of Corfinium, when they decided to step over to Caesar’s side, and this episode grounds Curio’s second confutatio that no oath binds his troops to Domitius (..–). Another rhetorical question effectively makes the point: “in truth, is it you who have abandoned Domitius, or it is Domitius who has abandoned you?” (..). The third and last argument addresses the possible objection that Caesar deserves their loyalty, but Curio does not (..). In each case, exempla help the soldiers to respond to these questions for themselves, reminding them of Caesar’s victory in Spain (..), of Domitius’ dishonest behavior at Corfinium (..–), and of Curio’s successes in Africa (..). The conclusion ends properly in pathetic tones: Curio summarizes his whole speech with an ironic recapitulatio
Lausberg (, §– and –).
Grillo (, –).
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(“Having refused this success and these generals, go then, follow the humiliation of Corfinium . . .”, ..); and he concludes the peroratio on an even more pathetic note, suggesting that the soldiers stop calling him imperator (..). Various figures, such as antithesis (.., .., and ..), alliteration (..), anaphora (..), praeteritio (..), iteratio (..) and hyperbaton (..) embellish Curio’s speech (cf. Krebs – in this volume). Remarkably, many of these figures create rhythmic clausulae, typical of oratory. For example, in the exordium Curio reminds his soldiers that “Caesar judged you most favorably and the Pompeians most severely” (..): an antithesis helps Curio to put his audience in a good disposition, and iudicaverunt forms a Ciceronian clausula (cretic and spondee). Then Curio extols Caesar’s success in Spain, asking “Did you not hear that . . . Caesar achieved all of this in only forty days since he came to face the enemy?” (..); the rhetorical question ends with a switch in word order, venerit Caesar, which puts “Caesar” into emphasis and gives the same favored clausula as above. Similarly, to remind the soldiers of his own achievements, Curio asks “Or do you dislike that I safely carried the army without losing a single ship?” The double iteratio “salvum atque incolumem exercitum / nulla omnino navi desiderata traduxerim” creates emphasis, twice giving the same Ciceronian clausula (choriamb or molossus and cretic) which also ends Curio’s contio. Curio’s speech, however, for all its rhetoric, contains historical inaccuracies. At this point he could not know of Caesar’s victory in Spain, which had occurred only a couple of weeks before, not enough time for messengers to travel from inland Spain and reach Curio who was on the move. The incongruity achieves various goals. It offers a convenient summary; it characterizes Curio as loyal and devoted to Caesar; and it moves the action forward by transforming mutinous soldiers into enthusiastic Caesarians. Other speeches in the Commentarii recapitulate and invite the audience to re-interpret previous facts: as seen above, Critognatus offers a view on the whole Gallic wars, even going back to the struggle with the Cimbri and Teutons, whom Caesar often invokes as the pre-history of his expedition. Similarly, in the BC, Caesar’s speech in oratio obliqua reviews the salient events of book (.); and before Pharsalus he recalls his failed attempts at peace in a short contio in oratio recta (.), which is the only direct speech by Caesar in the Commentarii.
Holtz (, –). Wistrand (). Batstone and Damon (, –); Grillo (, –).
Speeches in the Commentarii
In conclusion, like many of his predecessors, Caesar used direct and indirect speeches to multiple effects. Abundant use of oratio obliqua juxtaposes different viewpoints, presenting individuals through their own words, thus constituting a powerful means of characterization, while conveying a sense of factuality; such viewpoints create a coherent narrative, recapitulating salient events, moving the action forward or tackling delicate themes, like Caesar’s self-justification in waging war against Ariovistus or against Pompey. Oratio recta is more rare, generally reserved for short “quotations,” with the exception of Critognatus’ and Curio’s speeches, which stand out for their length and rhetoric but share some functions with indirect speeches: they display Caesar’s own oratorical talents, recapitulate previous events while also triggering further action, and vividly characterize the speakers. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H Most of the comprehensive work on speeches in the Commentarii is in German and in French. Rasmussen () analyzes the speeches to track the change in style of the Commentarii; while Hyart (), Dangel (), and Utard () focus on indirect speech. An updated monograph on direct and indirect speech in Caesar is desirable. In particular, scholarship has concentrated on the evolution of speeches in the Commentarii, while the relation between speeches in Caesar and in the rich Greek and Roman historiographical tradition remains understudied. Their relation to the political and rhetorical context of the end of the Republic can also be productively reconsidered.
Wit and Irony Anthony Corbeill
Already in antiquity historians recognized the value that witticisms possess in reconstructing the character of a historical personality. A glance at the pages of Suetonius, Plutarch, or Dio shows that explanatory accounts of Caesar present no exception to this tendency. Caesar in fact provides an especially privileged subject for this type of analysis. For in addition to the jokes recounted in later historical sources, modern historians have access to the humorous invective preserved in Caesar’s own writings as well as to those witticisms attributed to him by sources written during his lifetime; also revealing are the barbs directed against Caesar by contemporaries. A biography constructed from humor adds helpful nuance to Caesar’s well-known rise to the dictatorship in the last decades of his life. At the same time, such an examination hardly represents a novel method. In discussing his approach to the lives of Alexander and Caesar, Plutarch, the greatest of the ancient biographers, paused to justify to his readers his heavy reliance upon anecdotal material, even at the potential risk of excluding this or that celebrated deed: “frequently an insignificant matter – a turn of phrase or some silly remark (παιδιά τις) – provides a greater insight into character than do battles where thousands die, or than the greatest strategies and sieges of cities” (Alex. .). The thoughts offered below adopt the spirit of Plutarch’s remarks. While saying little about the actions that made Caesar great, I shall narrate how his wit and irony reveal some of the attitudes that drove Caesar to greatness.
Caesar as Humorist As best evidenced by the extensive discussion in the treatise De Oratore, Cicero’s masterwork on rhetorical theory and practice, the skill to deploy
Plass (). Most significant sources outside the Caesarian and Ciceronian corpus are Quint. Inst. ., Suet. Iul., Plutarch’s Lives, Macr. Sat. .–, ..
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wit effectively was recognized as essential to a Roman orator’s success. Cicero attributes this lengthy excursus, set in the early first century , to an otherwise minor speaker in the treatise named Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo. It has been credibly suggested that through this interlocutor – who is referred to throughout the excursus simply as “Caesar” – Cicero intends to recognize his contemporary Caesar’s reputation for oratorical wit. Yet regardless of how one interprets this similarity in names, it is intriguing to note that from his youth our Caesar began, in a manner befitting an aspiring young politician whom Quintilian ranked second only to Cicero as the most promising orator of his generation (..), to assemble a collection of witticisms. Although the one direct reference to these Dicta Collectanea preserves principally the fact of their loss (Suet. Iul. .), such a compendium of pithy expressions presumably included material culled by Caesar to supplement his rhetorical study and oratorical practice. He was to continue this collecting throughout his lifetime. While it is unclear whether the youthful assemblage included Caesar’s own aphorisms, there is no doubt that compendia containing such material had begun to be compiled before his death. Peter estimates that such collections account for at least thirty of the sayings cited in ancient sources. A number of examples of these independently preserved witticisms appear below. In order to gauge their significance most accurately, however, we begin with Caesar’s extant writings, which provide a more mediated but equally revealing perspective on the man’s sense of humor.
Narrative Irony Caesar’s commentaries on his military campaigns may seem a counterintuitive place to seek instances of humor – and indeed such an impression is generally accurate. Yet there do exist a few passages in which Caesar relates a joke openly, as well as several more in which the attentive reader is clearly meant to detect irony. I shall begin with some of the clearer instances of narrative irony before turning to those remarks explicitly signposted as witty.
Cic. De Or. .–; Rabbie in Leeman, Pinkster, and Rabbie (, –). Zinn (, ). Peter (, ); cf. Cic. (Fam. ..), who also discusses compilations of the elder Cato and Cicero. Peter (, ); cf., e.g., Cic. Att. .., ...
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Irony is notoriously difficult to identify, particularly in a text such as the Caesarian commentaries, where the largely third-person narration can mask the subjectivity that makes irony more readily detectable. As a result, I restrict myself here to those examples for which semantic and syntactic markers indicate the likelihood of an ironical tone. A famous instance of Caesar’s use of irony from the biographical tradition provides a helpful entry point. Tradition records that in Caesar quelled rebellious troops with a single word of direct address that operated figuratively to expel his soldiers from the military: Quirites (“citizens of Rome”). Considering the effectiveness of this concise remark, it comes as little surprise that one type of irony that Caesar employs in his writings involves critiquing the behavior of his troops. Early in the narrative of BG, Caesar describes Publius Considius, a veteran soldier who had served under Sulla and Crassus, as rei militaris peritissimus habebatur, “having a reputation for being . . . very highly skilled in military affairs” (..). A few sentences later, however, this assessment is overturned when Considius’ cowardice on a reconnaissance mission leads him to report false strategic information. Caesar’s narrative revises the previous description of Considius, now characterized as timore perterritum, “thoroughly terrified from fear,” a state that causes him quod non vidisset, pro viso sibi renuntiavisse, “to report as seen something that he had not seen” (..). Caesar’s ironic repetition of contrasting terms (non vidisset . . . pro viso) mirrors how Considius’ open cowardice contrasts with his alleged experience. The contrast receives further reinforcement through repetition of sound, such as the per- prefix in the two adjectives describing Considius as “very experienced” and “very afraid” (peritissimus v. perterritum). Considius does not appear again in Caesar’s narrative, but he has not been forgotten. A few sentences later the enemy Helvetii are described as incautiously pursuing the Romans since they perceived them, wrongly, as timore perterritos, “thoroughly terrified from fear” (..), echoing the same phrase that had described the panicky Considius a few sentences earlier. The entire episode uses intentional repetition of sounds and phrases to underscore the danger of confusing seeming with being. Another instance of narrative irony shows Caesar mocking the misperceptions of the local Gauls regarding military affairs. In his account of the
The discussions of Maurach () and Torigian () contain additional examples. Furneaux (, ) lists the sources; Leeman (, –) offers a discussion. See further Suet. Iul. ; Plut. Caes. .; Maurach : –. Cf. Krebs – in this volume.
Wit and Irony
war in Aquitania, for example, Caesar describes the soldurii, a select group of six hundred soldiers among the enemy Satiates. Bound by a pact to protect one another or else commit suicide, “none of them has, in human memory, shunned death when one of their party had been killed.” Following this impressive introduction, a single sentence describes an attempted sortie by these soldurii, their repulsion, and their subsequent surrender (.). Numerous analogous examples portray Caesar ironically critiquing the Gauls’ ability at self-assessment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Caesar’s most complex employment of irony involves mocking his most celebrated opponent, the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix. Here, the contrast with Caesar’s own attitudes as general is marked not only verbally, as had been the case with Considius, but syntactically as well. In order to sharpen the characterization of Vercingetorix in BG , Caesar assigns to him the majority of speeches, and it is through a speech that Caesar has Vercingetorix expose his true character. During the narrative of the siege of Avaricum, Vercingetorix’s fellow Gauls accuse him of complicity with the Romans (.). As his speech of self-defense proceeds, the author Caesar reproduces Vercingetorix’s reasoned argumentation with a Latin that displays increasing degrees of vividness. Caesar starts by relating his speech indirectly, using grammatically historical tenses of the Latin subjunctive; then, for no clear grammatical reason, the account changes to the more vivid primary sequence of tenses, using the present and perfect subjunctives. At this point, yet another change of narrative perspective draws the reader still closer to the action in the text: again without any syntactic marker signaling the change, Caesar quotes Vercingetorix verbatim in direct speech: haec ut intellegatis – inquit – a me sincere pronuntiari, audite Romanos milites, “To understand that I say these things truly,” – he said – “listen to these Roman soldiers” (..). Vercingetorix then produces as witnesses not true soldiers, but captured slaves that have been coached to pretend that they are from Caesar’s troops. Following Vercingetorix’s cues, they reveal to the military council manufactured pieces of information about the state of affairs in the Roman camp. The ruse works, with the assembled Gallic multitude proclaiming that the war could not be in better hands than those of the great Vercingetorix (..). Caesar’s use of irony at the close of the account is complex but indisputable: he employs the most direct form of discourse, the clearest syntax, and ironic
Torigian (, –); Maurach (, –). Oppermann (, –).
Rasmussen (, –).
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vocabulary (sincere; cf. haec beneficia, ..) to represent the selfconfident Vercingetorix’s willful abuse of the truth. This style of muted invective also occurs in the BC. Although the sensitive new context of civil war prevents Caesar from directly mocking a Roman opponent, he often indirectly draws ironic attention to Pompey’s ineffectiveness as a military leader. One example illustrates the method. In book , Caesar describes Pompey’s preparations for a surprise attack on Caesar’s legate, Mark Antony: having found a suitable location for an encampment, Pompey assembles his forces and prohibits the lighting of campfires “so that his arrival will be a greater surprise.” The narrator Caesar immediately follows this description of strategy with a simple and direct statement: “These events are immediately reported to Antony through Greeks” (..). Pompey subsequently must flee to avoid being trapped between the armies of Antony and Caesar. Rhetorically, the use of irony is effective: considering their lack of success, Pompey’s preparations are described in seemingly superfluous detail, and the lack of substance that is subsequently revealed in regard to those plans contrasts with the simple syntax describing Antony’s swift counter-action. Caesar’s account of the civil war produces numerous analogous examples of this type of quiet irony.
Overt Humor The wit bandied about in the day-to-day world of the Roman military doubtless reached a harsher pitch than that of the instances of irony just surveyed. At several points in the Commentarii, Caesar refers to humorous abuse erupting among his own troops and between opposing sides. Although he quotes no exchanges verbatim, the many allusions clearly indicate that they must have been both frequent and vicious (e.g., BG ..; BC .., .., ., ..). On two occasions, however, Caesar cites explicit instances of humor, credited to his troops as an anonymous whole. In the BG, Caesar pauses during his description of the defense system set up by the Romans at Alesia in order to relay the nicknames used by his soldiers for these man-made obstacles. Ditches containing pointed stakes camouflaged by tree branches “they called cippi” (..), the word cippus containing a macabre pun on two of the word’s meanings, to designate both boundary stones and funerary
See Maurach (, –) and Grillo (, –, –, –); cf. Plut. Caes. .–. See too Henderson (, ) on an apparent pun by Crastinus at BC ..
Wit and Irony
monuments. The Gauls, it would appear, are given the choice between observing these boundaries or facing near certain death. The same anonymous “they” receives credit for naming two other devices. Individual pits with sharpened branches at the bottom “they called ‘lilies’ because of their resemblance to the flower,” while lengths of wood buried in front of these pits with obtruding iron hooks “they named ‘goads’”(..–). These three simple puns reveal a dark wit that revels in mocking pain and death. And yet, as a marked ornamentation to a generally spare narrative, such witticisms aim for more than simply a smile. The sharp wit conveys a sense of confidence among the soldiers that can only reflect well on the capabilities of their commander (who is also, not accidentally, the author). In the more sensitive context of the BC, an analogous example of this type of hostile sarcasm also comes from the anonymous rank and file. In another siege operation, this time of Pompey’s forces at Dyrrachium, Caesar’s troops were low on provisions and so forced to survive by eating a bread-like substance improvised from a local root. Despite this privation, Caesar tells us, the soldiers “during the watch and when in daily conversation frequently remarked that they would sooner live off tree bark than allow Pompey to slip from their hands” (..). Once again, in expressing this esprit de corps Caesar demonstrates his authority as a leader while at the same time avoiding the charge of mocking Pompey and his men directly. Only one explicitly signaled witticism appears in the commentaries. This joke introduces a new dimension to these instances of military bravado. In preparing for a colloquy with the German leader Ariovistus, Caesar has arranged for foot-soldiers from his dependable Tenth Legion to accompany him on horseback rather than the expected Gallic cavalry, whom he had reasons to mistrust. As these loyal legionnaires mount their newly acquired horses, an unspecified one from their number remarks non inridicule, “not without humor,” that “Caesar is doing more than he’d promised; having said that he would use soldiers from the Tenth Legion as a bodyguard, he now enlists them among the equites (ad equum rescribere)” (BG ..). As with the camp humor above, Caesar has doubtless related this anecdote as a way of demonstrating the restored confidence felt by his troops at a critical military juncture. But closer consideration of Caesar’s position in the joke betrays a more insidious framework. By metaphorically changing the civic standing of a foot-soldier from regular citizen to Roman eques, the remark imagines the sole Caesar adopting the powers of
Details in Heraeus (, –).
Maurach (, )
Maurach (, )
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the two censors in Rome, who can use an individual’s moral failure as a reason for changing his property class and, thereby, his attendant status. In the figural restructuring of Roman society that this joke achieves, Caesar emerges as an individual empowered not simply to order troops, but to change unilaterally their classification in the Roman power structure. Not insignificantly, the soldiers raise no objections. Instead, they greet the idea with laughter.
Beyond the Commentarii Evidence outside the texts authored by Caesar suggests that segments of society shared – to his detriment – the army’s opinion of his special ability to flout political expectations. According to Suetonius, in the final years of Caesar’s life one commonly heard around Rome the following piece of verse invective: Caesar leads Gauls in triumph – and likewise into the senate house: the Gauls have removed their trousers and donned the senator’s purple stripe. (Iul. .)
Many analogous quips survive, uttered by contemporaries of Caesar. Suetonius preserves Caesar’s response to such criticisms, one that again reassesses from the viewpoint of individual worth Roman society’s overwhelming stress upon tradition: “if he had secured the help of vagabonds and assassins in safeguarding his reputation,” Caesar allegedly remarked, “then these men would have received the same sorts of thanks” as he had extended to friends and allies (Iul. ). The figural restructuring of society hinted at by the Roman soldier in Gaul, and reiterated in this statement from Caesar, becomes literalized back in Rome, as Caesar enables citizens from the Gallic provinces to ascend to an office traditionally restricted to the highest members of the Roman elite. Numerous ancient sources preserve other examples of a no-nonsense wit that remains submerged in his extant writings. Among these instances there continues to dominate Caesar’s self-portrayal as an individual transgressing normative elite values of the Roman community. A particularly clear example survives from . The event described follows a contentious debate in the senate that resulted in Caesar being awarded the proconsular provinces of Gaul. Suetonius preserves Caesar’s reaction
Corbeill (, –); Ruffell (, –).
Evidence in Gelzer (, –).
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to his opponents following this decision, one that would result in his eventual conquest of Gaul: Overjoyed, Caesar didn’t refrain from boasting in a crowded senate house a few days later that he had gotten what he wanted in the face of unwilling, grumbling opponents. As a result, he said that he would pounce on all their heads (insultaturum omnium capitibus). When someone said abusively that this would be tough for a woman to do, Caesar answered, as if joking, “In Syria too Semiramis was queen, and Amazons once held sway over a great part of Asia.” (Iul. .)
Reference to a “crowded senate house” confirms the momentousness of the occasion, and Suetonius doubtless relies upon contemporary records. In asserting that he will force all his senatorial opponents to fellate him (“pounce on all their heads”), Caesar’s initial gibe adopts an assertive sexual posture familiar in Roman invective. The insults do not stop there. In response to this claim of a superior masculinity, an anonymous senator alludes to Caesar’s reputation for being the passive partner in sexual relations with other men – in the imaginings of elite Romans of this period, such a person simply cannot penetrate other men, but can only be penetrated. Caesar’s subsequent reply would have surprised his original audience. In embracing the charge of being less than a man – a move almost never encountered in contemporary invective – he asserts his role as preeminent figure in the state, but only by simultaneously subverting one of that society’s defining paradigms. Like Semiramis and the Amazons – powerful women of legend – he too reigns supreme. Sources preserve other instances of humorous invective against Caesar from members of the elite. Like the anonymous senator above, these opponents take as point of departure Caesar’s inappropriate behavior in relation to the Roman state. I cited above the popular couplet lampooning the dictator Caesar’s adlection of Gauls into the senate. Similar jokes already circulated during the previous decade. In Caesar’s aggressive tactics as consul overshadowed his colleague, Marcus Bibulus, and eventually drove Bibulus to complete his consular term sequestered at home. In reaction, Suetonius tells us that “several wits” changed the normal way of marking the year. Rather than using common practice,
See Hurley (, –) for Suetonius’ access to archival sources and Henderson () on the narrative function of jokes in Suet. Iul. Williams (, n. ), contra Adams (, ), who believes that Caesar’s initial boast does not refer to fellatio. For Caesar’s youth, see Corbeill (, –).
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referring to the year “when Caesar and Bibulus were consuls,” they instead adopted the parodic formulation “when Julius and Caesar were consuls” (Iulio et Caesare consulibus); concerning the same situation a couplet freely made the rounds asserting that “Nothing happened in Bibulus’ recent term but only in Caesar’s. / I don’t remember anything occurring during Bibulus’ consulship.” Jokes about Caesar’s manipulation and consequent devaluation of Rome’s highest elected magistracy became especially prevalent during his dictatorship, when some of his nominations for replacement consulships resulted in unprecedentedly short terms. A favorite target was Caninius Rebilus, whom Caesar nominated to fulfill the remaining hours of a year-long consular term that had been left vacant by death. Cicero notes that nobody ate lunch during Rebilus’ consulship; nothing bad happened either, since Rebilus was so vigilant that he went without sleep for his entire term. The lesson to an elite Roman was clear. These events at Rome, Cicero notes to an absent friend before relating these witticisms, “may be bitter to hear of, yet they are more tolerable to hear of than they are to witness” (Fam. ..). Cicero’s was not the only dissenting voice. Preceding the Ides of March, Suetonius mentions several placards being mounted around Rome (Iul. .). Beneath a statue of Caesar was affixed the following couplet: Brutus, because he expelled the kings, became first consul: this man, because he expelled the consuls, has finally become king.
Whether sung anonymously throughout the city, confided to a friend in private correspondence, or posted on public monuments, the message underlying the wit remains consistent: notions of the consulship, the highest office to which a Republican Roman could aspire, were clearly undergoing transformation under Caesar. Caesar would of course have known of these various criticisms. As a result, it is hardly surprising that sources record Caesar providing counterassertions of his own uniqueness, as he had in the riposte in the senate that equated his prowess with that of queen Semiramis and the mighty Amazons. Suetonius records an exchange concerning another important political office, that of tribune of the plebs. In , Caesar clashed with one of the year’s tribunes, Pontius Aquila. Following the return of his troops from Spain, Caesar was leading a triumphal procession past the assembled tribunes when Aquila refused to rise. Responding to the perceived slight,
Suet. Iul. .; Ruffell (, –) offers a complementary perspective. Cic. Fam. ..; several more examples at Corbeill (, ).
Wit and Irony
Caesar shouted “Go ahead, Aquila, take the Republic away from me – Mr. Tribune!” Furthermore, for a period afterward the dictator refused committing himself to any promise without adding ironically “provided that Pontius Aquila allows it” (Iul. .). Once again, Caesar’s humor represents his individual stature as transcending Rome’s political traditions; the ridicule even extends to the sacrosanct tribunate, the very office that he had allegedly begun a civil war in order to defend (BC .). One may also compare the verses chanted by Caesar’s soldiers in triumph, in which they lampoon their general’s reputed sexual submission to king Nicomedes of Bithynia, and the sexual threat that he presented to Roman matrons (Suet. Iul. –). Such ritual song has been best interpreted as originating not from a carnivalesque desire to invert the positions of leader and led, but from motivations similar to those of Caesar sketched above: “Caesar is being constructed as transcending categories of sexuality and power, and through him the soldiers themselves, who together with their general have either overturned or threatened to overturn convention in so many other ways.” This conjecture, that Caesar subverts humor to highlight advances made throughout his career, provides perspective on other curious remarks that Caesar uttered near the end of his life. One of these is quoted by Cicero in De Officiis, a treatise that attempts to reconcile the fraught relationship between individual and state upon which Caesar’s humor provides a troubling commentary. Cicero has been discussing examples from the careers of Gaius Marius and Marius Gratidianus to argue that neither personal nor political advantage permits an individual to commit an action that is morally wrong. Cicero then turns to contemporary examples. He begins by deriding Pompey’s marriage to Caesar’s daughter Julia, since it improperly privileged personal advantage over moral right. Caesar receives attention next, but with a surprising twist. Rather than recounting any specific unjust act, he directs the reader to one of Caesar’s favorite literary tags, the defiant words of Eteocles in Euripides’ Phoenissae (Off. .): [Caesar] for his part always had at hand some Greek verses from the Phoenissae. I’ll render them as I can – perhaps inelegantly, but in such a way that the point can be understood: If justice should be violated, it should be violated to become king; in other affairs attend to righteousness.
Pelling (, –) analyzes Caesar’s intolerance toward tribunes.
Ruffell (, ).
A. CORBEILL
Cicero’s methodology resembles my own in this chapter: using a man’s words to reveal motivations. In this case the surface meaning hardly requires explication: a concern for justice need not block the ambitions of a potential tyrant. Yet are we truly to believe that a man such as Caesar, whose circumspect use of language received praise already during his lifetime, would have wittingly uttered such sentiments in public, much less “always” as Cicero asserts? Caesar surely realized that this assertion would be anathema to the average elite Roman – one need think only of the crown offered to him by Antony at the Lupercal and its aftermath. Let us rather consider this mot as characterizing Caesar’s acerbic wit. Already in their original Euripidean context these verses were immediately countered as false by Eteocles’ interlocutors – and of course Caesar will not have forgotten Eteocles’ tragic fate soon after uttering these lines. Even Suetonius seems not fully to accept Cicero’s interpretation, since he cites this very passage in the context of less probable explanations for Caesar initiating of civil war (Iul. .). What then may have driven Cicero to this reading – a reading posthumous to Caesar? To explore this question, and to delineate further the power of humor in the late Republic, I turn to events from earlier in Caesar’s dictatorship.
Controlling Humor Cicero reads – perhaps willfully misreads – a wry remark of Caesar in order to expose what he asserts are Caesar’s true feelings. Naturally any certainty about either Caesar’s or Cicero’s intentions must remain elusive. By contrast Caesar’s reactions to an opponent’s invective are better attested, although here again ambiguity remains regarding how to interpret them. In the chapter dedicated to Caesar’s retaining relationships with ideological rivals, Suetonius relates brief anecdotes about his willingness to reconcile with two poets who had publicly slandered him (Iul. ). When Gaius Licinius Calvus informed mutual friends that he sought pardon for his scurrilous epigrams, Caesar took the initiative in making direct contact with the poet. Catullus too, about whose verses Caesar had not disguised displeasure, was invited to a reconciliation dinner, but only after displaying appropriate remorse (satis facientem). A pattern arises from these concise notices: first, the poet-perpetrator, for
Cic. Phil. .–; Gelzer (, –). I thank Stephen Froedge for this suggestion. Tatum (, –) surveys these poems; cf. Casali – in this volume.
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unspecified reasons, took the initiative in reconciling; second, only then did Caesar offer his own conciliatory gesture; third, these encounters were sufficiently public to enter the historical record. Each point indicates that the desire for reconciliation was not as mutual as the Suetonian context initially implies. Indeed, Cicero’s account of one of his own meals with Caesar invites us to wonder whether Catullus would in fact have welcomed the general’s invitation to dine (“He’s not the kind of guest to whom you’d say, ‘Please drop by again when you’re in the neighborhood.’ Once is enough;” Att. ..). Caesar is clearly aware that humorous abuse could influence public opinion – if left unchecked. He chose not to leave it unchecked. Later, during his dictatorship, Caesar again became concerned about criticism from prominent Romans. Here explicit evidence survives for the steps that Caesar took to control an individual’s wit – this time even before it became public. In , Cicero received letters from his friend Paetus, who expressed concern about remarks attributed to Cicero that, he feared, could arouse the dictator’s displeasure. Cicero replies with a letter aimed to alleviate his friend’s worries (Fam. .). Caesar, he writes, has himself made extensive collections of witticisms in the past and, as a result, possesses such keen stylistic judgment that he can surely distinguish between true statements made by the orator and those falsely attributed to him. As if aware that possession of such a keen ear verges on the incredible, Cicero elaborates further about why he feels safe from unjustified criticism: I hear that . . . Caesar customarily rejects whatever is brought to him that is falsely claimed to be mine. He does this now all the more because nearly every day I have living alongside me his companions. In the course of our conversations many remarks drop that may appear, when I have said them, to lack neither learning nor wit in their eyes. These remarks are delivered to Caesar along with the rest of the day’s news. Those are his own orders. (Fam. ..)
Cicero allegedly relates these details to Paetus to convince him that he feels no threat from Caesar. But this attempt at reassurance scarcely masks the fact of Caesar’s actions. In taking daily account of Cicero’s remarks, Caesar effectively checks any humorous abuse that may have arisen from this once powerful voice of free speech. As with Calvus and Catullus, a supposed act of benevolence works to curtail anti-Caesarian invective.
See further Corbeill (, –).
A. CORBEILL
An Augustan Coda Following Caesar’s assassination, the young Octavian’s humor retains the competitive and hostile tone of the previous generation: at Philippi his abuse of prisoners becomes notorious, as he promises one supplicant that his burial will be assured – by birds of prey (Suet. Aug. .); Martial preserves an epigram that Octavian had written against Fulvia, the wife of his enemy Antony, asserting that he would rather fight her than fuck her (.). Not surprisingly, however, the development of the Augustan principate coincides with a change in the public face of humor. Excluding hostile remarks directed at family members such as his daughter and granddaughter (e.g., Suet. Aug. .–), later sources attribute to Augustus principally mild pleasantries. Moreover, they repeatedly emphasize the tolerance that the princeps demonstrated in the face of others’ wit. Augustus clearly wished that the benevolence both in his own humor and in his reaction to others’ be considered a reflection of his benevolence in larger matters. The student of Caesar is left, then, to ponder one of Augustus’ acts of censorship. In a “short and sweet” letter to his librarian Pompeius Macer, Augustus forbade the dissemination of Caesar’s juvenilia. Among the items listed stands the young Caesar’s collection of witticisms (Suet. Iul. .; cf. .–). F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H Richlin () provides an indispensable analysis of Roman aggressive humor. Maurach () offers the only continuous treatment of humor in the Commentarii, but it is marked by subjective judgments; lacking is an objective model for detecting Caesar’s wit and irony. Corbeill () situates humor both by and against Caesar in the context of Roman ethical categories. Ruffell () contains interesting observations about the audiences of invective, and particularly how public humor changed with the political transformation from Republic to principate. Additional diachronic studies of Roman humor would be welcome.
E.g., Sen. Dial. ..–; Suet. Aug. .–; Macr. Sat. ..–. Malcovati (, –) provides an incomplete selection. Ruffell () examines the parallel phenomenon of Horace depoliticizing satire.
Literary Approaches to Caesar: Three Case Studies Luca Grillo
The BG is a complex literary text, which fully repays sophisticated literary readings. The goal of this chapter is to tease out some of its complexities by analyzing three passages, each from a different perspective. In the first case study I discuss how word choice and sentence structure help Caesar to justify the beginning of the Gallic war; in the second I examine the account of the spectacular setback that Caesar’s army suffered in , arguing that literary connections to another passage in the BG and to Polybius assist Caesar in the uneasy task of narrating this defeat. Lastly, I propose a narratological analysis of the landing in Britain, offering some observations about Caesar’s “third person narrative” and his uses of focalization.
Semantic and Syntactic Analysis. Orgetorix (BG .–) In March a threat coming from Gaul made the news in Rome. According to Cicero, some Helvetians had incited an uprising, and various tribes had followed them (Att. ..). Two years later Caesar reached Gaul as pro-consular governor and, acting as a good general and historian, he took care to fix the problem, and to explain it. The problem, as he has it, is that in a prestigious Helvetian leader, Orgetorix, wanted supreme power. This sparked off a rebellion, which called for Caesar’s intervention, and, in turn, this intervention triggered a series of war operations, which would eventually lead to the conquest of the whole of Gaul, and beyond. Semantic choices allow Caesar to craft a believable account, which justifies his intervention. Vocabulary, such as the frequently occurring persuadere and compounds from movere and ducere, invites the readers to trace the whole trouble back to Orgetorix’s regni cupiditas. Orgetorix, being moved (inductus) by desire,
On these semantic choices, see Hering ().
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convinces his tribesmen (persuasit . twice), who are also moved (adducti twice and permoti), and in turn this conviction generates physical movement (..–) and broader persuasion (persuadet . twice). Neither the natural borders, within which the Helvetians feel stuck (loci natura . . . continentur and angustos fines), nor Orgetorix’s imprisonment and death stop the massive revolt: recurrent forms from facilis/e document his skill at persuasion (perfacile esse .. and .., facilius .., minus facile ..); repetition of totius Galliae potiri (.., ..) shows that his plan to take over the whole of Gaul becomes his people’s, conficere (..–) and perficere (..) express confidence in it, and e/de finibus . . . exire at the beginning and at the end of the section demonstrates that such a plan is pursued (.., ..). Other choices enrich the story. The high concentration of superlatives plays up the clash between the ambitions of Orgetorix, “by far the most renowned and wealthy,” longe nobilissimus . . . et ditissimus, and their geographical limitations (.., ..); but it also extols his followers’ self-confidence (“through three most powerful and solid people,” per tres potentissimos ac firmissimos populos ..), their effort to buy baggage-carts (“the largest possible number,” quam maximum numerum) and to gather provisions (“as much seed-corn as possible,” sementes quam maximas ..). Indirect speech “reports” bits of Orgetorix’s words to Dumnorix (..), and these snatches increase the credibility of the rest of the narrative, as if what we “heard” from Orgetorix corroborates what we just learned from the narrator. The wealth of personal names (the first in the BG) and details conveys a sense of reading a well-informed account, also building credibility. This well-informed account, however, is not neutral, and three examples show how vocabulary colors the narrative. From the start Orgetorix is regni cupiditate inductus (..), an expression with a sinister ring. Regnum, the noun connected to rex, denotes despotic power, a taboo in Rome since the expulsion of king Tarquinius, and unsurprisingly in the BG regnum always applies to Gallic, never to Roman, rule. For instance, soon we encounter another character equally interested in regnum, Dumnorix (..), and Vercingetorix, just like Casticus (..), tries to regain his father’s regnum (..–). Cicero and Sallust often use regnum with the same tyrannical connotation (e.g. Cic. Cat. ., Att. ..; Sall. Cat. . with Vretska
On the repetition of persuadeo, see Johnston in this volume. Perfacile is rare and occurs only three times in the BG; cf. Torigian (, –); on this motif in historiography, see Pitcher – in this volume.
Literary Approaches to Caesar
, –); Roman rule is instead designated by imperium or potestas (e.g. .., .., ..). The immediate outcome of Orgetorix’s desire is a coniuratio (..), literally a joining of oaths (cum + iuro) but potentially another negative word, which Caesar’s contemporaries especially used of treason and conspiracies (e.g. Catiline, Cic. Cat. .; Sall. Cat. ..). Accordingly, in the BG coniuratio never refers to Romans, whose alliances are rather called amicitia (.., ..). Moreover, an oath, iusiurandum, sanctions the coniuratio bonding Orgetorix, Casticus, and Dumnorix, and this is one more way to blacken them: iusiurandum indicates an alliance which is unreliable and anti-Roman, as opposed to sacramentum, which indicates Roman soldiers’ oath of allegiance. As in the case of regnum and coniuratio, a Roman audience would not miss the negative slant. As seen, Orgetorix’s desire for power, paired with the Helvetians’ desire for war (regni cupiditate inductus and homines bellandi cupidi .), lies at the origin of the problems Romans have to face. And yet, who would deny that Caesar was equally driven by desire for power and war? In fact, as Gerhard has suggested, the alliance that Orgetorix, Casticus, and Dumnorix contracted in , being secretive, power-oriented, sanctioned by a marriage, and anti-aristocratic, resembles the alliance that Caesar contracted with Pompey and Crassus in . Caesar, however, would never write that he took part in a coniuratio, bound by iusiurandum toward regnum. Vocabulary helps him to demonize the enemy, just as repetitions help him to identify evil Orgetorix with the source of the problem. These chapters also exemplify the variety of Caesar’s syntax. Short and simple sentences (e.g. .., .., ..) alternate with long and complex periods (e.g. .., .., ..), including multiple coordinate and subordinate clauses. According to Cicero, short sentences were typical of oratory and historiography roughly until the end of the second century: they achieved brevity but lacked the elegance of periodic prose, more typical of the first century (De Or. .– and .). Three short sentences at the beginning of chapter demonstrate how Caesar can achieve brevity, swiftly moving the narrative forward. Such style, of course, cannot be sustained for long without being monotonously boring, and Caesar, more often, writes more complex periods, where one or more subordinates precede the main verb.
Cf. Koster (, –). I treat Caesar’s use of amicitia and iusiurandum more extensively in Grillo (, – and –). Dumnorix married Orgetorix’s daughter (..), and Pompey married Caesar’s. Gerhard (, –). In more than per cent of narrative sentences (i.e. not in speeches and descriptions). Schlicher ().
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An obvious model for these longer sentences was the official language of administration and the military, where state officials, rather than just listing facts, had to explain when, how, and why they acted, so that subordinates clarifying various circumstances around the main verb typically generated longer periods. A passage from Plautus has been used to exemplify this style. In Persa, Plautus parodies military jargon by having a slave boast about conquering a girl: hostibus victis, civibus salvis, re placida, pacibus perfectis, bello exstincto, re bene gesta, integro exercitu et praesidiis, cum bene nos, Iuppiter, iuvisti, dique alii omnes caelipotentes, eas vobis habeo grates atque ago, quia probe sum ultus meum inimicum, “with the enemy having been defeated, the citizens being safe, the state peaceful, with peace having been accomplished, with war finished, the deed having been well carried out, with the army and garrisons safe, and since, Jupiter, you gave us your help, as did the gods and all the other heavenly powers, I thank you that I properly took revenge on my enemy” (–). No doubt Plautus exaggerates, but his humor relies on the audience recognizing the formulaic language. Caesar, who was certainly familiar with this style, retools it with such variety and elegance that his masterpieces are still worth reading more than twenty centuries later. Indeed the crafty sequence of short and long sentences in this passage exemplifies Caesar’s style, and this style has become such a touchstone of Latin prose that we must make an effort to realize how innovative and powerful it was. Quintilian did not miss it and expressed his appreciation for Caesar’s rhetorical talents remarking that “he fought and spoke with the same energy” (..).
Intra- and Inter-textual Analysis. Cotta and Sabinus (BG .–) In the BG patterns of words, sentences and motifs invite us to read a passage with another passage in mind, and this juxtaposition colors our experience and interpretation of the text. The thematic and verbal repetitions within a work are the object of intratextuality, while intertextuality studies the repetitions connecting different works and the relation of a work to its models. These literary approaches, which continue to be productively
Rambaud (). Fraenkel (, ); cf. Krebs in this volume –. Two letters written by Cicero as governor in Cilicia provide another example of administrative style (Fam. .–), which has been compared to that of the Commentarii; cf. Krebs in this volume –. Cf. Krebs – in this volume. Hinds ().
Literary Approaches to Caesar
applied to Latin poetry, are more and more used also for prose, though intertextuality in Caesar remains somewhat under-studied. In summer , after the expedition to Britain, the Romans face such food shortages that Caesar has to distribute his forces in different winter camps; he entrusts a legion and five cohorts to his lieutenants Cotta and Sabinus and dispatches them to Atuatuca, among the Eburones (.). Soon after their arrival, the Eburones rebel, attack the Roman camp, and then, having being repelled, ask for a parley. Their leader, Ambiorix, tells the Roman ambassadors that a sudden and massive rebellion will soon be upon them, he invites them to find refuge in another Roman camp and grants them safe passage through his territory, out of personal gratitude toward Caesar (.). The Romans debate: Cotta does not trust Ambiorix and sees no reason to leave the camp, but Sabinus fears a long siege. His recommendation prevails, and the Romans abandon their camp, falling prey to an ambush (.–). The legionaries fight bravely, Cotta is wounded, Sabinus obtains another parley, but Ambiorix betrays him again and kills him, while Cotta dies fighting; some soldiers make their way back to their camp, where, unable to withstand the Gauls, they kill each other (.–). Caesar’s narrative blames this setback on Sabinus, who dismisses his order and Cotta’s recommendation to stay in the camp, but twice trusts Ambiorix, who twice betrays him. Sabinus’ behavior throughout is unworthy of a Roman, and the contrast with Cotta highlights his shortcomings and their disastrous effects. This episode, where Sabinus does everything wrong, looks back at another episode in book , where Sabinus does everything right. In summer , Caesar entrusts some soldiers to Sabinus and sends him to the Veneti, who also rebel and attack the Roman camp (.). Sabinus refuses to engage in open battle without Caesar, artfully fakes fear, sends a false betrayer to the Veneti and convinces them to attack his camp in full force (.). But the Romans, who expected them, burst out, kill many tired and surprised enemies, and safely return into their camp (.). In either case a clever ploy wins the day, with the difference that Sabinus first is the agent and then the victim. The presence of Sabinus, who plays no major role in any other episode of the BG, and the similar narrative pattern intratextually connect these two episodes; intratextuality also functions at the level of lexical choices. Various verbal repetitions invite the readers to see these episodes as a foil for each other. In either case a rebellion (defecere ..; defectio ..) and contempt for the Romans (contemptio ..; ..) lead to an attack on their camp (ad vallum castrorum ..; ad castra ..). A sudden
Cf. Kraus ().
Pöschl (, –).
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assault (subito ..; ..), conducted on two fronts and on suitable terrain (opportunitate loci ..; opportuno atque occulto loco ..), favors the winners, while the heavier baggage hinders the victims of the gambit (impeditis hostibus ..; impedimenta ..); as a result, in both cases only a few escape and survive (paucos, qui ex fuga evaserant, reliquerunt ..; pauci ex proelio elapsi ..); and the news reported to a higher Roman official concludes each episode (Caesar est certior factus ..; Labienum . . . certiorem faciunt ..). By bringing the two episodes next to each other, however, these verbal repetitions also highlight some differences. In book Sabinus rightly denies open battle to the Gauls, dimicandum non existimabat (..), and similar language in book indicates the right recommendation against abandoning the Roman camp, neque . . . discedendum existimabant (..). The phrasing reminds the readers that, in this case, the right suggestion comes not from Sabinus but from Cotta and his followers. Equally Sabinus properly encourages his soldiers in book (suos hortatus ..), but in book his helplessness (..) is juxtaposed to Cotta’s proper response to the ambush: Cotta exhorts the Romans, Caesar remarks that this is the general’s duty (in appellandis cohortandisque militibus imperatoris . . . officia praestabat, “in calling by name and encouraging his soldiers carried out the duties of a good general,” ..), and later Cotta is wounded while still carrying out this duty (adhortans . . . vulneratur ..). Verbal echoes also amplify the Gauls’ and Romans’ different responses to the ambush: the Gauls turn their backs right away (..), but the Romans observe a behavior worthy of themselves (..), killing many Gauls. Recurrent language magnifies their unflinching courage in the face of the reversed situation (magnum numerum eorum occiderunt, ..; and magnus numerus hostium cadebat, ..). Reading the deeds of Sabinus in book against book opens up various interpretations. One may conclude that all the wisdom Sabinus displayed in book was transferred to Cotta, that Roman soldiers fight courageously no matter the circumstance, that officials should always follow Caesar’s advice, etc. Of course, scholars, who have not failed to read these two episodes together, have come to different conclusions. For instance, Collins suggests that “.– was written with the foreknowledge of the events of .–” and concludes that in book “Caesar is subtly defending himself against a charge of bad judgment in placing Sabinus in command” in book . On the contrary, Seel believes that the
Collins (, ).
Literary Approaches to Caesar
contradictions are such that Caesar must have written . without foreknowledge of .–. This exemplifies how the problem of composition and publication of the BG is relevant for its interpretation. Relation to another model further enriches the interpretation of Sabinus’ defeat. The motif of a foolish general prevailing over the wiser one and thus causing a spectacular defeat of the Romans has an illustrious precedent in Roman history, and I want to suggest that Caesar models his narrative after Polybius’ description of the battle of Cannae. According to Polybius, in summer two consular armies faced Hannibal, but the consuls disagreed: Paullus rightly advocated waiting for a favorable terrain, but Varro was lured into fighting by Hannibal, and battle ensued (.–); the Romans fought bravely, but everything went according to Hannibal’s plan, and they suffered a terrible defeat (.). Paullus, who had advised against the battle, behaved honorably and died fighting, but Varro, who was responsible for the disaster, behaved shamefully (.). Is this just history repeating itself? Two considerations reinforce the sense that Caesar is following Polybius: Caesar’s version of Sabinus’ defeat differs from Cassius Dio’s, and specific textual references link it to Polybius’ narrative of Cannae. Cassius Dio also writes that, after a failed attempt to take the Roman camp, Ambiorix resorted to deceit; banking on his relationship with Caesar he convinced the Romans, who, having set out with heavy baggage early in the morning, fell into his ambush. Cassius also reports that Cotta died on the field, Sabinus was killed by Ambiorix during a parley, and the Gauls besieged the soldiers that managed to return to their camp, until they killed each other (.). The disagreement between Cotta and Sabinus, however, which makes up more than a third of Caesar’s narrative, is never mentioned by Cassius, who simply remarks that “hearing Ambiorix’s words the Romans were persuaded” (..). Moreover, according to Cassius, Cotta died early in the fight, before the parley (..), while in Caesar he fought for more than eight hours (..) and refused Sabinus’ proposal to meet the enemy in arms. Also, Caesar presents this parley as a failed (and shameful) attempt at supplication by Sabinus (.–), but Cassius specifies that Ambiorix took the initiative, and “since he was not present at these events, at that time he still looked trustworthy” (..). Cassius, who consulted various sources for
Praefatio to his Teubner edition (, iii). No one would doubt that Caesar knew Polybius, but, to my knowledge, no one has yet discovered traces of Polybius’ work in Caesar’s Commentarii. Cf. Grillo ().
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his Roman History, may have drawn this “correction” to Caesar’s account from Pollio, who followed Caesar in Gaul and whose writings are lost. At any rate, in narrating the same episode Cassius tells a different story, which completely ignores Cotta’s and Sabinus’ opposite judgment and behavior. As a result, Cassius neither extols the former nor blames the latter. The disagreement before the battle and conduct during it, however, is what establishes the intertextual connection between Caesar’s narrative of Atuatuca and Polybius’ of Cannae. Specific references align Caesar’s and Polybius’ narratives and place Cotta and Sabinus alongside their prototypes, Paullus and Varro. Polybius remarks that a controversy and dispute (ἀμφισβήτησις καὶ δυσχρηστία) between two generals is “the most dangerous thing of all” (..), and in the BG some officials echo that in dissensione nullam se salutem perspicere (“upon scrutiny they see no survival in disagreement,” ..): dissensio translates ἀμφισβήτησις, and disputatio, used just above (hac disputatione habita ..), translates δυσχρηστία. At first the engagement is balanced, and Caesar’s erant . . . pares (..) corresponds to Polybius’ “the battle was equal” (ἔπισος ἦν ὁ κίνδυνος ..). The only two other Romans that Caesar names are Titus Balventius and Quintus Lucanius, who fall fighting, like the only two other Romans mentioned by Polybius, Atilius Regulus and Gnaeus Servilius: Balventius is a vir fortis et magnae auctoritatis (..), and Regulus and Servilius are “brave men” (ἄνδρες ἀγαθοί, ..). Caesar specifies that Balventius was a primipilus the previous year (superiore anno primum pilum duxerat ..), and Polybius reminds us that Regulus and Servilius were consuls the previous year (..). These consulars conducted themselves “being worthy of Rome in the battle” (..), and in the same passage Caesar assures the reader that the Romans nihil quod ipsis esset indignum committebant, “did nothing unworthy of themselves” (..). Tametsi ab duce et a fortuna deserebantur, “even if they had been abandoned by their leader and by fortune” (..) captures Polybius’ statement that it felt “as if fortune added insult to injury” (.., cf. LSJ s.v. ἐπιμετρέω iii). Equally, both Paullus and Cotta behave as good generals and soldiers: Paullus “exchanged blows with the enemy, while also calling and exhorting the soldiers close-by” (..), and Cotta in appellandis cohortandisque militibus imperatoris et in pugna militis officia praestabat, “in calling by name and encouraging his soldiers carried out the duties of a good general, and in taking part in the battle those of a good soldier” (..), and as a result
Millar (, –).
Zecchini (, –); Rambaud (, –).
Literary Approaches to Caesar
Paullus “lost his life falling in the middle of the battle with terrible wound,” (..) and Cotta, also wounded (saucius, ..), is killed fighting (pugnans interficitur, ..). To conclude, Caesar casts the defeat at Atuatuca, the worst setback he suffered in the whole Gallic war, after Polybius’ famous description of the defeat at Cannae, arguably the worst defeat in Roman history. This intertext enriches our interpretation of the BG in more than one way: it establishes an implicit comparison between Caesar’s conquest of Gaul and the second Punic war; in typical Roman fashion, this comparison magnifies Caesar’s deeds by aligning them with the deeds of the ancestors, and this alignment reminds the readers that losing a battle does not mean losing a war. Caesar, however, so felt this loss that he vowed to grow his beard and hair until he could avenge Sabinus. Accordingly, the Polybian intertext magnifies this defeat, but it also helps Caesar to isolate it as an episode within a grander chronicle of victory. The narrative structure contributes toward the same effects: Caesar places the incident just after the glorious expedition to Britain (.–) and just before two redeeming episodes. First, another lieutenant, Q. Cicero, properly refuses the Gauls’ treacherous offer to leave his camp and enjoy ‘safe’ passage through their territory, so that the Romans engage in a long but ultimately successful resistance (.). The corrective nature of this juxtaposition to Sabinus’ response to the same trick is hard to miss. Within the account of this Roman resistance, Caesar inserts the aristeia of Pullo and Vorenus (.). This aristeia stages another controversia between two equal officials (..), but its happy ending contrasts with the controversia between Cotta and Sabinus, providing another positive foil to it. Thus the framing of Cotta’s and Sabinus’ defeat within book and especially its textual relation to book and to Polybius’ description of Cannae affect and enrich our interpretation.
Suetonius states that Caesar suffered only three setbacks in the Gallic war, and Atuatuca is the worst of the three he mentions (Iul. ). Suet. Iul. .. Probably Caesar makes reference to Sabinus’ death also in a fragmentary letter to Cicero (ep. Cic. .), as argued by Adami (). I further discuss this Polybian intertext and its effects in Grillo (). Again, comparison with Polybius is telling: Polybius places Cannae at the end of book , then he suspends his narrative of Punic affairs to move to Greece, with the promise to narrate its history (..–). Rambaud (, –); Seel (, ); Rasmussen (, –); Gärtner (, –); Brown (, –). Cf. Heinrichs ().
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Narratological Analysis. The Landing in Britain (BG .–) Book concludes with the narrative of Caesar’s first expedition to Britain, in . Enemy troops try to prevent the Romans from landing, but they reach the shore nonetheless and win a minor engagement. Caesar takes hostages, and the Romans enjoy some peace (.–), until a tempest destroys part of their fleet, encouraging the enemy to rebel (.–). They vainly attack Roman foragers and their camp, and the Romans report another victory (.–) before returning to Gaul (.–). This episode exemplifies many narratological characteristics typical of the BG. The most noticeable is perhaps the so-called third person narrative. By book we are so used to reading about Caesar in the third person that we may not pause and realize that this choice is novel and, as such, meaningful: most likely, Romans approaching the Commentarii did not expect a third person narrative, and we can imagine their surprise at reading “after that had been announced to Caesar,” rather than “to me.” This surprise does not occur until chapter seven of book and after nostra has scored three occurrences (.., .. and ..). This striking delay, which conflicts with the pervasive presence of “Caesar” thereafter throughout the BG, implies that the third person is introduced only after the first six chapters have displayed a broadly informed, assertive and precise narrator and especially after his point of view has been established as “ours.” A similar opposition between nostri and barbari fills the episode of the landing in Britain (e.g. .–): barbari paints the enemy as “other” and inferior, and the first-person nostri invites the audience to feel part of the bond joining Caesar and his soldiers. By using “us” and “our” for the Romans but “he” for Caesar, the narrator locates himself within his audience, conveying a sense that he is “one of us” reporting someone else’s deeds. If we accept Peter Wiseman’s suggestion that while Caesar was campaigning in Gaul, his Commentarii were dispatched to Rome and read out loud to the people, we can suppose that some people almost forgot that the words they heard about Caesar from someone else had actually been written by Caesar himself. Those who did not remember were not reminded, those who never knew
Marincola (, , ). In books –, the only stretch of six or more chapters without “Caesar” is at the end of book (.–). Cf. Johnston in this volume –. Wiseman (, –). See Krebs in this volume – for discussion.
Literary Approaches to Caesar
were not told, and those who simply did not worry about authorship simply kept on not worrying. Indeed Caesar does not attribute his works to someone else (as does Xenophon in the Anabasis), and after the title, which probably included Caesaris, the issue of authorship is omitted altogether. Tellingly, some authoritative manuscripts, taken in by this omission and by the third person narrative, attribute both the BG and the BC to other writers, like Suetonius or Iulius Celsus Constantinus. Appreciating the nuances of Caesar’s third person narrative, as some recent scholars invite us to do, should not blind us to the sort of disjuncture that this choice produces: it creates an artificial separation between the writer and the character Caesar. The episode of the landing in Britain exemplifies how this sort of disjuncture benefits both the narrator and the character Caesar. For one thing, it increases the narrator’s credibility, by creating a sense of “objectivity,” as if he were neutrally reporting someone else’s deeds rather than writing about himself; but it also augments his freedom to glide from assessments about Caesar’s to other characters’ motivations. For instance, in this episode the point of view switches from the leading Britains, who underestimate the Roman forces and plot against them (.), to Caesar, who rightly suspects what is happening (.), and then to some Romans, who instead are caught unprepared and killed (..). At Caesar at the beginning of . introduces a narrative turn, whereby the narrator, taking Caesar’s point of view, demonstrates that he is not tricked by the Britons’ plot. His foreknowledge and superior judgment is a pervasive theme throughout this episode and the Commentarii: Caesar guesses right even before knowing his enemy’s plans (etsi nondum eorum consilia cognoverat, ..; cf. ..), which allows him to take proper action (Caesar id, quod erat, suspicatus, . . . ..), and his quick assessment of the situation twice saves the day (.. and ..). Thus the use of a third person narrative enhances the authority of the narrator while upholding Caesar’s
On this difference, see Pelling (). Cf. Fornara (, –). For instance, the narrator can switch to the first person, as he does in this episode (quem supra demonstraveram .., cf. .., with Kraner and Dittenberger ad .. and Kraus (, –)), but he never completely blurs the line between himself and the character Caesar. Cf. Riggsby (, –), Pelling (, –) and Batstone in this volume –. On the relation between Caesar-the-narrator and Caesar-the-character, cf. Grillo () and Pelling, who talks about “transfusion of authority from one to the other” (, ). Cf. Marincola (, ) and Batstone and Damon (, –), who rightly stress that this seeming objectivity is a rhetorical construct. Cf. Grillo (, – on narrative turns, and on Caesar’s foresight).
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deeds, tempering the audience’s sense that he is blowing his own trumpet, as Chris Pelling nicely has it (, ). The narrator, being omniscient, enjoys full understanding of places, people, and situations, and from his omniscience he dispenses varying levels of knowledge on the characters and on the audience. As the “barbarians” realize that the Romans plan to land, they try to repel them (..); the enemy, being local, know the territory, but the Romans, being new, do not (e.g. notissimis locis versus ignotis locis and nostri . . . imperiti .). Caesar, however, quickly understands the problem (ubi Caesar animadvertit .., cum animadvertisset Caesar ..), and his understanding twice tips the balance: first he surprises the “expert” enemy by showing them the Roman ships (.); and then he supports the Romans, who go from being badly confused to counter-attacking (.). Thus the distinction between Caesar-the-narrator and Caesar-the-character allows the former to display the latter’s skill in responding to challenges. In narratological terms this is one effect of a “zero-focalization,” when an omniscient narrator says more than the characters know. Later in the same episode the same zerofocalization again advertises Caesar’s generalship: we, the readers, are first informed of the enemy’s rebellion (.) and then we are told that Caesar, before knowing about it, (rightly) suspicabatur and acted accordingly (.). This is the most common type of focalization in the Commentarii but there are others. In the episode of Cotta and Sabinus the narrator does not fully reveal that Ambiorix is setting an ambush until the Romans have made their decision (..); as readers follow the debate between the lieutenants, we mostly rely on the same clues they had, observing the unfolding of the story, first focusing on Ambiorix (.) and then on the Romans (.–). We know less than Ambiorix, whose secret plans are concealed until later, and as much as Cotta and Sabinus, who have to rely on clues alone. External focalization (when the readers know less than one character) through Ambiorix produces suspense, and internal focalization (when the readers know as much as one character) through Roman eyes produces curiosity and then surprise.
On the Romans’ sheepish feelings about self-praise, see Fam. ., where Cicero, realizing that writing about himself needs restraint and decreases credibility, famously asks Lucceius to sing his praises (cf. Grillo ); see also Fam. .., where Caecina mentions a similar problem (impeditum se ipsum laudare, ne vitium adrogantiae subsequatur, “it is difficult to praise oneself, lest the blemish of pride ensues,” Cic. Fam. ..). For these terms see Genette (); for an overview on focalization and classical works, see now De Jong (, –).
Literary Approaches to Caesar
In conclusion, paying attention to Caesar’s choices and their effects enriches our appreciation of the text: narratology is a useful approach to reading the BG; it provides terms and tools to analyze Caesar’s choices and understand how he creates suspense, curiosity, or disappointment; how he magnifies details or minimizes episodes; and how he achieves multiple effects by managing the relation between the narrator, various characters (including himself), and the audience. Similarly, stylistic analysis elucidates how Caesar’s vocabulary and repetitions characterize the enemy, blaming them for the whole war and thus justifying himself, while intratextual repetitions of motifs and expressions establish connections within the BG and challenge the readers to reconstruct its plausible meanings. Stylistic analysis also demonstrates Caesar’s achievement in creating Latin literary prose, blended from short sentences, typical of previous historical writings, and complex periods, which would become typical of Latin prose after Cicero and Caesar. Intertexuality equally documents Caesar’s claim to leave an imprint on Latin literature: by modeling the worst defeat in the Gallic war after Polybius’ account of the second Punic war, Caesar engages the Greco-Roman literary tradition and positions himself within it, advertising his achievements as general and as writer at once. A great admirer of the Commentarii, Napoleon bears witness to his success in both: reading the campaigns of Caesar (among a few others) “over and over again” – he said – is “the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.” F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H In Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell edited a pioneering volume, Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter, which remains fundamental for looking at various literary aspects of the BG. More recently, Riggsby () and Kraus (a, , and ) have made important contributions. The monographs by Batstone and Damon () and Grillo () focus on the BC, but their approach to Caesar’s narrative strategies is relevant to the BG as well. Both for the BG and the BC we especially need updated commentaries with a sensitive literary treatment of Caesar as a writer. Equally desirable are monographs both on narratology and intertextuality in the Commentarii and on their relation to Greek and Latin literature, especially historiography.
Napoleon (, maxim ).
Fragmentary Works
Caesar the Linguist: The Debate about the Latin Language Giuseppe Pezzini
The Evidence Recall to your mind and ponder the fact that C. Caesar, while engaged in a most formidable war in Gaul, wrote . . . two books of the most meticulous character On Analogy, discussing amid flying darts the declension of nouns, and the aspiration of words and their classification mid the blare of bugles and trumpets (Fro. Parth. transl. Haines).
In a letter to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, the grammarian and rhetorician Fronto refers to Caesar to encourage his former pupil to dedicate some of his time to intellectual activities. Fronto’s passage is one of the few testimonies to Caesar’s linguistic interests, which culminated in the writing of a treatise in two books, De Analogia. Suetonius (Iul. ) reports the episode in less romanticized terms, confirming the title and the number of books of the work, and also adding detail about its composition, namely that it was written “while crossing the Alps and returning from Cisalpine Gaul, where he had held the assizes.” Caesar’s treatise is also mentioned by Quintilian (..) and Gellius, who also transmits two important quotations. The first (..) is a fortunate aphorism: [fr. ] Avoid, as you would a rock (scopulum), every unheard and unusual word (inauditum atque insolens verbum).
The second piece, quoted by Gellius, is found in an anecdotic passage (..–), in which the same Fronto, engaged in a grammatical discussion, invites his audience to read an excerpt of De Analogia. The passage
I am grateful to Jim Adams, Alessandro Garcea, Barney Taylor, Wolfgang de Melo and Anna Roland for comments, criticisms, and suggestions. Quotations and translations of fragments of De Analogia, unless specified, are from Garcea’s recent edition (). Macrobius (Sat. ..) quotes the same line; but, interestingly, with infrequens instead of inauditum (cf. also Garcea (, –)).
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quoted is a rhetorical question, in which Caesar apparently opposes a naturalistic conception of language: [fr. B] Surely you do not think that it happens from the nature of these things that we say “one land” and “several lands” . . . and that we cannot convert quadrigae into a singular nominal form or harena into a form of the plural, do you?
Another important testimony to De Analogia is found in Cicero. In his rhetorical work Brutus (), finished in , Cicero attests that in the midst of the most absorbing activities (in maxumis occupationibus) Caesar wrote with great care (accuratissume), and dedicated to Cicero himself a treatise on the method of “speaking correct Latin” (de ratione latine loquendi). Cicero also quotes two passages from the text. The first, short and paraphrased, is a summary of what seems to be Caesar’s theory of eloquence as presented in De Analogia (fr. A “[Caesar] affirmed that the choice of words is the source of eloquentia”), to which Cicero makes further allusion in a later passage (Brutus = fr. C). The second quotation, in Caesar’s own words (his verbis), is a convoluted and flattering (and probably ironic) extract from Caesar’s dedication to Cicero: [fr. B] And if, to the task of giving brilliant expression to their thought, some have devoted study and practice – and we must recognize that you [i.e. Cicero] have deserved well of the name and prestige of the Roman people as almost the pioneer and inventor of this resource – yet are we now to consider that the knowledge of this easy and everyday speech may be neglected (facilem et cotidianum novisse sermonem nunc pro relicto est habendum)?
The dedication to Cicero and the reference to rhetoric are important elements for the reconstruction of the work. They suggest that the treatise was somehow related to Cicero’s rhetorical discourse, and in particular, as will be discussed below, that in all likelihood De Analogia is a “response” to De Oratore (published in ). Combining these elements with the information on the assizes reported by Suetonius (which excludes and ), one can suggest the spring of as a probable date of composition. The final piece of evidence for De Analogia consists of a number of passages from grammatical works quoting Caesar’s linguistic views. This slight yet intriguing evidence raises some crucial questions. Why did Caesar dedicate some of his precious time, in such a momentous period, to write a grammatical treatise? What was the content of this work?
In the winter of Caesar did not leave Gaul, and in he had to rush back from Italy in order to face Vercingetorix’s rebellion (cf. Garcea (, –), Hendrickson (, –), Lomanto (–, )). For different views see Radin (, ), Butler and Cary (, –), van den Hout (, ).
Caesar and the Debate about the Latin Language
What was its background? What grammatical theory did he adhere to and why? Is there any relation between Caesar’s grammatical stance and his other cultural enterprises, such as his reform of the calendar or his supposed Epicureanism? Did De Analogia have a role in Caesar’s political agenda? In this chapter I will address these questions: first I will analyze the fragments of De Analogia and discuss the grammatical background in order to reconstruct the content and aims of the treatise. I will then explore the relation of these with Caesar’s other intellectual achievements and with the rhetorical, philosophical, and political discourse of the late Republic, focusing in particular on the position of De Analogia in the controversy with Cicero.
The Text of De Analogia Excluding the passages quoted by Cicero and Gellius, the extant text of De Analogia consists of about three dozen fragments, mostly transmitted by late-antique grammarians. Several fragments are problematic: many of them consist of brief paraphrases rather than actual citations, often without explicit reference to the work; in some cases the attribution to De Analogia is controversial, since the fragments refer to Caesar’s usage rather than to a grammatical precept. Moreover, fragments are often corrupt, and the text printed by editors is sometimes conjectural. In other cases the attribution of the fragment may be faulty. The fragments are
As far as content is concerned, the topics covered are: alphabet (fr. ); phonology (fr. I as semi consonant; fr. the sonus medius i/u; fr. continuants; fr. plosives); derivative adjectives (fr. ), morphological criteria (fr. ), gender and number (fr. crinis masculine, fr. cinis feminine; fr. harena only singular, quadrigae only plural); morphological standardization (fr. lacer not lacerus; fr. – ablative in -i for neuter nouns in -l, -e, and -ar and feminine in -is; fr. Samnis not Samnitis (nom. sing.); fr. pubis not puber/pubes (nom. sing.); fr. pollen not pollis; fr. turbonem not turbinem; fr. panium not panum; fr. partum not partium; fr. genitive in -us and dative in -u for nouns of the fourth declension; fr. accusative plural fagos not fagus; fr. genitive singular die and specie; fr. latinization of Greek nouns; fr. nominative singular isdem not idem; fr. perfect memordi, pepugi, and spepondi; fr. mortus not mortuus); syntax (fr. sese as subjective of a reflexive infinitive); remarks on other forms (fr. participle ens; fr. sirempse; fr. luta). Cf. fr. “in his books on analogy, Caesar recommends the genitive plural partum.” Cf. fr. “this form was approved by Caesar,” and fr. , , . Cf. fr. “Caesar was accustomed to pronounce and to write words like these . . .,” and fr. , . Cf. fr. laceris codd. nonn. edd.: lacer cett. edd.; singulariter idem pluraliter isdem codd.: singulariter isdem pluraliter idem nonn. edd. E.g. Priscian (fr. ) reports that Caesar approved the spelling Pompeiii; this bold and unattested form, usually regarded as excessive for Caesar and thus construed as a sort of reductio ad absurdum (cf. Garcea (, –)), is however found in a passage ascribable to Caesellius (at GL .) as one of his own proposals. On Caesellius see Vitale ().
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often obscure and ambiguous, and scholars sometimes provide interpretations very different from the literal sense.
Caesar and the Latin Grammatical Tradition With the caution required in dealing with a problematic corpus, one can make some observations on Caesar’s grammatical contribution as it emerges from the fragments of De Analogia. Apart from a few obscure pieces dealing with “theoretical” matters (cf. e.g. fr. , ) and syntax (fr. ), most of the fragments follow the standard pattern of the grammatical quaestio: for a single word, two or more forms are presented as possible, and the writer opts for one of the two, usually mentioning his criterion and comparing the choice of other grammarians, among them Caesar. The cause of a quaestio is the absence of a standardized language and the consequent proliferation of various forms: this situation is attested in Latin from the beginning of its literary history (third to second century ), a period characterized by phonological changes, regional variations, and foreign influence. For instance, in early Latin there are several attested forms for the genitive singular of dies: the older diēi, its reduced forms die˘ i and dięi and their evolutions die (perhaps regional at some stages) and dii, and finally a problematic dies, probably archaizing. The issue started to be treated at a theoretical level in the second half of the second century: in , the Greek grammarian Crates, head of the school of Pergamum, arrived at Rome, setting the foundations of Latin grammatical studies. Whatever his doctrine was, Crates brought with him an echo of the grammatical controversy between the promoters of analogia and of anomalia. Aristarchus, head librarian at
Cf. in particular fr. (see previous note) and also fr. , . Cf. Adams (, –). On the genitive forms of the fifth declension cf. Gellius . and see Neue and Wagener (–, I.–), Leumann (, –), Meiser (, ), Garcea (, –). See also Skutsch (, ) on Ennius Ann. dies. Grammatical precepts are found in Lucilius (cf. –, , –; see, briefly, Adams (, ), Chahoud in Pezzini and Taylor (fourthcoming)); also the poet Accius proposed grammatical reforms (cf. Dangel (, –)). For an overview of Republican grammarians see Suet. Gram. – and Rawson (, –, –). In Caesar’s era, Nigidius Figulus and Varro occupy a special place (cf. Rawson (, –)). Cf. Suet. Gram. . The traditional view of Crates as an anomalist (cf. e.g. Dahlmann (, –), (, –), Siebenborn (, –)), based on his description in Varro’s De Lingua Latina, has been recently challenged, amoung others, by Blank (, ) (followed by Willi (, )).
Caesar and the Debate about the Latin Language
Alexandria, was one of the exponents of the former group, which favored the regularization of linguistic forms on the basis of morphological symmetries (analogia). On the other side, the anomalists accepted “irregular” forms developed by usage, regardless of the impossibility to insert them into a uniform pattern (anomalia). Although the dichotomy between analogists and anomalists is probably artificial and reductive, these Hellenistic notions influenced the first Latin grammatici, the men in charge of the education of the elite, and their pupils with them. These theories are clearly in the background of De Analogia. Apart from its title, one of its interlocutors was Varro, as explicated in some fragments (e.g. fr. , ), who dedicated some books of his De Lingua Latina (, , ) to the analogia/anomalia debate and presumably dealt with it also in other lost works (such as De Similitudine Verborum or De Utilitate Sermonis). Moreover, one of Caesar’s teachers, Antonius Gnipho, was considered an analogist grammarian and, appropriately, was said to have been educated at Alexandria (cf. Suet. Gram. ).
Linguistic Standardization and its Criteria De Analogia is to be placed within the Latin grammatical tradition, whose aim, although often impracticable and confused, was linguistic standardization, that is the artificial selection of a form as standard in order to reduce optional variants: for instance, Caesar is said to have prescribed the form die (fr. ), thus eliminating the optionality of the other forms (see above). The nature of the variance may be morphological (about affixes, as in fr. panum vs. panium and memordi vs. momordi), morphosyntactic (as in crinis masculine or feminine), phonological and/or orthographical (cf. fr. maxumus vs. maximus). In some extreme cases, the grammarian could also introduce (or at least postulate) a new form in order to fill a supposed gap in the system. For instance, according to Priscian (fr. ), Caesar proposed (protulit) a participle ens on the model of the attested participle potens. The nature and terminology of
On analogia in the Greek grammatical tradition see e.g. Erbse (, –), Callanan (, –), Probert (). For an overview of the controversy between analogists and anomalists in the Latin grammatical tradition see e.g. Collart (), Siebenborn (, –). On the unreliability of late antique grammarians cf. e.g. Holford-Strevens (, –). On linguistic standardization see Georgakopoulou and Silk (), Milroy and Milroy (). For Latin see in particular Petersmann (), Adams (), (, –), Clackson and Horrocks (, –), Clackson (b). Cf. also Rosén ().
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the criteria used for the standardization are variable. By convention one can refer to the list of criteria given by Varro (at GL .): analogia, natura, auctoritas, consuetudo. The first notion, already introduced, is analogia (proportio, comparatio, also referred to by the concepts of ratio “proportion” or veritas “truth”). This is the principle of similarity in the inflexion of forms that share similar features (similium similis declinatio or conparatio similium). For instance in fr. the plural accusative form fagos “beeches” (inflected like an o-stem), is preferred over the form fagus (inflected like an u-stem) by analogy with forms such as populos, ulmos. This criterion, eponymous of Caesar’s treatise, is at the core of his grammatical doctrine and is traceable in most fragments. The analogical criterion is at the foundation of the system of declensions. This system is now taken for granted, but its features were far from obvious in the Roman Republic. The fragments of Analogia show that Caesar was much concerned with identifying morphological classes: in fr. he is said to have indicated a series of factors for evaluating the similitudo between nouns. Fragments also transmit some of his practical proposals: for instance, two accusatives of turbo were attested, turbinem and turbonem. Caesar (fr. ) prescribes the form turbonem by analogy with Cato, Catonis. Among the morphological classes, Caesar appears to have been particularly interested in the systematization of the problematic stems in -i (e.g. panis) and consonant (e.g. pars): stems in -ni- should be masculine (fr. ), neuter nouns in -e and -ar should have the ablative in -i (fr. , , ), as well as feminine nouns in -i (fr. ). In some cases, Caesar’s intervention might betray a nationalistic trend: Greek names should take Latin endings, such as Calypsonem (fr. ). The second criterion is natura. Although often elusive, the term evokes the theory of a meaningful relation between natural referents and linguistic forms and/or structures (linguistic naturalism). Forms of linguistic naturalism are present in Pythagorean, Platonic, Stoic, and Epicurean
For an overview of the criteria of the Latin grammatical tradition see Siebenborn (, –). Cf. also Giannini (), Schironi (). On this fragment see Cavazza (, –), Lomanto (–, –), Garcea (, –). Gellius ., in the section entitled “quid Graeci analogian, quid contra anomalian vocent.” Pompeius at GL .. Cf. Garcea (, –). Cf. Garcea (, –). On Caesar’s avoidance of Greek words in the Commentarii see Eden (, –). On his interaction with Gaul native speakers and the learning of Latin in the Gaul elite see Adams (a, , ). On his knowledge and usage of Greek see Adams (a, –, –). On the Latinization of Greek names see Adams (a, –). Cf. Siebenborn (, –), Willi (, –).
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doctrines, and, through these, reached the linguistic debate at Rome. This is not the place to discuss this complex and fascinating notion; here one might simply note that, in a grammatical context, linguistic naturalism might imply the possibility of referring to an extra-linguistic criterion in order to regulate linguistic forms: for instance, according to Varro (Ling. .) words such as acetum or plumbum should always be in the singular given their non-countable status. Caesar appears to be distant from this naturalistic approach of language, as suggested by a passage (fr. , see above) that arguably reveals conventionalist views. The third Varronian criterion is auctoritas, the example of earlier, authoritative, writers. The attitude of Caesar towards auctoritas would seem ambiguous: in some cases the standardized form appears in contrast with the auctoritas of archaic writers. For instance, crinis, which according to Caesar should be masculine (fr. ), is used as feminine in Plautus (Mostell. ) and Atta (CRF p. ); similarly, as recognized by Fronto, the singular forms delicia and inimicitia, stigmatized by Caesar (fr. ), were used by Plautus (Poen. ) and Ennius (trag. fr. V.). However, in other cases the standardized form seems to derive from the usage of earlier writers: this is the case for the Latinized form Calypsonem (fr. G.), attested only in early Latin texts (Andr. Odys. fr. M.) as recognized by Quintilian, or the perfect forms memordi, pepugi, spepondi (fr. G.), well attested only in Ennius, Plautus, Atta, and Laberius. Consequently, Caesar did not ignore or oppose the authority of earlier writers: his concern was the simplification of optional variants, accumulated in the literary texts of the second century , and one would reckon that he opposed archaic forms insofar as they were redundant or ambiguous. Conversely, Caesar’s proposals of archaic forms seem to be significant and may be taken to imply an archaizing influence in his standardization. In this respect, the idea that the Scipionic era was a model of language and style is common in
On the influence of Platonic and Stoic linguistic theories in Rome see e.g. Rawson (, –), Atherton (, –). Another “naturalist” grammarian was the Pythagorean Nigidius Figulus (cf. Rawson (, ), Belardi and Cipriano () Garcea in Pezzini and Taylor (forthcoming)). On linguistic naturalism see Pezzini and Taylor (forthcoming). Cf. Willi (, –), Garcea and Lomanto (), Garcea (, –). Caesar’s conventionalism may be also indirectly confirmed by his defence of the plural form panium, a non-countable word which, according to the Varronian criteria, should not have the plural (cf. Garcea (, )). On Caesar’s conventionalism see also Morgan (). Cf. Garcea (, ). See also TPSulp , where the correct scribal form spopondi is corrected by Eunus into the old form spepodi (cf. Adams (, )). On the relation between linguistic standardization and archaizing writers cf. Adams ().
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the late Republic (cf. e.g. Cic. Brut. , ): Caesar’s peculiarity consisted in the method (ratio) he proposed to recover it. The last, complex, Varronian criterion is consuetudo, “usage,” a term which is explicitly related to Caesar by Cicero: (Brut. ) “Caesar by invoking rational theory strives to correct distorted and corrupt usage (consuetudinem vitiosam) with a pure and uncorrupt usage (pura et incorrupta consuetudine).” However, the interpretation of consuetudo in this context is not straightforward. Poccetti () and Willi () believe that by it Cicero means “current usage in speech,” a common sense of the word in Latin (and in Varro in particular), associated with the concept of anomalia (see above), and argue that Caesar’s proposals were always grounded in current speech. This interpretation seems to be corroborated by the scopulum maxim (fr. ), which opposes the use of “unheard and unusual” words. This issue is related to that of Caesar’s radical or moderate “analogism,” that is whether Caesar’s prescriptivism may conflict with current usage (cf. Varro Ling. . quoad patiatur consuetudo). This was the common criticism against analogists: for instance, Caesar’s teacher Gnipho suggested analogical forms such as marmura (instead of marmora) in order to regularize the paradigm of the neuters in -r, a proposal criticized by Quintilian as purely artificial (..). The evidence is, however, more problematic. First, the scopulum precept seems to refer to the lexical choice (verbum) rather than to the selection between morphological or phonological variants (see below); on the other hand, the scope of the analogical criterion is morphological and phonological rather than lexical. Second, as pointed out, some of the forms proposed by Caesar are likely to derive from earlier written sources rather than from current usage: this is the case of the already mentioned Calypsonem and memordi, pepugi, spepondi, but also of the nominative isdem (fr. ) and the genitive die (fr. ), both likely archaizing forms without
Cf. Garcea (, , –). Cf. also “It has created a situation which calls for a purge of language and the invoking of theory as an objective control or touchstone, not subject to change like the easily distorted rule of common usage” (quo magis expurgandus est sermo et adhibenda tamquam obrussa ratio, quae mutari non potest, nec utendum pravissima consuetudinis regula, Cic. Brut. , Loeb translation by Hendrickson). On the complexities of consuetudo see in particular Holford-Strevens (, –). Cf. also Ferri and Probert (, ), Quint. Inst. ..–. The emperor Augustus was another notorious opponent of the rules of grammarians (cf. Reinhardt, Lapidge, and Adams (, –), Adams (, )). On Gnipho see Suet. Gram. , Garcea (, –, –). Cf. also the case of Sisenna, an Asianic rhetorician who apparently favored the creation of analogical neologisms, for which he was heavily criticized (cf. Garcea (, with n. )).
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reflection in current speech. In this respect, the term consuetudo can also refer to the usage of the veteres: in particular, the analogous expression bona consuetudo had just been used by Cicero (Brut. ) to refer to the Latin of the Scipionic age, an aetas innocentiae. Consequently, the term consuetudo in Cicero’s context may also include the notion of “forms attested in (former) writing.” Third, the systematization of ambiguous forms advocated by Caesar was likely to cause a break with current usage. For instance (fr. ) Caesar used the forms maximus, optimus, mancipium, aucipium, standardizing the spelling and pronunciation -i- for the ambiguous sonus medius (-i-/-u-): however, at least in the case of aucupium/aucipium, the form recommended by Caesar with -i- probably did not reflect current usage, if the grammarian Velius Longus (second century ) could still point out that the form with -u- was closer to pronunciation (GL .). Moreover, there were texts which polemicized against Caesar’s treatise, objecting to the divergence from current speech, such as Pliny’s Dubius sermo. Cicero’s Orator may be another case in point: in its grammatical excursus Cicero favors many “pleasant” forms used in current speech over “truer forms” (verius), one of which () is the isdem apparently proposed by Caesar (fr. ). Although some of this criticism might be unjustified, it is unlikely that De Analogia gave no toehold for it. Finally, there is at least one case in which the form postulated is contrasted with current usage: at fr. the analogical form mortus (instead of mortuus) is introduced by the verb debuit, “it should have been,” which implies that the form should have (in theory) been mortus, but in reality was not.
Lexical Selection Beside morphological issues, there are some traces of Caesar’s concern for lexical selection. In fr. A Caesar states that the source of eloquence is the dilectus verborum and in fr. B and C he recommends avoiding unusual terms and neologisms, in favor of “simple and everyday” language. Moreover, lexical selection, consisting in the use of usitata verba ac propria, is a
On isdem as a non-current form see Charisius commenting on Caesar’s fragment (consuetudo hoc non servat), and Cic. Orat. . The text of this fragment is however controversial (see above n. and cf. Garcea (, –)). On the shift of the diphthong ei to i see Adams (, ). Perhaps also the genitive partum (fr. ), attested before Caesar only in Ennius, might be archaizing (against this Garcea (, )). Cf. Garcea (, ). The fact that this form is attested in a later inscription of Pompeii (CIL . ) is not significant (pace Willi (, )).
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precept of the rhetorical doctrine (cf. Rhet. Her. ., Cic. Part. ) that Caesar presumably aimed to defend in De Analogia (see below). Furthermore, in his discussion of derivatives, the grammarian Pompeius notes that in some cases two forms are attested, equivalent in meaning (Alba civitas: alii dicunt Albanus alii Albensis; cf. also the following polemic remark of Pliny: indifferenter haec inveniuntur). Pompeius then cites (fr. ) Caesar’s attempt to make a semantic distinction between the two forms (dicere discretionem), construing them as referring to two different peoples. This fragment may be related to the supposed coexistence in early Latin of different suffixal derivatives based on the same root: consequently Caesar’s remark might be considered a case of semantic reinterpretation of equivalent forms, thus suggesting that Caesar made an attempt to reduce synonymy in order to have “a single term for a single thing.” In this case, however, the evidence is hardly adequate. The issue at stake in Caesar’s fragment is presumably the search for a rule for the formation of derivatives rather than the reduction of variant lexical forms, as suggested by the fact that the same example is quoted by Varro (Ling. .) in an argument between anomalists and analogists on this topic. In conclusion, although no practical examples are clearly found in the fragments, Caesar’s statements in fr. seem to suggest that De Analogia also dealt with lexical selection, against the use by other writers of recherché terms and stylistic variance, a fact which might itself be considered as another facet of Caesar’s policy of simplification.
Theory and Practice Did Caesar respect the rules of his De Analogia in his literary works? The matter is problematic because the evidence of the fragments is scanty and there is not a clear term of comparison on the theoretical side.
Cf. also Isocrates Rhet. a –, Quint. ..–; cf. Krebs – in this volume. On this see Rosén (, . especially –). On the reinterpretation of equivalent forms cf. perhaps Quint. .. attesting that some people considered the perfect ending -ere as a dual. Cf. Quint. ... For Cicero’s admittance of recherché vocabulary see e.g. De Or. and the comments of Wisse, Winterbottom, and Fantham (, –). Cf. also Garbarino (, –), Papke (, ). See also Laurand (, especially I.), who points out, however, that also in Cicero’s rhetorical works there is evidence of lexical restrictions and use of a simple vocabulary. It might be relevant to mention Caesar’s praise of the playwright Terence as a puri sermonis amator in a famous epigram (Caes. carm. fr. K.; cf. Casali – in this volume). Terence’s vocabulary appears to be much more restricted than that of Plautus, marked with stylistic variation. On this see in particular Haffter (, –), Palmer (, –), Duckworth (, –), Barsby (, –). Cf. also Cic. Att. .. on Terence’s elegantia sermonis (on the notion of elegantia see below).
Caesar and the Debate about the Latin Language
On the practical side, Oldfather and Bloom () conducted a study on the manuscript tradition of the Commentarii and observed that, with few exceptions (e.g. acie), manuscripts transmit forms divergent from the principles of De Analogia. The manuscripts’ practice agrees with Caesar’s analogical rules only in the case of forms eventually recognized as standard in later Latin. Their conclusion is that Caesar did not use in his works the monstra proposed in his treatise, and rightly so. The problem with this analysis is that it mainly considers morphological lectiones difficiliores, for which the evidence of manuscripts is not trustworthy. Traces of simplification of non-standard endings are common in manuscripts, especially if written by medieval scribes, as in the case of all Caesar’s tradition: even the complete deletion of a morphological lectio difficilior in the medieval tradition is not unlikely, as can be verified in other cases. Conversely, the isolated transmission of a difficilior ending corresponding to Caesar’s precepts (e.g. acie) may be significant. Moreover, there are references in the fragments to the interaction between Caesar’s grammatical doctrine and his own practice in both speech and writing (cf. fr. “Caesar . . . says in his Speech against Cato . . . also in the First Action against Dolabella . . . also, in his books on analogy”). Finally, there is evidence that in the Commentarii Caesar avoided morphological variants and recherché vocabulary. For instance, Caesar tends to eschew the perfect ending -ere and the genitive deum, and, on the lexical side, the synonyms fluuius and amnis in favor of flumen, metuere in favor of timere, the forms quia, haud, donec in favor of quod, non and dum. Although they might merely be a feature of the genre, these restrictions could also be related with Caesar’s policy of simplification.
Caesar as an Intellectual Caesar’s linguistic interests are one facet of his rich intellectual activity. Although he allegedly described himself, presumably with self-irony, as a mere “military man” (Plut. Caes. .), there is evidence for his commitment
For other comparisons between Caesar’s theory and practice see Hauser () and Meusel (). For instance, in the Terence medieval manuscript O there are no traces of the original and difficilior “prodelided” spelling (e.g factumst), which is instead standard in the late-antique manuscript A (on this see Pezzini (, –)). Cf. Löfstedt (, –), Leumann (, –), Pascucci (, ). On terms for “river” see van der Heyde (). Cf. Ernout (, –). Cf. Eden (, –), Pascucci (, –), Hall (, ). On Caesar’s restricted vocabulary see further Richter (, –). On the simplicity of style of the Roman annalistic genre see e.g. Eden ().
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to many cultural fields and not only of the type normally expected from an active politician (i.e. rhetorical and legislative undertakings). Apart from his youthful compositions and a short poem on Terence (both probably school works) he found the time to write, in the midst of the civil war, a verse travelogue (Iter) and a polemical pamphlet (Anticato) in response to Cicero’s praise for Cato the Younger. Moreover, as already recognized by his contemporaries (cf. Cic. Brut. ), Caesar’s Commentarii are a clear specimen of his literary ambitions: they cannot be considered as merely propagandistic pamphlets, but reveal, beyond the outward humbleness of the genre, a pursuit of aesthetic excellence. Caesar’s scholarly interests are also confirmed in a letter of Cicero (Att. .), recalling a learned conversation with him during an uncomfortable visit. Literature was not Caesar’s only concern. Ethnographic interests are evident in the De Bello Gallico and are mirrored by his conversation with the Egyptian priests in Lucan’s poem (.–) about the origin of their people and the sources of the Nile. Moreover, Suetonius (Iul. ) records of Caesar’s plan to simplify and rationalize (ad certum modum redigere) Roman civil law and his project of a public library, with Varro as its cataloguer. Finally, late-antique geographical treatises report that Caesar commissioned from four Greek scholars an investigation of the oikoumene. His most important (and lasting) intellectual achievement is however his calendar: the aim of the project was to correct the inefficiency and arbitrariness of the old system with the help of an Alexandrian astronomer. The need for simplification and systematization ties in with the rationale behind his linguistic undertaking, and also his capacity of exploiting Greek expertise. Despite his intellectual bustle, Caesar was not primarily a scholar, but rather a pragmatic politician and general who understood the practical value of these studies. In order to understand another practical implication of Caesar’s grammatical pursuit (besides the rationalization of grammar), it is necessary to reconstruct the rhetorical debate in the background of De Analogia.
Cf. van der Blom – in this volume. On Caesar’s poetry cf. Casali – and on invective cf. Corbeill –, both in this volume. Cf. e.g. Kraus (), Grillo (), and Krebs – in this volume. On the ability to foster and exploit talents beyond political divisions see Canfora (, appendix ). Cf. Nicolet (, –), Wiseman (, –). Cf. Plin. NH .. On the reform of the calendar see Feeney (, especially ). Cf. also Vitr. De Arch. ..– on Caesar’s “botanic” interests, and Suet. Iul. on Caesar’s criticism of Sulla, as a man who “didn’t know the grammar” (on this see Morgan ()). On Caesar’s intellectual policies see further Yavetz (), Rawson (, –), Moatti (, –, –, ), Garcea (, –). Cf. Fantham (, ).
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Caesar and Cicero’s Rhetorical Controversy Caesar’s linguistic interests went further than just grammar. In the Roman Republic grammatical studies had a very practical value and were strongly intertwined with rhetoric. The teaching of Latin was propaedeutic for a forensic and political career and grammarians were also tutors of rhetoric. Caesar himself was a renowned orator, and was praised by Cicero in the Brutus. Even later writers who read Caesar’s speeches, such as Quintilian and Tacitus, speak of them in enthusiastic terms. Moreover, the dedicatee of De Analogia is Cicero, who in turn refers back to it in his rhetorical treatise Brutus and probably polemicizes against it in the grammatical excursus of the Orator. As argued by Hendrickson () and Garcea (), the trigger of this “rhetorical” controversy was presumably the doctrine exposed by Cicero in De Oratore, which prompted the writing of De Analogia. The antagonism between Caesar and Cicero is constant during their lives, and concerned both political and cultural matters. Caesar’s Anticato was prompted by Cicero’s Cato and his De Analogia probably had an analogous polemical purpose, that is, to react to Cicero’s De Oratore. The main point of contention seems to have been the role of language and grammar in the definition of the best rhetorical style. In a key passage of the work (De Or. .–) Crassus states that the four requisites of the good orator are the ability to speak correctly (Latine), lucidly (plane), ornately (ornate), and appropriately (apte congruenterque). However, the first two skills (Latinitas and lucidity) are requisites not specifically of the orator but of any human being (.). Moreover, Crassus undermines the importance of a techne in the process of learning these two skills: the rules of correct style are taught at school and can be improved by systematic study of grammar (ratio litterarum), but in general they are fostered by reading and daily familial conversation (., .). Similarly, Crassus refers to lucidity of speech, which, apart from being strictly related to the ability to “speak correct Latin,” consists in “employing words in customary use that convey literally the meaning” and “avoiding excessively long periodic structure.” However, the whole subject is eventually disregarded
Cf. Suet. Gram. . For a more “separatist” view of Republican grammarians and rhetoricians see Rawson (, –). The issue is also treated by Quintilian in book of his Institutio (see esp. . with Reinhardt and Winterbottom (, –)). Cf. Quint. Inst. .., Tac. Dial. ., Garcea (, – with n. ); cf. van der Blom – in this volume. For a different view see Cavarzere (, ). On this passage see Leeman, Pinkster, and Wisse (, ad loc).
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as an “easy thing” (. tam facilis tota est res): correctness and lucidity are easy to learn (cf. ., .) to such an extent that the clients themselves make good use of them when they present their case to the advocate (.) and therefore expect a different expertise. Consequently, Crassus leaves the description of Latine and plane aside (cf. ., .), and starts focusing on the other two skills (ornate and apte), which are at the core of Cicero’s rhetorical doctrine and style. The very fact that Caesar wrote a work concerned with grammatical matters may be taken to imply that he wrote it as a counter-attack against Cicero’s depreciation of “basic” linguistic skills and the relevant techne (i.e. ars grammatica). Some of the fragments seem to confirm this relation. In the “Ciceronian” dedication of the work (fr. B, see above), Caesar’s praise of Cicero as inventor of a new rhetorical style founded on “brilliant expression” is probably an allusion to the doctrine of ornatus. Moreover, Caesar reprimands the neglect (pro relicto) of the “easy (facilis) and everyday speech,” a neglect which is implied in Crassus’ arguments. Furthermore, Caesar’s statement that the verborum dilectus is the source of eloquence (fr. A) appears as another polemic against the undervaluation of grammatical correctness and lucidity of language. Finally, in a further allusion to Caesar in the later Brutus (), Atticus seems to echo the same concept: the ground and the foundation of the orator is “a faultless and pure Latin diction.” Why, however, did Caesar feel the need to respond to Cicero’s arguments? The answer probably lies in the association of Caesar with the rhetorical doctrine of elegantia. As attested by the Rhetorica ad Herennium, the two qualities undervalued by Crassus, speaking correctly and lucidly (. pure et aperte), were the two key features of elegantia, which could be improved by the study of grammar (ars grammatica) and the use of “current and proper terms” (usitatis verbis et propriis). By considering them external to the main concerns of rhetoric Cicero is therefore implying that the quality of elegantia is peripheral to oratorical excellence. As a consequence, orators who referred to elegantia and its attributes (correctness and lucidity) as the guidelines of their oratorical style are implicitly reprimanded. In the catalogue of orators given in the Brutus, there are many oratores whose Latinitas, puritas, or elegantia Cicero recognizes, but whom he eventually disparages; conversely, there are orators lacking elegantia who receive a positive evaluation. The most renowned of elegantes oratores
Cf. Garcea (, –).
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appears to have been Caesar. The connection between elegantia and Caesar is constant in the sources. Moreover, in the passage of the Brutus () introducing De Analogia, Caesar is praised as “the purest (elegantissime) user of the Latin tongue.” In conclusion, Caesar’s association with the doctrine of elegantia was probably the reason why he decided to respond to Cicero’s disparagement of it with a treatise reasserting the importance of knowing how to speak and write good Latin, thereby making rhetorical and literal propaganda for himself and his (forthcoming) works.
Caesar’s Atticism? Another question concerns the relation between Caesar’s rhetorical stance in De Analogia and the Roman controversy between Asianists and Atticists. According to classical Roman narratives, in Hellenic times a rhetorical movement arose in Asia Minor as a reaction to the alleged poverty of contemporary Greek speech. These “Asianic” rhetors, as named by Latin writers, apparently favored an elaborated style and a language detached from natural speech, open to the use of poeticisms, neologisms, or colorful words. As a counter-reaction, at the end of the second century , some rhetoricians based in Alexandria advocated a return to the simplicity and purity of the first Attic writers. These Greek rhetorical controversies (whether real or not) reached Rome, perhaps through the influence of the Rhodian school of rhetoric frequented by both Caesar and Cicero. Calvus, an orator renowned for his elegance, was probably the first to think himself as an Atticus.
Cf. e.g. Quint. Inst. .. “an extraordinary elegantia of diction, to which he was particulalry devoted, adorns all of this,” exornat tamen haec omnia mira sermonis, cuius proprie studiosus fuit, elegantia. On Caesar’s elegantia see also Dernoscheck (), Deichgräber (), Leeman (, –), (, ), Kraus (a), Garcea (, –) and Krebs – in this volume. On the relation between elegantia (as derived from e-lego “choose out from”) and Caesar’s policy of linguistic standardization and lexical selection in the De Analogia see Hendrickson (, ), Eden (, ), Krostenko (, –, –), Kraus (a, ). On the link between Caesar’s commentarii and elegantia cf. Aulus Hirtius’ preface (–) ad BG : non horum elegantia commentariorum superetur (with Kraus (a, )). Cf. e.g. Cic. Brut. , Sen. Con. ex. .., Quint. ..–. Cf. Cic. Brut. . On the controversy between the tendencies of Atticism and Asianism in Roman rhetoric see Norden () and Wilamowitz-Möllendorff (). For more recent and less dogmatic accounts, see e.g. Leeman (), Fairweather (, –), Wisse (), Keith (), de Jonge () (on Dionysius of Halicarnassus), Horrocks (, –, –). On linguistic Atticism (whose connections with rhetorical Atticism are debated) see also Probert (). Cf. Rossetti and Liviabella Furiani (, –). Cic. Brut. .
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On the other side, Hortensius, a rival and friend of Cicero, was associated with the Asiatic style. The dispute between Atticists and Asianists, although largely an artificial dichotomy, is in the background of Cicero’s rhetorical works, who, however, opposes generic classifications and added to it some typically Latin connotations. Without entering into the details of the vexata quaestio of Caesar’s Atticism, one can only point out that some of the doctrines probably promoted by Caesar in or through De Analogia are also referred to by authors of the Atticist movement. For instance, Calvus (see above) is considered by Cicero an orator of thorough theoretical training (Brut. ), with an accurate style of speaking, which he handled “with a scholar’s knowledge and elegancy” (scienter eleganterque). Similarly, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who wrote in a “smooth Xenophontean style” (Brut. ) is emphasized as an orator of “an untainted purity of Latin diction” and “a refined and cultivated manner of speech.” Finally, Quintilian (..) describes a class of writers who advocate a form of eloquence analogous to that promoted by Caesar (cf. fr. C), that is “purely natural and closely resembles the ordinary speech of everyday life (cotidiano sermoni).” Moreover, these writers urged the emulation of the earliest orators, who “spoke according to the dictates of nature”: as observed, there is some evidence in the fragments of De Analogia of an “archaizing trend” in Caesar’s analogical reforms. On the other hand, although the description of these writers is nested in a general treatment of the Atticists, their exact identity is uncertain: in general it is probably more correct to talk of tendencies which might be associated with the Atticist movement and vice versa, appropriately or not.
Cic. Brut. –. The term Asiatici, in particular, seems to be a derogatory label used by the Roman Attici rather than to identify a real group of individuals. The fact that Cicero employs it to refer to Hortensius (Brut. ) may be taken to imply his effort to distinguish himself from the Asiatic style, in riposte to the allegations of the Attici who accused him of being an Asianus (cf. Quint. ..). Cf. in particular Brut. , –, –. On Cicero’s oratorical doctrine and its relation with the Atticist–Asianist debate see Dugan (, especially chapter ). See Garcea (, –, with the literature quoted at n. ). Cf. also Douglas (), Wisse (), Krostenko (, –). Some scholars have argued that Quintilian is referring to the Epicureans (cf. Milanese (, –), Garcea (, –)), emphasizing the gap implied by the pronoun quidam at ..; other scholars (cf. Blank (, )) instead believe that he is still alluding to the Atticists. Cf. also Atherton (, n. ) who states that the position criticized by Quintilian in that passage “could well form part of a (Stoic-influenced) Atticizing diatribe, rather than being authentically Stoic (or Epicurean).”
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Caesar and Epicurus on Language There is another tessera in the background of De Analogia, although its contours are more blurred, which is the possible influence of Epicurean doctrine through the mediation of the philosopher Philodemus, as recently discussed by Garcea (, –). Philodemus wrote a treatise On Rhetoric, in which he seems to have held the view that the only concern of rhetorical style must be lucidity (σαφήνεια). That this was an original Epicurean belief is confirmed by a brief remark of Diogenes Laertius (.), which states that Epicurus “was so lucid a writer that in the work On Rhetoric he makes clearness the sole requisite.” Epicurus’ emphasis on lucidity is related to his utilitarian conception of a language, considered a mere pragmatic tool for the communication of philosophical truths, an idea echoed in Philodemus. Moreover, in book of his treatise Philodemus states that lucidity of speech is linked with grammatical correctness, which consists in avoiding solecisms and barbarisms (P. Herc. col. xi): conversely, obscurity of speech (ἀσάφεια) comes about “from not knowing how to speak good Greek” (P. Herc. cols. xiii–xiv). Finally, Philodemus recommends to use “current expressions appropriately” and to “utter words in common use” (P. Herc. col. xix), taking the view that “good is the expression that models itself on the one that manifests the most accurate meaning” (P. Herc. col. iv). As observed, the centrality of lucidity and simplicity and their correlation with grammatical correctness seem to be key features also in Caesar’s rhetorical doctrine. There may also be some personal connections between Caesar and Philodemus: Caesar’s third wife Calpurnia was the daughter of Piso Caesoninus, patron of Philodemus, and one of Caesar’s generals during the Gallic war, Pansa Caetronianus, was the dedicatee of the fourth book of Philodemus’ On Rhetoric. Other elements of Epicurean doctrines have been related to Caesar’s linguistic theory. The belief in correspondences between natural phenomena to be investigated with the analogical method was an element of Epicurus’ thought and is present in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. On the linguistic side, the notion of a rational arrangement of words is found in Epicurus’ Epistula ad Herodotum () and seems to be echoed in Lucretius
Cf. Garcea (, ). Cf. Schiesaro (, –). This belief may be also reflected, on the formal level, by the use of complex, “multiple correspondence” similes (on these see West (), Reinhardt (, –)). On Caesar and Lucretius cf. also Krebs (a).
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(. “need (utilitas) forged the name of things”). Moreover, the Lucretian mention of utilitas in an account on the origin of language has been related to Caesar’s anti-naturalistic remark (fr. ). Finally, scholars have more generally associated Caesar and Epicurus/Lucretius, talking of a common search for general laws regulating phenomena (Schiesaro (, )) or of a “parallel microcosmos,” in which the interaction between free will and natural laws in Epicurus would be analogous to that between ratio and consuetudo in Caesar (Willi (, )). These Epicurean interpretations of Caesar’s linguistic theory are not unproblematic. First, very few of these elements are so specifically Epicurean that they could not be associated with other traditions, grammatical, rhetorical, or philosophical. For instance, the idea that σαφήνεια is a central quality of good style dates back at least to Aristotle and is also found in the Stoic doctrine. Second, Caesar’s Epicureanism has not yet been definitely demonstrated. Lastly, the attributes of Epicurus’ linguistic theory are still debated: in particular, some scholars believe that Epicurus had in fact a naturalist concept of language, which would thus be in conflict with Caesar’s apparent conventionalist views. Similarly, it is possible that some of Varro’s anti-analogist, empiricist arguments in book of his De Lingua Latina derive from Epicurean sources; this would make the association between Caesar’s grammatical “science” and the (allegedly anti-technical) stance of the Epicureans quite problematic. In conclusion, rather than identifying Epicurean elements in Caesar’s linguistic theory, it is probably safer to talk of influences on its multiform cultural background.
On the role of need in the evolution of language according to Lucretius see Reinhardt (). Cf. Rh. b –, De Jonge (, and n. with literature). See also De Jonge (, –) on the centrality of clarity in the rhetorical teaching of the Atticist Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Cf. Diog. Laert. ., where, however, clarity is listed together with other four qualities (pure Greek, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction). On Caesar’s Epicureanism see in particular Castner (, –), Pizzani (), Benferhat (, –), Garcea (, , –). Cf. e.g. Verlinksy (). See also Reinhardt () who, however, rightly emphasizes the subtlety of Epicurus’ theory of language, involving an awareness “of the fact that names which arise naturally need to be controllable by speakers for linguistic communication to come into existence,” and that “the force nature exercises on humans . . . is contingent on other factors.” Cf. Blank (, especially –). Other scholars have tried to link, no more convincingly, Caesar’s rhetorical stance to Stoic doctrines (cf. e.g. Poccetti (, )), building on the alleged association of Stoicism and Neo-Atticism (cf. Hendrickson (, –)). On Stoic rhetoric and its supposed contribution to Roman Atticism see also Kennedy (, –, –), according to whom Atticism is an original Roman contribution without Greek precedents, and Atherton (, –).
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Political Readings of De Analogia A final issue is the relationship between Caesar’s writing of De Analogia and his political agenda. Apart from the analogies between linguistic standardization and some of his political and intellectual undertakings (especially the reform of the calendar, the idea to build a library, and the codification of the laws), scholars have tried to explain Caesar’s grammatical concerns as a response to the political implications of multilingualism (exacerbated after the conquest of Gaul) and social variations. Sinclair () and Dugan (, –) talk of a “democratic grammatical agenda” and of a “democratization of Latin,” by which Caesar, through linguistic standardization, reduced the linguistic freedom promoted by the Roman aristocracy (above all Cicero), which was elitist insofar as it was based on Roman consuetudo. Accordingly, Caesar gained the support of the provincial nobility, “by relieving their anxieties about “fitting in” on the level of language skills.” Similarly, Grillo (, –) refers to Caesar’s plan for recruiting lieutenants from a broader basis: many of these were not native Latin speakers, and by his analogist stance Caesar would have helped their process of assimilation. More generally, Riggsby (, –), echoed by Garcea (, ), suggests that Caesar aimed both at boosting the assimilation of Gauls and Romans and, within the Roman world, at the broadening of the basis of support through a form of “aristocratic inclusiveness.” On this latter line of interpretation, Eden () affirms that “the criterion of elimination was no doubt the very practical one of making himself intelligible to all sections of the populus Romanus by using the basic essentials of what was recognizably Latin.” In contrast to this “populist” interpretation, Hall () advances a nationalist reading of Caesar’s reform, against the “polluting” influence of foreign cultures: Caesar would have promoted a “Latin ring-fenced against contamination by obvious rhetorical baggage or alien artistic contamination.” Accordingly, “imposing political order against the intrusion of barbarisms and rebarbative tribesmen, are two sides of the same intellectual coin.” Similarly, Garcea (, ) concludes that Caesar demanded “total autonomy for the Latin language, imposing . . . its morphological system on the inflection of Hellenisms.”
Cf. Gruen (, ). On “Romanization” and Roman linguistic behavior towards foreign influences see Adams (b). Cf. also Flobert (), Chahoud (). See also Cicero’s remark at Brut. , quoted above at n. .
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The problem with these “political readings” is that there is no evidence that Caesar’s audience was other than the cultured Roman aristocracy itself: both the occasion and content of De Analogia were related to the grammatical and rhetorical debates of the Roman elite. The scope and pragmatics of Caesar’s linguistic politics seems to have been the intellectual controversy and the propaganda of his own work: the analogies with his other policies are the consequence of the same, rational and eclectic mind. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H The starting point of any study on Caesar’s De Analogia is Garcea’s recent edition and commentary (), its most updated and complete treatment. Rawson gives a brief but excellent overview of the De Analogia (–), and in general discusses the background of many of the topics discussed above (esp. chapter , , , and ). Hendrickson () is an important work as it laid the foundation for later studies. For an overview of the Latin grammatical tradition and the position of the De Analogia see especially Dahlmann () and Siebenborn (). On Caesar and Cicero’s rhetorical theories Lomanto () and Dugan (, ch. ) are important. Among other recent studies, see in particular Poccetti () (on grammar theory), Sinclair () (on linguistic politics), Willi () (on the Epicureanism of De Analogia). The scanty and fragmentary remains of De Analogia have recently been collected and commented on by Garcea, and research should now take advantage of this new edition in order to further investigate the theoretical framework of the work, as well as its background and reception. An area of particular interest is the relationship of De Analogia with other texts, at a both practical and theoretical level, especially as regards its impact on the standardization of Latin language and orthography. These include both Caesar’s own works, but above all other late Republican and early imperial texts, with which interesting points of contact can at times be identified and could be further explored. An example is the standardization of the spelling -i- in Augustus’ Monumentum Ancyranum (e.g. manibiae, proximae, maximus, amplissimus), which apparently adheres to the precept expounded by Caesar in fragment ; this may suggest that Caesar’s De Analogia had in fact an authoritative influence on later Latin writing, with possible political implications.
On the hypothesis that sections from the BG were read aloud to the Romans see Wiseman (, –) with Grillo – and Krebs – both in this volume. Cf. also Rüpke (). Cf. Grillo (, ).
Caesar’s Orations Henriette van der Blom
Caesar’s Orations Caesar was a brilliant orator according to contemporaries and later generations of writers. Quintilian, the first century rhetorician, even considered Caesar the only serious rival to Cicero’s famous oratorical brilliance, because of his force, acumen, vigor, and elegance, and the biographer Suetonius thought that Caesar equaled, if not surpassed, the greatest orators of all time. Cicero himself appreciatively singled out Caesar’s elegant style and skill in formulating catchy phrases. Why was Caesar’s oratory considered so brilliant and is that brilliance displayed in the surviving fragments of his speeches? What do we know of Caesar’s public speeches and their role in his political career? In this chapter I discuss Caesar’s education as the background to his oratorical performances, the most important of his known speeches in their political context, his oratorical delivery and style, and the effects his speeches had on his audience and on his political career. Although Caesar is one of the most famous Romans and has had an enormous impact on Roman history, limited information survives about his oratory – one of the main means of public communication in Rome. Apart from the short descriptions of Caesar’s style in the works of Cicero and some imperial authors, we possess remarks on specific occasions at which Caesar spoke, and a handful of fragments from speeches are extant. We know of eleven contiones (speeches addressed to the people), seven delivered as a magistrate and four as a private citizen, and a handful of court speeches. The datable court speeches belong to the beginning of
Quint. Inst. ..; Suet. Iul. .; cf. Tac. Ann. .. Letter to Cornelius Nepos quoted in Suet. Iul. .; Cic. Brut. –. For Caesar’s elegantia, see Deichgräber (), Pezzini – and Krebs – in this volume. Most fragments and testimonies are collected in Malcovati (, nr. ). See also van der Blom (, –, –).
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Caesar’s career and they are all prosecution speeches, clearly following a common tactic of making yourself known to the public as a young prosecutor before embarking on a political career. Another handful of speeches are known from appearances in the senate, and at least three of these were circulated after the event. Caesar’s two funeral speeches for his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia were famous in antiquity and beyond, and a largish fragment of the first speech survives. Finally, ancient historians record, paraphrase or invent a handful of speeches apparently addressed to Caesar’s soldiers during the Gallic and the civil war. Our sources often provide problematic or no information on the date, purpose and nature of Caesar’s orations. Although Cicero (– ) was a connoisseur of oratorical talent as well as Caesar’s fellow senator, his different political orientation on the one hand and his need to censor his judgment of Caesar’s qualities during his dictatorship (when Cicero wrote his substantial evaluation of Caesar’s oratory in the Brutus, ) on the other hand means that Cicero’s testimony cannot be taken at face value. The historian Sallust (- ) also experienced Caesar first hand and has sometimes been seen as a partisan of Caesar, although the evidence is flimsy. Sallust did benefit from Caesar’s dictatorship and wrote his historical works after his death in , but his “inclusion” of Caesar’s speech in the Catilinarian debate should be read as a product of Sallust rather than of Caesar. A host of imperial writers provide further information about Caesar’s speeches, especially Tacitus, Quintilian, Suetonius, Plutarch, and Gellius, but their different purposes in writing makes it difficult to compare their testimonies of Caesar’s public performances. Moreover, their reception of Caesar was colored by his unique position in Roman history as the murdered dictator and adoptive father of the first princeps, Augustus. The potentially negative element of tyranny was combined with Augustus’ masterly attempts at rewriting Caesar’s memory; Augustus took a keen interest in evaluating the authenticity of Caesar’s circulated speeches, and he may have influenced their reception. Nonetheless, the substantial number of fragments and, especially, testimonies to Caesar’s public speeches makes him one of the better-known orators from the Republican period and it is possible to form a reasonable impression of his oratory.
Griffin and Atkins (, n.); Powell and Paterson (, ). For the speeches in Caesar’s Commentarii, see the section ‘To know more’ below and Grillo – in this volume. Suet. Iul. on Augustus’ interest in Caesar’s speeches. See White () for Augustus’ use of Caesar’s memory.
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Education and Early Career Being a young man of the Roman upper class, Caesar enjoyed a traditional education which included studies in law, history, and rhetoric; there is no evidence that he engaged seriously with philosophy. He studied rhetoric with the freedman M. Antonius Gnipho, who excelled in both Greek and Roman rhetoric. Cicero tells us that Caesar studied rhetoric with diligence and enthusiasm. He was taught by the famous philosopher and rhetorician Molo of Rhodes (as was Cicero) when he went to Rhodes on his study tour in the Greek East in – , and perhaps also when Molo was in Rome as ambassador during the s . Caesar’s famous attention to correct language (latinitas), exemplified by his treaty on linguistic analogy, De Analogia, is said to have been influenced by his upbringing under his mother’s careful attention to language. Cicero mentions the domestic custom (domestica consuetudo) of speaking as origin of Caesar’s pure Latin, while Tacitus broadens out his mother Aurelia’s impact to direct the young Caesar to where his talents were the greatest: army, law, or eloquence. Caesar seems to have had a special gift for two of the three, military and oratory, possibly also for law. Caesar’s first known public speech is significant for his oratorical inspiration, for his political purpose of taking on the case, and, especially, for what he made of the occasion. His prosecution of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (cos. BC) in or early for proconsular mismanagement (de repetundis) was preceded by an oratorical contest for the right to prosecute, a divinatio. Caesar’s divinatio imitated the style – in places verbatim – of a speech by his relative Caesar Strabo, a famously witty orator. This divinatio is lost, but one extant fragment (Gell. NA ..) and one paraphrase (Val. Max. ..) of Caesar’s subsequent prosecution show his talent in thinking up arguments, expressing them with elegance, and playing the underdog. Caesar lost the trial, probably in the face of heavy bribery and behind-the-scenes negotiations in favor of the influential Dolabella, but he managed to turn the occasion into an advantage nevertheless. After the trial, he circulated his speech, possibly the divinatio too (Gellius mentions several volumes), and while Caesar’s performance itself made a splash, the circulation of his speech(es) reinforced the impression of
Suet. Gram. . Cic. Brut. . Suet. Iul. .; Plut. Caes. .. Cic. Brut. ; Tac. Dial. .–. Suet. Iul. .; Caesar Strabo’s wit: Cic. De Or. .–; Brut. . For Caesar’s wit see Corbeill – in this volume. On the political background to this base, see Gruen (, –).
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a young man arriving on the public scene. Caesar’s prosecution of Dolabella is one of his best–known speeches and it is mentioned by a string of imperial authors: Velleius Paterculus, Asconius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and Gellius. The circulation was a conscious attempt on Caesar’s part to enhance the impact of the delivered version and to promote himself. Plutarch remarks in connection with the Dolabella trial that Caesar had a special gift for making himself liked and being popular with the people, although his description may have been colored by Caesar’s later popularity and Augustus’ even later promotion of the positive aspects of his public image. Caesar left Rome for Greece and Rhodes with a reputation as a great orator. The later career and reception of Caesar may lead us to think that already at this stage it was universally clear that he was destined for greatness. However, as a member of a patrician but long undistinguished family, a successful career was not a given. His aunt’s marriage to the seven times consul Gaius Marius had offered important credentials and more recent public attention to the Julii. But as with his first speech against Dolabella, it was less the situation itself and more Caesar’s talent in exploiting such a situation which made the crucial difference. Caesar had already shown himself in opposition to Sulla and his supporters in his prosecution of Dolabella who owed his political position to Sulla, and he began to build up his public image in the late s as a supporter of the people against the domination of the Sullan regime and its beneficiaries – with the help of oratory. Caesar supported the efforts to restore the rights of the tribunes and delivered a speech in favor of the bill of the tribune Plautius to allow the return from exile and restoration of citizenship to the adherents of Marcus Lepidus, who had joined Rome’s enemy Sertorius after Lepidus’ death. In Suetonius’ description, Caesar’s support appears an act of familial duty because his brother-in-law, Lucius Cinna, was among the exiled. Caesar may have aimed to promote his pietas towards his kinsman, but his speech also signaled publicly his efforts on behalf of the people at large, as the senatorial clampdown on Lepidus’ rebellion was seen by some as elite suppression of the people and their political rights. This is Caesar’s first known contio and it is significant for its people-friendly stance. The bill was
Vell. Pat. ..; Asc. C; Tac. Dial. .; Suet. Iul. ., .; Val. Max. ..; Plut. Caes. ; Gell. NA ... Already Strasburger () protested against this notion. For the construction of the myth of Caesar, see Batstone – in this volume. Suet. Iul. ; fragment in Gell. NA ... Dating to : Gelzer (, ); Hinard (, –).
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passed and Caesar may subsequently have circulated a version of his speech, as the survival of the fragment in Gellius suggests, with the aim of promoting his stance and success further.
The People-friendly Politician With his first civic magistracy, the quaestorship of , Caesar’s political career had begun in earnest. This office did not normally offer occasions to address the public, as quaestors were usually sent out to serve under a commander or governor in the provinces. But the deaths of his aunt Julia (Marius’ widow) and then his wife Cornelia (who had borne him his only child Julia) he quickly turned into chances to speak in public. Suetonius (Iul. .) and Plutarch (Caes. ) describe the situation and Suetonius provides a striking fragment from his speech for Julia (cited below under delivery and style) in which Caesar argues that his aunt (and therefore also himself) descended from gods and kings. Suetonius’ inclusion of a fragment of this speech (there is no particular reason to question its authenticity) suggests that it was circulated, possibly by Caesar himself. Despite Suetonius’ remark that Caesar made the “customary funeral speeches from the rostra,” public funeral speeches in honor of elite women were not an ancient custom as were funeral speeches for elite men. The first known example was Q. Catulus’ (cos. ) speech for his mother Popillia and there can only have been few further such speeches until Caesar’s in . Popillia was an old woman at her death, as was Julia, not young as Cornelia. While also Plutarch misleads in saying that it was common practice to deliver funeral orations for older women, he does point out how unusual was Caesar’s speech for the young Cornelia, adding that it was the first of this kind. Although building on the existing tradition of funeral speeches for men, Caesar’s innovation may have gone further than simply introducing the speech for a young woman. Given the very recent history of such speeches for women, both his speeches and the accompanying processions with imagines of ancestors may have included original elements such as female virtues (e.g. chastity – pudicitia and domestic virtues) in place of male virtues (e.g. military bravery – virtus,
See also Krebs – in this volume. Catulus possibly delivered it as late as in the year of his consulship: Cic. De Or. .; RE Q. Lutatius Catulus, col. . Illustrated vividly in Polyb. .–, and some examples of speeches for Fabius Maximus Cunctator: Cic. Sen. , Plut. Fab. Max. .; M. Claudius Marcellus: Liv. ..; Q. Caecilius Metellus: Plin. NH ..
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oratorical talent, strength – fortitudo, honor – honos, wisdom – sapientia) and references to the birth and good upbringing of children as climax of their lives rather than political successes or military triumphs. That Caesar was making the most of the situation is clear, too, from the processional context at Julia’s funeral. Plutarch relates that Caesar had the imagines of Marius and his son paraded, the first time these had been seen since Sulla’s ban on this and other physical reminders of his enemy. Caesar skillfully exploited the political turn against Sulla’s regime and in favor of peoplefriendly initiatives, and the display of Marius’ imago was greeted with cheers from the crowds. Four years later, Caesar would further exploit this familial link in restoring Marius’ victory trophies from the wars against Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutones to the Capitol. At Julia’s funeral, Caesar was evidently trying to ensure maximum attention to his speech in order to strengthen his claim to ancestral and familial credentials and to his people-friendly stance. The combination of speech, visuals, and spectacle was a powerful cocktail with maximum impact in the public imagination. When in Rome – and Caesar was away for prolonged periods in the s , s and almost all of the s – he skillfully sought out and used oratorical occasions to promote himself to the public and his senatorial peers. He continued to nurture his people-friendly profile by speaking in favor of allocating the popular commander Pompey two major commands against pirates in the Mediterranean ( ) and against Rome’s arch-enemy Mithridates of Pontus (- ), by having three Sullan henchmen prosecuted, and by effecting the prosecution of C. Rabirius for the murder of the tribune Saturninus in . Caesar’s most famous speech was delivered in the debate on the fate of the Catilinarian conspirators on December . The senators debated whether the conspirators should be executed when Caesar brought forward an unusual counterproposal. Caesar’s speech, and that of Cato the Younger, was later immortalized by Sallust, but it is unclear how much of it is Sallust’s own invention. We know that all the speeches were noted down by clerks, but no fragment of Caesar’s speech exist. It is also
See Pelling (, –) on the context. Vell. Pat. ..; Suet. Iul. ; Plut. Caes. .–; cf. Flower (, ; –). Caesar’s speech(es) for Pompey’s commands: Plut. Pomp. .; Dio Cass. .. with Watkins (). Against Sullan henchmen: Cic. Att. ..; Sul. ; Pis. ; Asc. –C; Suet. Iul. ; App. B Civ. .; Dio Cass. ... Trial of Rabirius: Cic. Rab. perd.; Suet. Iul. ; Dio Cass. .–. Cic. Cat. ; Sall. Cat. –; Plut. Caes. .–; Dio Cass. ..; App. B Civ. ... Sall. Cat. . Clerks: Cic. Sull. –; Plut. Cat. Min. ..
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unclear whether Caesar himself circulated a version of his speech afterwards. Bits of its content, but not its style, can be gleaned from Cicero’s Fourth Catilinarian, which is a version of Cicero’s speech(es) in the same debate circulated some time after the meeting and therefore unlikely to seriously misrepresent Caesar’s main points. According to Cicero, Caesar argued that instead of execution, the five captured conspirators should be imprisoned in different Italian towns, that the towns should be penalized strongly if a prisoner escaped, and that the property of the conspirators should be confiscated. Long-term imprisonment was not commonly used in the Roman Republic for financial reasons; instead exile was the usual penalty for serious crime, especially for members of the equestrian and senatorial classes, because it deprived the exiled of citizen rights and, sometimes, their property. Caesar may have supported his proposal with humanitarian and philosophical reflections, but knowing his flair for making a splash, he may also have chosen a controversial, yet defendable, position to ensure maximum attention to his own person. Indeed, Cicero presents Caesar’s proposal as a people-friendly initiative (Caesar followed the via popularis) and this fits into Caesar’s self-presentation in the s . In light of the crucial question in the debate, whether to have the conspirators executed without trial against the Sempronian law but under the remit of the so-called senatusconsultum ultimum, Caesar’s imprisonment-proposal could be presented as favoring the rights of the people against senatorial domination. The fact that Caesar almost convinced the senators – Cato’s speech for execution ultimately carried the day – indicates his persuasive powers as an orator. Already a talented speaker in the courts and in the contio, this debut as tribune-elect showed that he also mastered senatorial oratory. The pattern of vigorous political activity and frequent public speeches when in Rome continued into Caesar’s praetorship in and, after his propraetorship in Spain (– ), during his consulship of . Testimonia, but no fragments, show how Caesar in carried on promoting himself against conservative senators such as Catulus and in
For the question of revision see Dyck (, –). For political reasons, Cicero might have circulated a first version of his speeches shortly after delivery, and certainly also a revised version in (Cic. Att. .., SB ); cf. Steel (, –) and van der Blom (, n.) for discussion and references to further scholarship. Cic. Cat. .– with Pelling (, –). Cic. Cat. .; .. Cf. Ramsey (). Sallust’s extended diptych of speeches encapsulates the mindsets of the opposing sides in the civil war to come, for him the “real” upshot of the suppression of Catiline.
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support of popular figures such as Pompey, presumably attempting to ingratiate himself with the people. The famous story that at the trial of Clodius for sacrilege at the Bona Dea rituals he explained his divorce stating that his wife should be above suspicion is doubtful in its entirety, but it is just possible that he uttered these words at some point before the trial; if so, it was the perfect sound bite for the historians to include in their narratives. The testimonies of his consular speeches relate to proposals of agrarian laws, and his use of the contio to promote his political aims. Caesar also tried to stir up the people against his consular colleague Bibulus, and used a contio to allow Vettius to address the people on the controversial issue of an alleged plot on Pompey’s life – as ever conscious of the possibilities the contio offered for testing and manipulating the temperature of public opinion. While we have abundant evidence about Caesar’s consulship in general, the evidence for his consular speeches is meager. Considering his circulation of earlier speeches, it is noteworthy that we have no trace of circulation for speeches from this eventful year. His speeches in the senate will have been recorded by clerks, following his own consular rule for publicizing senatorial proceedings. Caesar may have judged it superfluous to duplicate these no longer extant proceedings with his own circulation. However, the circulation of his three speeches against the praetors of , C. Memmius and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had raised questions in the senate about the legitimacy of Caesar’s consular legislation, suggests that Caesar thought the situation important enough to necessitate circulating his version in public. These are the last speeches we know Caesar held in Rome before his return from Gaul to the city in . We have little information about the speeches he delivered as dictator and consul during the s .
Against Catulus: Suet. Iul. ; Dio Cass. .. ; Cic. Att. .. (SB ). Support of Pompey: Plut. Cat. Min. –; Plut. Cic. .; Dio Cass. ..–; Cic. Sest. ; Schol. Bob. S; Suet. Iul. , .. Plut. Caes. .– with Pelling () ad loc.; Cic. .; Suet. Iul. .; Dio Cass. ... Agrarian laws: Plut. Cat. Min. ; Pomp. .; Dio Cass. .–; App. B Civ. .–; Cic. Att. .. (SB ). Against Bibulus: Cic. Att. .. (SB ). Vettius in the contio: Cic. Att. .. (SB ). Suet. Iul. .. Willems (, .); White (). Schol. Bob. in Cic. Sest. (Stangl , ); Schol. Bob. in Cic. Vat. (Stangl , ). Most importantly the ‘quirites’ speech: App. B Civ. .–; Dio Cass. .–; Suet. Iul. ; Tac. Ann. ..; Plut. Caes. . with Chrissanthos (, n. ); Jehne (, ); Pelling (, ); Hölkeskamp (, ). Victory speech: Plut. Caes. . with Pelling (, –). He will also have delivered speeches in the senate and to his soldiers, cf. Caes. BC ., ., .., .–, ., but some of these speeches may be literary inventions.
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Delivery and Style The few fragments and the testimonia to specific orations by Caesar allow us glimpses into his delivery and style. His elegant language is clear from his funeral speech in honor of Julia (Suet. Iul. .; in brackets are given the clausulae, the last rhythm heard at each pause): Amitae meae Iuliae (– ᴗ – – ᴗ – double cretic), maternum genus ab regibus ortum (– ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ heroic clausula), paternum cum diis immortalibus coniunctum est (– – – – double spondee). Nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii reges (– ᴗ – – – cretic and spondee), quo nomine fuit mater (ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – – ᴗ fourth paeon and trochee); a Venere Iulii (– ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – first paeon and cretic), cuius gentis familia est nostra (ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – – ᴗ fourth paeon and trochee). Est ergo in genere et sanctitas regum (– ᴗ – – ᴗ cretic and trochee), qui plurimum inter homines pollent (ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – – –fourth paeon and spondee), et caerimonia deorum (– ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ first paeon and trochee), quorum ipsi in potestate sunt reges (– ᴗ – – – cretic and spondee). My aunt Julia’s maternal family is descended from kings, her paternal family is related to immortal gods. For the Marcii Reges are descended from Ancus Marcius, and her mother was of that name. The Julii, to which our branch belongs, are descendants of Venus. Thus, our family can claim both the sanctity of kings, who are the most powerful among men, and the reverence due to gods, who have even kings in their power.
The fragment is in Caesar’s own voice, underlining his close relationship with Julia and thus his own kingly and godly descent. The style is straightforward and factual, yet solemn through its rhythm and vocabulary. The heroic clausula (ab regibus ortum) echoes the epic rhythm and underlines the regal lineage of Caesar, while the other clausulae are rhythms favored in oratory as pleasing to the ear. The vocabulary is carefully chosen; for example, sanctitas and caerimonia evoke the ceremonial and divine element. Here we see Caesar as the fully-fledged orator. The rhythm, tone, word order, and vocabulary are tailored to the genre and situation; the style is generally different from that of the speeches in his Commentarii. The fragment and the paraphrase from his prosecution of Dolabella suggest some skill in discovering arguments (inventio) and use of appeal to the good old days: “Gaius Caesar too, a great authority on the Latin language, says . . . in the First Action against Dolabella, Book I: ‘the men
Von Albrecht (, –) on the prose rhythm and differences from the Commentarii, although he acknowledges that the direct speeches at Caes. BG . (discussed by Grillo – in this volume) and Caes. BC . (cf. Grillo (, –)) also include clausulae.
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of old in whose temples and shrines works of art were a source of both honor and beauty’ (isti, quorum in aedibus fanisque posita et honori erant et ornatu). Also, in his books on analogy he decides that i should be omitted in all such forms” (Gell. NA ..). While Gellius focuses on word forms preferred by Caesar who was by then known as a great Latin linguist, note how Caesar refers to a custom of the past with the implied notion of the past being preferable to the present situation, presumably the one instigated by Dolabella’s behavior in his province. This was by no means an original type of argument, as Cato the Elder’s and Cicero’s speeches were full of reminiscences of the past, and indeed Caesar may also later have used such an argument in the Catilinarian debate, but it does give us an impression of the kinds of arguments Caesar used in his early orations. Valerius Maximus’ paraphrase of another bit of the same speech is telling as well: “The divine Julius too, the most perfect jewel of celestial divinity and of human talent, expressed the power of eloquence appropriately when he said in his speech against Cn. Dolabella, whom he prosecuted, that his best case was being twisted away from him by L. [Cn.] Cotta’s advocacy (extorqueri sibi causam optimam L. [Cn.] Cottae patrocinio). In this way the greatest eloquence regretted the power of eloquence.” Caesar tried to use his junior status as an advantage, suggesting that although he had the best case in objective terms, the opposing advocate, Cotta, tried to use his superior position and experienced eloquence to destroy it. By saying it outright, Caesar tried to bank on sympathy with the talented junior person against his senior. Valerius Maximus’ evaluation is colored by Caesar’s later reputation as a great orator, but not far off the mark in recognizing Caesar’s clever and wellformulated complaint as a rhetorical tactic. Another court speech by Caesar is known from two brief fragments, suggesting circulation at some point. Caesar’s speech in defense of the Bithynians was probably delivered in c. , when Caesar was military tribune, and therefore relatively early in his career. The longer fragment runs like this:
Cf. Deichgräber (, ). See above on the Catilinarian debate; only Sall. Cat. .– includes this argument; it may be Sallust’s invention. Val. Max. ... Klotz (, -); Gelzer (, ); Dahlmann (, –); Ward (); Fantham (, ); Pelling () says late /early . Gellius’ remark about Caesar as Pontifex Maximus has confused scholars as Caesar became Pontifex Maximus in (he was a regular pontifex
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Strong and clear testimony on this subject is provided by the authority of Gaius Caesar, the pontifex maximus; for in the speech which he delivered in defense of the Bithynians he began like this: “In consideration either of my guest-friendship with king Nicomedes or my relationship to those whose case is on trial, O Marcus Iuncus, I could not refuse this duty. For the memory of men ought not to be so eliminated by their death as not to be retained by those nearest to them, and we cannot without maximum disgrace forsake clients to whom we are obliged to help even against our own relatives.” Vel pro hospitio regis Nicomedis vel pro horum necessitate quorum res agitur, refugere hoc munus, M. Iunce, non potui. Nam neque hominum morte memoria deleri debet quin a proximis retineatur, neque clientes sine summa infamia deseri possunt, quibus etiam a propinquis nostris opem ferre instituimus.
Caesar uses emotional appeal to duty, justice, and respect to start off his speech. This was a common way to open a speech, and here it is effective in both setting a moral tone and explaining Caesar’s decision to defend the Bithynians from a moral obligation. His use of abstract concepts such as hospitium, necessitas, memoria, and infamia together with words of obligation (munus, non . . . potui, debet, neque . . . possunt, instituimus) helps to underscore the moral point and his rightful position in the question to be settled. The rhythmical endings and careful construction of parallel and antithetical parts indicate a high style which emphasizes the moral content. Gellius, who was very interested in the use of necessitas, preserves a fragment from another of Caesar’s orations. Here again, Caesar takes up the moral obligation to act: “However, in an oration of Gaius Caesar, in support of the Plautian law, I found necessitas used for necessitudo, that is, for the bond of kinship. These are his words: ‘Indeed, it seems to me that, as our kinship (necessitas) demanded, I have failed neither in labor, in pains, nor in industry’ (Equidem mihi videor pro nostra necessitate non labore, non opera, non industria defuisse (– ᴗ – – ᴗ – ᴗ cretic and double trochee)).” In this short passage, Caesar uses tricolon, anaphora, and auxesis as well as clausula to create a rhythmical and stylistically powerful foundation for his content. This belongs to the speech which Caesar delivered in support of the Plautian law to restore citizen rights to the surviving participants of Lepidus’ revolt. Caesar evidently reused a theme
since ; cf. Rüpke – in this volume). Dahlmann (, ) argues that the title is not meant to date the event but merely to support the claimed auctoritas of Caesar. Gell. NA ..; the other fragment is in Iul. Rufin. RhL p. , , and it is very brief. Deichgräber (, –). Gell. NA ..; cf. Deichgräber (, –).
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from his court speech for the Bithynians (if the dating is to be trusted) in this his first contio speech, where emotional appeal would be the strongest argument in favor of the bill. The overlap in language and moral tone (and possibly delivery too) from his forensic speech defending the Bithynians to his contional speech is striking and underlines the fact that although Caesar’s style could be plain and straightforward (as in his Commentarii) it could equally well be fuller and more expressive (as also in his funeral speech for Julia). The only negative review of Caesar’s oratory is Tacitus’ remark that his speech for Decius the Samnite was characterized by slowness (lentitudo) and lukewarm flatness (tepor). This goes against the other testimonia, indeed against Augustus’ remark that Caesar’s rapid delivery made it difficult for shorthand writers to note down his speech for Quintus Metellus. Caesar could evidently alter his style and delivery as he wished, and Tacitus also acknowledges that Caesar ranked among the best orators of his day. This is confirmed by Cicero’s eleven chapters on Caesar’s style in the Brutus. Cicero and his interlocutors focus on Caesar’s pure Latin vocabulary and style and discuss Caesar’s diligent study of the Latin language, his opinion that the foundation of oratory is a pure Latin diction, and his literary works, including the Commentarii. Caesar’s delivery is also praised, but by contrast to Cicero’s descriptions of other orators in the Brutus, nothing is said about Caesar’s choice of content or the effect of his oratory on his audience.
Concluding Remarks Caesar delivered orations in all the prime contexts of his time: court, senate, funeral, popular and military assemblies (the latter “reported” in his Commentarii and by later authors such as Dio, Appian, Lucan, Plutarch, and Tacitus). The sample is, however, too small to allow any conclusions about distinctions in style, content, delivery, and success between these occasions or the styles associated with them: forensic (court speech), deliberative (political speech), laudatory (epideictic), and invective. However, the survival itself of a significant number of fragments and, especially, testimonia about Caesar’s orations suggests both his own efforts to circulate some of his speeches and the more general interest in the speeches of a famous politician and adoptive father of the first princeps, reputed for his oratorical talents and skill. Not just Caesar himself, but others too – not least Augustus – had an interest in preserving an image of him as a great orator. Caesar’s orations are
Tac. Dial. ..
Suet. Iul. ..
Tac. Dial. ..
Cic. Brut. –.
Caesar’s Orations
striking for their moral content, careful style, and for what he made of them. Even when unpersuasive to his immediate audience, for example in his early unsuccessful prosecution speeches or his speech in the Catilinarian debate, he managed to accrue attention to himself as a brilliant orator and a politician working in the interest of the people. At all times, Caesar made the most of the oratorical occasions presented to him, as he did with political opportunities too, and used them to promote his public profile and thereby his political career. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H Most of the fragments and testimonies to Caesar’s orations are collected in Malcovati (). See also the list of Caesar’s public speeches in van der Blom (, –). General discussions of Caesar’s oratory, especially his style are found in Norden (, –); Klotz (, –); Deichgräber (); Eden (); Leeman (, –); Kennedy (, –); Leeman (); von Albrecht (, –); Fantham (, –) and van der Blom (, –). For Caesar’s vis, see also Kraus (a, ). For the relationship between Caesar’s orations and the “speeches” in his narrative works, see Eden (); Rasmussen (); Miller (, –); Hall (); Riggsby (, ); Grillo (). For Cicero’s evaluation of Caesar’s oratory: Leeman (, –); Leeman (); Gotoff (, xxvi–xxvii); Dugan (, –); Lowrie (, –). Speeches to his soldiers: van Stekelenburg (); Chrissanthos (). The fact that all genres of oratio are represented in the extant fragments and testimonia to Caesar’s speeches may betoken a collection of speeches, circulated by Caesar or another (Augustus?); this excellent suggestion of Tony Corbeill deserves more thought than space in this chapter allowed. I discuss Caesar’s speeches and their relation to his career in detail in van der Blom (, –).
For Caesar as a friend of the Roman people in his Commentarii, see Krebs – in this volume.
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context Sergio Casali
Caesar’s poetical oeuvre has been almost completely lost. We are left with a handful of fragments (seven lines in total) and scattered bits of information: in young age he composed a poem called Laudes Herculis and a tragedy Oedipus (Suet. Iul. .); in , during his voyage to Spain, he wrote another poem, entitled Iter (Iul. .); and he produced some versiculos parum severos (“verses far from serious,” Plin., Ep. ..). Of the seven lines that have been preserved, six form an epigram encapsulating Caesar’s judgment on Terence and one, whose very attribution to Caesar is debated, deals with an ointment (Isid. Etym. ..). Before analyzing these scanty remains we shall briefly consider Caesar’s relation to poetry. Caesar wrote verses with facility and composed poetry for recreation. Allegedly, in he wrote poems and recited them to the Cilician pirates who had kidnapped him: “he called barbarous and uncouth those who did not like his works, and often laughingly threatened to hang them” (Plut. Caes. .). They were not the last ones to dislike Caesar’s verses: Tacitus, with his usual sarcasm, remarked that Caesar’s literary fame benefitted from the scarce renown of his poetry (Tac. Dial. .); and Augustus forbade the publication of Caesar’s juvenile works, including the Laudes Herculis and the Oedipus (Suet. Iul. .). These works have been interpreted differently: Alfonsi () suggested that the Greek poet Sophocles was the model both for the Laudes Herculis, an encomiastic poem, and for the Oedipus and that both developed the same theme – a hero achieving immortality through suffering. Building on this idea and placing it in the political context, Zecchini () rejected the notion that Augustus damned those poems out of jealousy or in order to defend Caesar’s literary reputation. Rather, by the prohibition, which Zecchini I wish to thank Andrea Cucchiarelli, Joseph Farrell, Luigi Galasso and Fabio Stok, for having read and criticized earlier drafts of this chapter. Cf. e.g. Spaeth (, ).
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context
dates to – , Augustus attempted to prevent the Caesarian-Antonian opposition from reading those writings “prophetically”: Caesar heroized and worshipped like Hercules, and Caesar, father of two “sons,” Octavian and Antony, who sparked off a devastating civil war, like Oedipus. It is a suggestive hypothesis, even though, of course, highly speculative. Realizing that Caesar wrote verses might cause some surprise, but there is nothing strange about it. Already Q. Lutatius Catulus, a blue-blooded aristocrat and consul ( ), wrote lascivious poetry and founded the so-called pre-neoteric poetry. By Caesar’s time, writing poetry was amongst the leisure activities practiced by the elite, as exemplified by Cicero, the famous orator Hortensius, the great jurist Servius Sulpicius Rufus, and Gaius Memmius among others. Equally, various poetae novi were more or less intensively engaged in public and military activity: C. Helvius Cinna, Q. Cornificius, and Ticida actively supported the Caesarian party; Cornelius Gallus was a great poet and the first Prefect of Roman Egypt; and Augustus wrote a poem in hexameters called Sicilia and a book of Epigrams (one of which is, perhaps, preserved by Martial, .). Members of the elite composed tragedies as well. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, Caesar’s uncle, is an example; apparently Q. Cicero, the brother of Marcus, wrote four tragedies in sixteen days, while he was lieutenant of Caesar in Gaul in ; Vergil and Horace praise Asinius Pollio as tragediographer; and Augustus himself attempted to write a tragedy, Aiax (Suet. Aug. .). Caesar’s engagement with poetry, however, went beyond his composition of verses. He actively cultivated relationships with poets, taking pains to reconcile with C. Licinius Calvus (a poet and great orator) and Catullus after their ferocious attacks. Other poets instead praised him, even if he did not try to control their literary production (as Augustus and Maecenas will do): M. Furius Bibaculus composed an epic in at least eleven books praising Caesar’s Gallic war; and P. Terentius Varro Atacinus’ Bellum Sequanicum celebrated his campaign of against Ariovistus. Cicero himself composed a poem on Caesar’s British expedition. Perhaps
Tellingly, Pliny lists Catulus as the earliest aristocratic writer of amateur poetry (Ep. .., with Courtney , –); for a similar list, cf. Ovid, Tr. .–. On Q. Cicero, see Q. fr. .(–). with Courtney (, –) and Hollis (, –); on Pollio, see Verg. Ecl. ., cf. .–; Hor. Sat. ..–, Carm. ..–; cf. Plin. Ep. ..; Tac. Dial. ; and on Augustus, see Courtney (, –); Hollis (, –). Spaeth (); Suet. Iul. . On Calvus, see Courtney (, –); Hollis (, –). On Catullus’ relationship with Caesar, see Bellandi (). On Lucretian echoes in Caesar’s Gallic Wars, see Krebs (a, –). Courtney (, – and –); Hollis (, – and –).
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it was never published (Q. fr. .()., .., .().), but Cicero knew that Caesar had been informed about this, and thus felt impelled to resume the work after an interruption (Q. fr. .().). On another occasion, Cicero sent verses from his De Temporibus Suis to Caesar; but his mixed judgment led Cicero anxiously to inquire of Quintus whether it was subject or style that was not to Caesar’s liking (Q. fr. .().).
Caesar’s Poetry Isidore attributes a short iambic line on an ointment (telinum) to Caesar (Etym.. ..): corpusque suavi telino unguimus “and we anoint our body with pleasant telinum”.
Courtney suggests that this fragment might come from the Iter (perhaps because it may refer to an incident on the voyage), while the editors of the fragments of Roman tragedy attributed it to Caesar Strabo. But even if it did come from the Iter it would reveal little about it: what type of poem was it? Tone and style remain impossible to define, but it was probably embedded in the literary tradition of journey descriptions, which is documented before and after Caesar: Lucilius had described his voyage in Sicily (Book , – Marx), and after Caesar Horace narrated his journey to Brundisium (Sat. .), and C. Valgius Rufus (consul in ) his travel from the Adriatic up the Po. The only other fragment of Caesar’s poetry we have is a judgment on Terence’s poetry, which Suetonius preserved and attributed to Caesar: Cicero in Limone hactenus laudat: tu quoque qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti, conversum expressumque Latina voce Menandrum in medium nobis sedatis †vocibus† effers, quiddam come loquens atque omnia dulcia dicens. item C. Caesar: tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander, poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator. lenibus atque utinam scriptis adiuncta foret vis
Quintus Cicero too may have planned to write an epic on Caesar’s British expedition: see Marciniak (, –) with bibliography; cf. Q fr. .()., .., .(–).. Courtney (, ). Schauer fr. (, ) attributes it to Caesar Strabo but calls it incertum. Fr. – Courtney = – Hollis. Cf. also Cinna, Propemptikon Pollionis, fr. Courtney = Hollis. Cf. also Hollis (, ). Suetonius–Donatus, Vita Terenti ; text of Courtney (, ).
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context
comica, ut aequato virtus polleret honore cum Graecis neve hac despecte ex parte iaceres. unum hoc maceror ac doleo tibi desse, Terenti. Cicero in his Limon praises (Terence) up to this point: You too, who alone with select speech, Terence, bring Menander into the middle of us, translated and reproduced in Latin language with quiet utterances (?), speaking with something urbane and saying everything sweetly. And similarly C. Caesar: You too, you too are ranked with the highest, o half-sized Menander, and rightly so, you, lover of a pure style. If only comic force had joined to the elegance of your writings, so that your valor would equal the Greeks in honor, and you did not lie neglected, you despised in this regard! It worries and pains me that you lack this one quality, Terence.
As Suetonius suggests, Caesar’s hexameters must be read in connection with Cicero’s. Cicero praises Terence for having perfectly translated Menander with lectus sermo; and Caesar begins with tu quoque, thus citing Cicero’s opening. Moreover Caesar’s remark that Terence is rightly placed amongst the highest poets by virtue of being puri sermonis amator echoes Cicero’s verses. Caesar’s judgment, however, also coheres well with what we know of his stylistic preferences: his analogistic view of the eloquence was based on the “proper choice of words” (delectus verborum, Brut. = fr. Garcea); and a well-known fragment recommends avoiding any unfamiliar and unusual word (Gell. .. = fr. Garcea). Caesar, however, addresses Terence as a dimidiatus Menander, “half-sized Menander,” and this remark, at the end of the first line and between in summis and poneris, is surprising. The explanation of this “halving” is delayed until line , when we learn that Terence’s writings are indeed lenes, but are lacking in vis: evidently, according to Caesar, Menander had both qualities, lenitas and vis, but Terence only the former. Cicero, then, was wrong in presenting him as a kind of perfect Latin Menander.
Baehrens’s reconstruction (with despecte vocative) was approved by Leo (, n. ). Most editors read despectus (Calphurnius) instead of despecta ex. Cf. also Ter. Haut. in hac est pura oratio, even if pura oratio here means “dialogue pure, unspoiled by excessive activity” (Kidd , ); cf. Müller (, – and –) with TLL ...- and Müller (, –). For Cicero and Caesar on linguistic purity, see Garcea (), esp. –, –. A famous episode confirms Caesar’s interest in Menander: “let the die be cast” (Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος, Plut. Pomp. .), as Caesar allegedly exclaimed upon crossing the Rubicon (and officially starting the civil war in January ), is a quotation from a lost comedy of Menander; cf. Spaeth (, –).
S. CASALI
In other words, these fragments unveil a sort of minor controversy, which mirrors Cicero’s and Caesar’s different views on analogia and anomalia and/or on historiography. Inevitably, Caesar’s criticism calls to mind those that Terence received in his lifetime. In Phormio Terence himself writes: “and he (an old poet) blathers that the comedies composed by him [Terence] until now are feeble in their dialogues and fragile in their style” (qui ita dictitat (sc. vetus poeta), quas ante hic fecit fabulas | tenui esse oratione et scriptura levi, –). As Tatum notes, this “means that, even if this poem represents Caesar’s sincere judgment on Terentian comedy, it can hardly count as anything like an advance in Roman literary criticism. It is instead a witty expression of a conventional judgment” (, ). Unfortunately, our lack of information on Cicero’s Limon further complicates our understanding of its relationship to Caesar’s poem. Possibly, Cicero’s Limon was a catalogic poem of literary criticism (along the lines of those by Porcius Licinus and Volcacius Sedigitus) or, perhaps more likely, it simply comprised a catalogic poem in a more varied collection. The fragments hint at the collation of a “canon” of “classic” Latin writers, in the wake of the similar Greek canons. At any rate, Cicero’s judgment on Terence is clear enough, but, we may wonder, who preceded Terence? Probably Cicero ranked Caecilius Statius first and Terence second, as Leo supposed (, ), given that Cicero places Caecilius first amongst the comedy writers also elsewhere (Opt. Gen. ). Caesar’s hexameters sound like a correction of Cicero’s: but are we dealing with a self-contained epigram, or were Caesar’s lines also part of a broader catalogic poem, or of a cycle of epigrams on poets? The second hypothesis, advanced by Leo (, ) and approved by Courtney (, ), has encountered little success: on the one hand, Caesar’s initial tu quoque looks like a quotation echoing the opening of Cicero’s
Pliny (HN pr. ) and Gellius (NA pr. –) mention λειμών “meadow” as one of the many “flowery titles” (Courtney , ) used by the Greeks for works of miscellaneous content; cf. RE s.v. Pamphilos , ..– and Suetonius’ Prata. On Porcius Licinus and Volcacius Sedigitus, see Courtney (, –). Cf. e.g. Soubiran (, –). On Terence in Latin literature, see Müller (). On Menander’s ancient reception, see Nervegna (). On canons at the end of the Republic, see Citroni (), esp. –. Perhaps, Cicero was not too fond of Caecilius’ style (Att. ..) but admired his ability in constructing plots and in arousing emotions. Cf. Varro, Sat. Men. (Astbury = fr. p. , Funaioli, ap. Non. p. Lindsay) and Varro, fr. p. Funaioli = fr. Goetz-Schoell, ap. Charis. GLK ..– = p. .– Barwick.
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context
fragment and so it does not necessarily imply that Caesar dealt with a multiplicity of poets. Also, the concluding phrase maceror ac doleo ironically recalls Plautine and Terentian language, and this device would make an appropriate epigrammatic ending. But on the other hand, the fact that Caesar’s epigram is self-contained does not rule out the possibility that it was part of a cycle of epigrams. Similarly, it is impossible to tell if Caesar’s lines were part of a lost but known work. Did they come from the Dicta collectanea (a collection of memorable sayings, attributed to Caesar’s adolescence by Suetonius, Iul. .)? Or were they preserved in Cicero’s Limon? Given its content, it is improbable that they belonged to the De Analogia, so that it has even been suggested that Cicero’s and Caesar’s pieces were born as exercises in the school of M. Antonius Gnipho, who taught them both. Whichever their origin, the interpretation of these lines has been further complicated by a rather technical discussion regarding Suetonius’ text.
Textual Problems In – Herrmann started a curious chapter in philological exegesis: he proposed to expunge “item C. Caesar” from the text, and thus he attributed to Cicero also the second group of lines, that would have formed a continuous whole with the first one. This extravagant suggestion was based on feeble arguments and, even if it had some influence, it does not need to be confuted again. More interestingly, Herrmann observed that the words introducing Cicero’s poem, “praises until this point” (hactenus laudat), conflict with the entirely laudatory verses that follow. But is this really the case? Are Cicero’s verses entirely laudatory? The fact that Cicero confines his praise of Terence to the form of his plays might explain
Cf. Perrotta (, ), and Tatum (, ) with references. Leo (, n. ) compares the cycle of epigrams on playwrights by Dioscorides and Aristotle’s Peplum (with Gutzwiller ()). On the use of the second person referring to poets of the past in many epigrams of the Anthologia Palatina, see Degl’Innocenti Pierini (). As suggested by Alfonsi (, ) and Garcea (, n. ). Cicero (Fam. ..) calls this work Apophtegmata (as assembled in ). As suggested by Alfonsi (, –). Müller (, ) suggested De Analogia. On Gnipho as Cicero’s and Caesar’s teacher, cf. Suet. Gram. . Already Sihler (, , cf. , ) proposed a relationship between Caesar’s lines and Gnipho’s teaching (Oldfather and Bloom (, –); Courtney (, ); Marciniak (, –); Fantham (, )). In favour of Herrmann’s idea, see Ferrarino () and Coppola (, –). Contra, see esp. Perrotta (); Alfonsi (); Schmid (, –, –); D’Anna (, –); D’Anna (, –); Scarcia (, –).
S. CASALI
hactenus; and moreover, a limitation of such praise has long been seen in the phrase sedatis †vocibus†. Scholars have formulated various hypotheses to correct, or explain, the transmitted †vocibus†. Courtney (, ) writes that “vocibus is certainly a persistence error from , but motibus seems too vague a word for this context.” The conjecture sedatis motibus goes back to Barth (, ), who equally suspected the repetition voce/vocibus. Ritschl’s edition of the Vita Terenti gave the seal of approval to motibus (, ). According to Ritschl, Cicero meant that Terence had mitigated the pathe of Menander, as suggested by a comparison with the judgments expressed by Varro and by the critici of Horace, who believed that “Caecilius wins for gravity, Terence for art” (vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte, Epist. .). Without explicitly saying that Cicero attributed this flaw to Terence, Ritschl believes that in his poem Caesar picked up that same criticism, this time in a highly negative sense. Ritschl’s explanation has become standard in the editions of the fragmentary Latin poets, and many scholars have defended the view that Cicero’s sedatis (motibus or vocibus) points to a flaw of Terence. The best explanation of sedatis, however, is that of Schmid (, –): Cicero’s sedatis vocibus aligns Terence with Menander by comparing him to previous Roman comedy. Sedatis vocibus, then, is concerned with Terence’s successful mitigation of the archaic style typical of Plautus and Caecilius: as Menander polished language and style of Old Greek comedy according to the οἰкеιᵔον the proprium, of comedy, so did Terence with Plautus and Caecilius. Tellingly, Schmid’s interpretation works well not only with vocibus, but also with motibus or indeed with Courtney’s versibus. In short, whichever the reading, sedatis (†vocibus†, or motibus or versibus), Cicero does not criticize Terence, but rather praises him as a Roman Menander. The negative slant comes in only with Caesar, who appropriates Cicero’s laudatory point and gives it an undesirable turn. What exactly
Luiselli (, – n. ); cf. already Alfonsi (, n. ). For Perrotta (, ) hactenus reveals that Cicero praised Terence less than Afranius, quoted before by Suetonius (in sequence: Afranius, Volcacius, Cicero). See n. . Leo (, and n. ) and Ferrarino (, ), however, read vocibus and think that Cicero praised Terence because he “mitigated the style” of Menander. On sedatis motibus as a Terentian flaw see e.g. Perrotta (), esp. –; Malcovati (, ); D’Anna (, , ); Lomanto (, ). On sedatis (motibus or vocibus) as a praise of Terence, see Alfonsi (, ). Schmid (, ). Cf. also Brink (, –). Moribus (proposed and rejected by Ritschl, and approved by Büchner (, ) and De Lorenzi (, )) is less probable. Cf. Courtney (, ).
Caesar’s Poetry in its Context
is Terence lacking, according to Caesar? The response to this question depends on the punctuation of lines –. Should we construct comica with vis, in enjambement, or with virtus, with a comma after vis? The common expression vis comica originates in this passage, but since Bentley (ad Hor. Ars P. ) the great majority of the interpreters has preferred to put a comma after vis (thus taking comica with virtus); among the editors of the poem, only Courtney and Blänsdorf (, ) put a comma after comica (thus taking comica with vis). Courtney writes that “it is hard to find conclusive arguments, but vis (cf. Part. Or. vis oratoria) seems to need an adjective more than virtus” (, ). The rhythm of the period, however, seems to suggest the opportunity of a pause after vis, that would also allow to emphasize the contrast between the first word of the line, lenibus, and the last one, vis. The vis Terence is lacking, according to Caesar, is to be taken in a purely stylistic and rhetorical sense: “forcefulness or vigour of expression” (OLD s.v. vis d), as already suggested by Leo (, ). In conclusion, these fragmentary poems leave many questions unanswered, but they reveal that Cicero and Caesar joined the debate on the canon of Latin playwrights. Fragments by Varro, Volcacius Sedigitus, and Porcius Licinius and by the critici of Horace’s Ars demonstrate that they took part in this same debate. In this tradition, Cicero and Caesar express an aesthetic judgment on Terence’s works. The six hexameters analyzed above, whichever their provenance, surely make an elegant and witty epigram that, pace Tacitus, does not detract too much from Caesar’s literary fame. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H The most thorough analysis of the Terence fragment remains Schmid (), which however is dense and not always easy to follow. A more accessible introduction especially to the stylistic aspects of the fragment is Tatum (). Cairns () searches etymological plays in Caesar’s lines. For the sexual imagery
So Lomanto (, ); Fantham (, –). The most elaborate (but ultimately unconvincing) attempt at reading vis comica is that of Schmid (, –), according to which the phrase would mean “the essence, the substance of the comic.” Cf. Ferrarino (, ). Cairns (, ) adds that “taking comica with virtus would make the structure of line visibly parallel to that of line , i.e. both would consist of adjective; postponed conjunction; noun in agreement with adjective; and verb.” Cf. also Perrotta (, ); Rostagni (, ); Alfonsi (, –); Abbott (, –); Tatum (, –) with references. For the sexual imagery in Caesar’s comparison of Terence with Menander, see Woodman ().
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in Caesar’s comparison of Terence with Menander, see Woodman (). The ‘dialogue’ on poetry between Cicero and Caesar is studied by Marciniak (). Of course, the very limited number of poetry lines attributed to Caesar remains a great impediment in assessing his poetry, but we can always hope that more fragments are found, especially through the discovery of new papyri; for those which we presently have it would be important to assess in a better way the text and the meaning of Cicero’s poem on Terence, especially in the case of the phrase sedatis vocibus: from that it depends the exact interpretation of Caesar’s fragment. Still debated is also the construction of lines – of Caesar’s Terence fragment: does Terence lack, in Caesar’s eyes, vis comica or simply vis?
Anticato Anthony Corbeill
Context In the closing chapter of his influential biography of Caesar, Matthias Gelzer speculates about the plans that the victor may have had for Rome during the final stages of the civil war – a restored Republic, the creation of an autocracy, or some undetermined compromise between these extremes? Before any plans could be realized, however, a swelling tide of opposition ultimately drove Caesar, who had hitherto worked to temper perceptions of his ambition through a strategically crafted persona as writer and statesman, to lose patience. As a result, Gelzer claims, in early Caesar made “his most disastrous mistake”: he composed a text, now mostly lost, entitled Anticato. Caesar’s choice to circulate a treatise critiquing a dead man arose in response to a specific challenge. The decision of Cato the Younger – an individual, to paraphrase the poet Lucan, deeply impassioned for a lost cause (Luc. .) – to commit suicide in April rather than surrender to Caesar quickly became a rallying point for Romans wishing to characterize Caesar’s increasing power as incipient tyranny. Marcus Brutus, future assassin, initiated the exchange by urging Cicero to compose a treatise on Cato in the aftermath of his suicide (Cic. Orat. ). Although few fragments of this Cato survive, in his correspondence with Atticus Cicero characterizes it as an encomium lauding Cato for “perceiving the present and future state of affairs, striving to prevent them, and taking his life to avoid the results” (Att. ..). Cicero delayed circulating the treatise outside a small circle of friends until Caesar had left for Spain in November to engage in what would be the final major battle of the civil war. Subsequently, after the battle of
Gelzer (, ); for the title Anticato, see Tschiedel (, –). Cf. Att. ..; Kumaniecki () and Kierdorf () offer reconstructions of Cicero’s Cato.
A. CORBEILL
Munda had decisively ended four years of civil conflict, a new battle, a battle of books and ideologies, took its place. Caesar was no stranger to public disputes of complex content and deep urgency. In fact, it was a widely publicized debate with Caesar in that marked Cato’s first major appearance on Rome’s political stage. As vividly portrayed in Sallust, after Caesar’s eloquent plea for clemency Cato argued successfully that the Catilinarian conspirators be put to death (Sall. Cat. –). In the following decade, a public debate with Cicero over the nature of Latin eloquence produced Caesar’s lost De Analogia, in which superficially minor grammatical issues seem to conceal deeply political motivations. The loss of Cato, however, struck a particularly poignant chord, provoking numerous responses. Not only did Caesar and Cicero compete in evaluating the dead Republican; Caesar’s text had been anticipated by the Anticato of his lieutenant Hirtius, while Cicero’s position was elaborated in separate treatises composed by Marcus Brutus, Fabius Gallus (consul of ), and Cato’s close friend Munatius Rufus. At stake was not simply how to evaluate the death of an individual. Rather – and perhaps for the last time in Roman history – the city’s leading intellectuals engaged in public debate over how best to govern their troubled state. Cato had represented the adherence to principle and openness to rigorous debate that was thought to characterize the Republican form of government at its best; with the rise of the Empire, his absence will come to symbolize what has been lost. Contemporary remarks about the exchange between Caesar and Cicero indicate that the authors initially engaged in a literary game rather than a political debate with real-life consequences. A closer examination of these remarks, however, suggests that irony underlies the superficial compliments. Caesar, for instance, writes ambiguously in a letter from summer that a frequent reading of Cicero’s Cato made him feel “packed with eloquence” (copiosiorem, Att. ..). Fragments from Anticato contain analogous expressions of praise that barely seem, in the mouth of the great military leader Caesar, to conceal contempt. Echoing Cicero’s notorious poetic claims for the superiority of rhetorical persuasion to military force – cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi, “let weapons yield to the toga [of political deliberation], let the laurel give way to praise” (Off. .) – Caesar ironically remarks that Cicero’s oratorical laurels do indeed surpass
See van der Blom and – in this volume. Garcea (); cf. Pezzini – in this volume. Brutus: Cic. Att. .., .., and Suet. Aug. ., who also mentions a response by Augustus; Fadius: Cic. Fam. .., ..; Munatius: Plut. Cat. Min. .–..
Anticato
those of any triumphing general; elsewhere Caesar pretends to confess to foolishness in thinking that he could surpass in eloquence a man having so much leisure time for study. Cicero, for his part, did not acknowledge detecting any criticism of himself in Caesar’s text. Instead, he voices to Caesar’s attachés Oppius and Balbus his strong approval of Anticato in August , subsequently sending a letter of similarly positive import to Caesar himself. He assures Atticus, however, that he restricted praise to literary matters, and that Caesar would accordingly read the letter with great pleasure (Att. .., ..). Each author seems careful to comment selectively on the other’s treatise, limiting observations to elegance of expression rather than ideological content. The intent seems clear: both men had made known to each other and to the public their views about Rome’s future direction and neither, seemingly, was yet willing to reconsider those views.
Content Despite the contemporary significance of Caesar’s Anticato, our knowledge of its precise form and content depends upon less than a dozen extant fragments. According to Tacitus, the imperial historian Cremutius Cordus characterized the work as a designed refutation of Cicero’s text, with the pair representing set speeches delivered, and ultimately decided, before a panel of judges (Ann. ..). And yet, while imagining Anticato as rebutting, perhaps even point for point, Cicero’s opening salvo fits the contemporary evidence (including that of Caesar’s hasty composition), such a perspective does not help much in reconstructing Anticato, since the Ciceronian treatise’s contents are themselves poorly known. Another piece of evidence, however, dated more closely to its composition, attests that Anticato hewed closely to the basic principles that the young Caesar would have acquired in his rhetorical education and further indicates that the work was designed to answer Cicero’s encomium. Following Caesar’s assassination in , Cicero produced his rhetorical handbook Topica. The work takes the form of a response to a request from Cicero’s friend, the jurist Gaius Trebatius, for a treatise on how to invent arguments. In its final portion, Cicero reviews the application of status theory to speeches of
Plin. NH .; Plut. Caes. .; Tschiedel (, –) convincingly argues for irony behind these passages (his fr. –) and fr. , also addressed to Cicero (Plut. Cic. .–). Tschiedel (, –). Jones () unconvincingly argues that Cicero’s Cato took the form of a dialogue.
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praise and blame – that is, how one may address every question raised in a speech in one of three ways: whether what is alleged did in fact happen, how that event should be defined, and whether its occurrence was legally or morally right. After offering this standard division, Cicero provides a contemporary example: [The writer of invective] can say either that what is praised never happened, or that the interpretation given it by the encomiast should not be applied, or that it is unworthy of praise since it was done neither rightly nor legally. Caesar used each of these tactics with excessive shamelessness (nimis impudenter) when speaking against my Cato.
Cicero’s closing aside attests that Caesar’s exposition aligned with traditional rhetorical methods. The recoverable content of the treatise further supports this claim. In what follows, therefore, rather than attempting to reconstruct the organizational scheme of Anticato, an exercise that must prove chimerical given the limited evidence, I will instead typologically analyze the points about Cato that Caesar highlights in the extant fragments. Tacitus’ reference implies what the passage in Topica makes explicit, that both Cicero’s text and Caesar’s response adopted the form of an epideictic speech on, respectively, the virtues and vices of Cato. The three areas that an orator should cover in a speech of praise (laus) or of blame (vituperatio) are well laid out in rhetorical treatises of the Republican period: properties of the body, of the mind, and external circumstances such as upbringing and family background. More explicitly, modern scholarship has come to recognize the following seventeen most common topics adopted in speeches of blame: . embarrassing family origin; . unworthy of family; . hostile to family; . non-standard physical appearance; . non-standard dress; . non-standard sexual behavior; . avarice; . accepting bribes; . pretentiousness; . hypocrisy for seeming virtuous; . excess in food or drink; . excess spending; . plunder of private and public property; . aspiring to tyranny; . cruelty to citizens and allies; . cowardice in war; . oratorical ineptitude. Each extant fragment of Anticato that addresses Cato’s behavior covers one or more of these traditional categories. I will now treat each fragment in the order offered by Tschiedel in order to show how closely Caesar follows the
Cic. Top. ; cf. Quint. Inst. ... Tschiedel (, ) asserts unconvincingly that nimis impudenter has no moral force. See Koster (, –) on the Greek and Latin sources for this division. Categories adapted from Craig (), who supplements the standard list in Süss (, –).
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guidelines offered in the handbooks. It is the very faithfulness to these guidelines that, I will suggest, constituted Caesar’s principal misstep. Tschiedel’s edition attributes eleven fragments to Anticato. Of these, three apparently derive from Caesar’s introductory remarks addressed to Cicero and have been treated above. The remaining eight fragments consist of brief quotations or allusions to alleged failures of Cato’s character. Two treat drunkenness, a vice commonly encountered in political invective, where it is construed as indicative of a general lack of control in other realms, including the sexual, financial, and political. Cato, one anecdote runs, was returning home drunk in the pre-dawn light when he encountered acquaintances on their way to greet him for the morning salutatio. Caesar encapsulates in a concise epigram the reaction to Cato’s revealed drunkenness: putares non ab illis Catonem, sed illos a Catone deprehensos, “you would think not that Cato had been caught by them, but they by Cato” (Plin. Ep. ..). Caesar’s objective seems to have been twofold: an allusion to Cato’s well-known bibulousness, combined with its public display, betrays his pretensions as a paragon of virtuous constancy (topics –). And yet, despite the well-established status of drunkenness as a vice, both sources for Caesar’s accusation construe it, counterintuitively, as reflecting positively on Cato – his moral authority was such that he made drunkenness rise above reprehension. The shame his acquaintances feel stems not from a critique of Cato’s failings, but from the realization that a human being cannot achieve moral perfection. Even Cato nods. Another fragment contains a related attack on Cato’s moral pretense (topic ). Plutarch relates how Cato, in auctioning on behalf of the state the property of the wealthy Ptolemy of Cyprus, refused to enlist the help of professionals or even friends. In relating this episode, Plutarch notes, Caesar wrote a “very bitter” excursus, apparently criticizing Cato for deeming ethical standards more important than friendship. These instances of mocking Cato for unrealistically high moral standards – whether realized in practice or not – predate Caesar’s invective. Throughout his speech On behalf of Murena, Cicero sarcastically refers to the ways in which Cato’s philosophical outlook is “a little more sharp and harsh than the real world allows.” The difference from Caesar’s attack is,
The locus classicus is Antony’s public vomiting at Cic. Phil. .. See further Opelt (, –); Corbeill (, –, –). Cf. Sen. Dial. .. (Tschiedel fr. –). Tschiedel (, –). Plut. Cat. Min. .–: πικροτάτην . . . διατριβήν (Tschiedel fr. ). Cic. Mur. . Tschiedel (, –) lists other attacks on the living Cato.
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however, obvious. Cato sits before Cicero in the courtroom as a living opponent, ready to reply to the man he dryly refers to afterwards as “such a witty consul!” Caesar, by contrast, attacks a man who now lies dead for defending these same principles. Any responsible author of an invective against Cato could not ignore an incident in his marital life that was already notorious in antiquity: the gifting of his young and pregnant wife Marcia to Quintus Hortensius so that she could provide him with additional heirs, an arrangement followed approximately six years later by the couple’s reunion after Hortensius’ death. Caesar attributes this unusual sequence of events to Cato’s greed (topic ): offering Marcia as “bait” (δέλεαρ), Cato had always planned to remarry her upon Hortensius’ death in order to inherit a substantial portion of his estate (Plut. Cat. Min. .). Caesar underscores the extreme nature of the avarice by noting the patience with which Cato waited for Hortensius to die. Greed, according to Caesar, informs another incident involving Cato’s familial relations. After the funeral of his brother Caepio, Plutarch notes that “a certain writer” – most surely Caesar – accused Cato of sifting the ashes from Caepio’s pyre in order to retrieve any molten gold. This accusation also likely made reference to Cato’s hypocrisy, since Plutarch adds that he had been criticized for being overly lavish in the funerary preparations (Cat. Min. .). A third fragment involving family relationships accuses Cato of having an improper relationship with a Servilia, probably his sister or step-sister, a charge almost certainly falling under topic (non-standard sexual behavior). One of the few Latin fragments from Anticato preserved verbatim seems to provide a bitter summation of the view that Caesar wished to promote about Cato’s treatment of his wife, brother, and sister (fr. ): “each man considers dear his own people, with a single exception (uno . . . excepto) – that man whom nature created as different from everyone else.” This notion that Cato’s treatment of his family represents an attitude contrary to the way of nature encompasses another common theme of invective (topic ). It is also worth noting that this fragment situates Cato outside
Plut. Cat. Min. ., Comp. Dem. et Cic. .. The fullest ancient account is Plut. Cat. Min. , .–. Tschiedel (, –) offers other explanations for Cato’s divorce. Tschiedel (, – (fr. )). Plut. Cat. Min. .–. With most scholars (e.g., Kumaniecki (, ), Goar (, )), I cannot agree with Tschiedel (, –) that Caesar’s charge is simply Cato’s neglect of Servilia. Prisc. Inst. II pp. .–. Caesar likely parodies Cicero’s Cato here (Berthold (, –)).
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the human community – and even nature itself – as an individual (unus) who is either unwilling or unable to act in accordance with accepted norms of elite Roman behavior. Given the tendency of Roman political invective to isolate individuals as dangerous to the state, it is likely no coincidence that the same adjective unus describes Cato in the final fragment for consideration. Aulus Gellius cites a sentence fragment from Anticato to illustrate a grammatical point: unius . . . arrogantiae, superbiae dominatuque, “to the arrogance, haughtiness, and tyranny of one man” (..). There can be little doubt that this “one man” is Cato, whose alleged tyranny may at first surprise when one considers that Cato’s suicide was prompted by the tyrannical aims of Caesar. And yet it is easy to see why the standard collection of the fragments places this one last. These five words enable us to reconstruct a fitting climax to Caesar’s argument; tyranny lies not in the victorious general, who claims to have fought a civil war in order to protect Roman values, but rather in the hypocritical pseudo-philosopher Cato, who marks himself through suicide as morally superior to the very community that he claims to value.
Conclusion According to Plutarch, Caesar greeted the news of Cato’s self-sacrifice with a premonition of the harm that the act would offer his own public image: “Cato, I begrudge you your death, since you have begrudged me your survival” (Plut. Cat. Min. .). By not allowing his enemy to show clemency by sparing him, Cato came to survive not only Caesar but Rome itself as a new Lucretia, an icon of selfless determination in the face of tyranny. As a result of his role in Cato’s death, that face of tyranny inevitably took on the features of Caesar. The situation neatly encapsulates Caesar’s rhetorical problem: how does a tyrant reprimand a potential martyr? Our analysis suggests one feature of Caesar’s “worst mistake.” In pretending that there still existed a society of elites in which each member competed to promote his own set of values, Caesar’s attack on Cato exploited the traditional categories of Republican invective. Even Cicero, staunchly committed to preserving Republican ideals, refused to acknowledge this Caesarian façade; in a letter from August to Fabius
On the isolating tendencies of Roman invective, see Corbeill (, esp. –). For a reconstruction of how Caesar treated Cato’s suicide see Zecchini (, –). For Cato’s posthumous reputation see, e.g., Goar () (Roman empire), Berthold () (church fathers), Donaldson (, –) (eighteenth-century Britain).
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Gallus, author of another Cato, he compares their position as “Catonians” to students cowering before the threat of publicly humiliating punishment at the hands of their “teacher,” Caesar. The political situation requires, as Cicero remarks self-effacingly elsewhere, either the easy-going tolerance of a Cicero or the spirit of a Cato. There is no middle ground – in Caesar’s Rome one must either maintain a display of alleged tolerance or be a selfsacrificing Republican. Caesar’s “mistake” lay in refusing to recognize that there existed only these two alternatives, thereby providing an unwitting stimulus to the cult not only of Cato but of future martyrs for Republican ideals. The rules had changed. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H Tschiedel () is the essential starting point, offering testimonia, fragments, and extensive commentary. Kierdorf () provides the best reconstruction of Cicero’s Cato. For Republican political invective, see Corbeill () and Craig ().
Cic. Fam. ..: vereor ne in catomum Catonianos; on in catomum see Panayotakis (, –). Quint. Inst. .., with Corbeill (, –). Brunt () provides a balanced assessment of Stoic resistance under the Principate.
Innovation and Cliché: The Letters of Caesar Ruth Morello
Caesar the letter writer appears in numerous remarkable vignettes of multitasking productivity: sources describe him causing offence by openly dealing with correspondence during shows, dictating multiple letters on horseback to at least two secretaries simultaneously, or receiving a love letter from his mistress during a senate debate. Even on the last night of his life, we find him half-listening to conversation after dinner while “reclining on the couch adding his personal notes to letters as usual” – “not an endearing habit,” as Pelling remarks. Caesar’s letters themselves were noted, too, for rich content, unusual layout, or even clever delivery methods. His formal dispatches to the senate, for example, apparently looked unlike those of other commanders, being set out in something unusually close to a book format, a habit that may suggest confidence in the lasting value of these letters, and perhaps even their literary aspirations. Conversely, his famous cipher excluded inquisitive readers from private letters (de domesticis rebus), prompting a
Suet. Aug. .. For Caesar’s public multi-tasking, cf. Nicolaus of Damascus, FGrHist fr. .–; Plin. NH .. Such tales put Caesar in a tradition of indefatigable individuals such as Cato, who read in the curia (Cic. Fin. .; Val. Max. ..; Plut. Cat. Min. .), although only before senate sessions began; see Zadorojnyi (, ). Plut. Caes. .., ; cf. Plin. NH .. For Caesar sending and receiving letters, cf. Plut. Caes. .–; .; .; .; .; .; .. Plut. Cat. Min. .., ... Plut. Caes. .; Pelling (, ). Ironically, distraction allegedly prevented him from reading the missive that might have saved him on the Ides (Plut. Caes. .) Uberrimis litteris, Cicero says in Att. .. about Caesar’s richly informative letters from Britain; cf. Cic. Prov. Cons. , with Grillo (). On the dispatch written in Greek characters and wrapped round a javelin (BG .), see Osgood (, –). Suet. Iul. . quas primum videtur ad paginas et formam memorialis libelli convertisse. On this problematic passage, see most recently McCutcheon (, –). See also Osgood (, ); Ebbeler (, , –). Gell. NA .; Suet. Iul. .; cf. Dio Cass. ...
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learned commentary about their hidden meaning (de occulta litterarum significatione in epistularum C. Caesaris scriptura). Caesar’s letters clearly drew a curious readership and several ancient collections of Caesar’s letters are recorded. However, as Ebbeler has observed, the history of the letters’ modern reception is “largely a tale of gaps and silences” – understandably, perhaps, given that only six letters survive. Nevertheless, the past decade or so has yielded fresh approaches, as the renaissance of scholarly interest in epistolography has grown alongside renewed consideration by historians of the special political utility of Caesar’s remarkable epistolary machine. Recent scholarship has considered Caesar’s letters for their value in manipulating individual personal associates and public opinion alike. During his campaign in Gaul, Caesar’s very inaccessibility gave him the advantage over associates in Rome, whom he kept always on uncertain ground, “reassuring” them with epistolary clichés while leaving his agents to foster ambiguity and confusion in person. In that light it seems significant that Caesar is said to have first invented conversation with friends by letter when he was in the city but too busy to meet in person. Sending notes across town might seem unremarkable, but if Plutarch has understood correctly, the innovation was, perhaps, a predominant reliance on letters in a face-to-face culture; we might see this as the ingrained practice of the general whose special mastery of written communication, as Osgood has argued, “helped to facilitate the Roman conquest of the Gallic peoples.” At all events, there was often clearly a great deal of discomfort generated by Caesar’s epistolary practices and by the letters themselves; the unusual reliance upon epistolary communication has been read as the symptom of a developing tyranny, and it is only partly playfully, perhaps, that White suggests that the assassins of March included frustrated
Gell. NA . . Suetonius mentions epistulae ad Ciceronem (Suet. Iul. .), and personal letters to senior senators about the training of gladiators (Suet. Iul. .); cf. Gell. NA .. on collections of letters to Oppius and Balbus. For the surviving fragments of letters exchanged with Cicero, see Watt (, –); Weyssenhoff (, –, –). The letters from Caesar that survive as enclosures in the ad Atticum collection might also have appeared in lost books of Caesarian letters, just as a letter of Pompey of which a copy was sent to Atticus with Att. . seems also to have been published in a separate collection of Pompeian letters (Nonius :.– Lindsay): see White (, ). On the early publication of Caesar’s letters, see Cugusi (, –, ). White (, –). Plut. Caes. .; Pelling (, ) suggests that Plutarch has misunderstood information more accurately preserved in Suetonius .; for a more confident view of Plutarch’s report, see Ebbeler (, ). Osgood (, ). See, e.g., Zadorojnyi (, , ).
The Letters of Caesar
correspondents who found themselves still unable to get a straight answer even once Caesar had returned to Rome. In addition, we are starting to look more positively at what the evidence for Caesar’s letters tells us about his manipulation of the genre’s broader political possibilities. Letters became, as Krebs notes, the means of disseminating Caesar’s “revolutionary concept of Gaul” in Rome, but throughout Caesar’s life even an ostensibly “private” letter might reflect a self-publicizing program. Plutarch observes, for example, that the speed and efficiency of the campaign at Zela is appropriately represented in Caesar’s letter to his friend Matius, from which he quotes (in Greek) the famous veni, vidi, vici. The closural value of the phrase is highlighted by Suetonius, who ignores the epistolary version and reports instead that the famous phrase appeared on placards at Caesar’s triumph in place of the more detailed representations of the events of the campaign; if both appearances of the phrase are historical we can see Caesar’s use of letters as testing grounds for sound-bites and alternative mechanisms for self-publicity. In his Commentarii, Caesar also used letters as historiographical markers of closure. In books , and of the BG letters are Caesar’s final dispositions, as it were, in wrapping up a year’s campaign: in book , for example, which ends with the famous declaration omni Gallia pacata, it is Caesar’s letter of report to the senate (ex litteris Caesaris) that prompts the unprecedented honors voted to him for his achievement, and Caesar’s own portions of the work conclude in the final words of book with reference to his letters (his litteris cognitis). The subsequent inversion from closural letters in the BG to an opening letter in the BC is telling. The senate’s refusal to read this letter casts Caesar as the wronged statesman making extraordinary efforts to achieve peace with dignity and the rejection of Caesarian closure (in appropriately epistolary form) implicitly encapsulates the injustice of some senators, who are subtly blamed for the impending war. More can be done, however, in reading even the tiny sample of complete letters that survives. All date from March–April , so we cannot expect to draw broad conclusions from them about the
White (, ). Krebs (, ). On the wider role of letters in Caesar’s propagandistic efforts, see also Krebs – in this volume; cf. Osgood (); for their wider role, Caesar himself alleges epistolary campaigns of disinformation by the Pompeians (e.g. BC. . and .). Plut. Caes. .; cf. App. B Civ. ... See Pelling (, ). Suet. Iul. .. BG .., .., ...
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development of Caesar’s epistolary habits, writing style or range of addressees. However, the restricted range of composition dates does allow us to treat these letters (with caution) as a partial case study of Caesarian epistolary activity at this crucial stage of the civil war. Above all, the context in which they are preserved provides an invaluable opportunity to assess the effect such letters had upon contemporary readers, since the Ciceronian collections preserve not only the letters of Caesar themselves, but also some of the judgments of Cicero and other addressees and readers as to the character and significance of specific letters. With that in mind, the remainder of this chapter will look not only at distinctive features of Caesar’s letters considered in isolation but also at Cicero’s responses to them and the effects achieved by the unknown editor’s decision to retain the letters within the collection.
The Six Surviving Letters No ancient collection of Caesar’s letters survives, and (as so often) we have Cicero to thank for most of the information we have about individual items: even cursory reading of the extant Ciceronian collections will yield dozens of references to letters received from Caesar in a correspondence that spanned several decades. All six extant letters are preserved as enclosures in just two books of Cicero’s ad Atticum collection (five of them in book , a book that is, as we shall see, particularly dominated by the attempt to interpret Caesarian letters). Three (Att. .A, ..–, .B) are addressed to Cicero, two to Oppius and Balbus (Att. .C and A) and one to Q. Pedius (Att. .) Book is not the only book of the Atticus collection that has as its central theme the flow of letters from a single significant individual. Ad Atticum book , for example, is Pompey’s book: it begins with news of a frustratingly short letter from Pompey that then appears in full in the revealing exchange between Pompey and Cicero at the heart of the book (.A–D), where Cicero sends Atticus both sides of a correspondence to contrast Pompey’s insultingly careless epistolary manner with Cicero’s detailed and finely crafted replies (..). Pompeian letters to other addressees (demonstrating, among other things, a fuller epistolary engagement on the writer’s part) follow immediately at .A–D. Meanwhile, even in “Pompey’s Book” (Att. ), Caesar is a far more attentive suitor than
On “enclosures” preserved in the Ciceronian collections, see White (, –). Cum ad te litteras dedissem, redditae mihi litterae sunt a Pompeio (Att. ..).
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Pompey. His epistolary program of persuasion and cajolery is represented as sustained and assiduous (notice .., “you ask me what Caesar said in his letter. The usual thing, that he is greatly obliged for my quiescence”), and he punctiliously reinforces messages from his own hand with reassurances and reminders through his agents (a lengthy letter from Balbus is enclosed with .). By contrast, in book a dominant motif is Pompey’s mirum silentium. There are no letters from Pompey himself (nihil interim ad me scribere, ..), and news of his whereabouts and intentions has almost entirely dried up. Instead, the Caesarian letters take center stage. We see them, however, almost entirely from the perspective of the contemporary readers (rather than from Caesar’s own viewpoint), as Cicero and others seem absorbed in the problems of interpreting them. Indeed, the process of “decoding” Caesar’s letters becomes almost a defining feature of epistolary activity at this period. The letter that most exercises Cicero is Att. .A, a hasty note in which Caesar hopes for fruitful interaction with Cicero. Cicero characterizes .A as written from a position of power, but cannot decipher precisely what role Caesar envisages for him and worries particularly about what Caesar means by his wish to call upon Cicero’s consilio, gratia, dignitate, ope. Anxious consultation of Atticus and of Caesar’s friend Matius ensues, before Cicero finally drafts his reply (Att. .A), the first sections of which still attempt to interpret the same four words. A stimulating recent discussion compares this letter with one of the central enclosures of book , Pompey’s letter at .C. The two letters were dated a mere fortnight apart (Pompey’s on Feb , and Caesar’s on March ), and use remarkably similar language. Pompey encourages
On Caesar’s “polarized parallelism” between himself and Pompey, expressed through contrasts in their letters during the blockade at Brundisium (BC .), see Henderson (, ) (a chapter that is vital reading on the centrality of letters in the design of the BC, and on the figure of Caesar himself as “the hero of a thousand despatches”). We might also set this in the context of the BC, in which – on Grillo’s reading (Grillo (, )) he “[pitches] the alienating misophilia of the Pompeians against his assimilating amicitia.” See . (a letter, verbal message and promise from Caesar via Balbus junior to Lentulus, plus letters from Balbus senior about Caesar’s wishes); .. (letter from Caesar reported and summarized – plus a message from Balbus junior to the same effect). Letters from Cicero to Caesar are mentioned elsewhere in book : e.g. . and especially . (preserved here in defiance of chronological order) which defends the language of Cicero’s letter to Caesar after Corfinium. Indeed Caesarian letters and messengers are among the main sources of information about Pompey’s situation, too: see, e.g., Att. ... Against that backdrop, Caesar’s letters stand out as distinctive – if only for the reason that he expresses no such hermeneutical aporia with regard to anyone else’s letters. Att. ..; ...
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Cicero to travel to join him (ut te ad nos conferas) in order that they may jointly bring assistance to the stricken republic (ut communi consilio rei publicae adflictae opem atque auxilium feramus). Caesar, by contrast, seeks to come to a meeting with Cicero in or near Rome ut tuo consilio, gratia, dignitate, ope omnium rerum uti possim. Although Cicero makes much of failing to understand exactly what Caesar means by this, Caesar’s letter as a whole is considerably more personal, even respectful than Pompey’s. It is full of common epistolary motifs that oiled the mechanisms of friendship at Rome: apology for brevity and distractedness, unwillingness to pass up an opportunity for speaking/writing, and – in the language of favors exchanged – the suggestion that Cicero’s past goodwill might guarantee future favors. Caesar makes good use of clichés of amicitia, in other words, in a way that is typical of his broader deployment of such language elsewhere; he emphasizes Cicero’s value to him, and attempts to flatter Cicero in a way that Pompey simply does not. Pompey makes no apology for brevity (despite Cicero’s pointedly lengthy replies to him) and no attempt to reflect Cicero’s best self back to him, whereas Caesar’s epistolary manners suggest a potentially more pleasing approach. .A is framed in the most polite, even respectful, of terms (formulaic though they are), and it is revealing that Cicero’s reaction is so suspicious and cynical as the book progresses. The process of comparing the letters of Caesar himself with those of others on similar subjects is further encouraged in ., which accompanies three enclosures, all masterpieces of self-positioning and diplomacy: a joint letter from Oppius and Balbus (.A), another from Balbus alone (.B), and finally the letter by Caesar himself (.C); the three enclosures together give a snapshot of the Caesarian campaign to keep Cicero onside, and demonstrate one more advantage of reading Caesar’s letters not in isolation but in light of his ability to exploit readers’ interest in triangulating and comparing epistolary communication. Advice and approval within precisely delineated social relationships are dominant issues in all three enclosures. Atticus has advised Cicero to seek
Grillo (, ). On the “facework” conducted in Cicero’s letters, see Hall (), and for a cynical view of Caesar’s clichés, see White (). On banalities in letters, see Gunderson (, ). See Grillo (, –). See Morello (, ). See Grillo (, ) (and cf. Att. ..; ..). In a study of the challenge of “distinguishing good politeness from bad” in the Ciceronian letter collections, Hall (, –) notes the effect of changing political circumstances on Cicero’s attitude to Caesar’s assiduous epistolary courtship, which he perceives as “charming” in but as part of a more cynical campaign in late when Caesar’s flattery is echoed by Balbus (Att. ..).
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dispensation from Caesar to maintain his relationship with Pompey, and Cicero encloses letters from Balbus and Oppius to prove a point: he has already been trying to do that (id me iam pridem agere intelleges, ..). In .A Balbus and Oppius depict themselves as “humble folk,” in a selfdeprecating opening move that masks their role as Caesar’s spokesmen, and at the end they even acknowledge that Cicero might question the sincerity and independence of their advice: (.A.). In a complex rhetorical exercise in building trust, they contrive simultaneous distance from Caesar (to suggest trustworthiness as advisers) and closeness to him (to suggest expertise as advisers): through a series of counterfactuals (si . . . cognovissemus . . . si ex contrario putaremus .A.) they imply that they cannot know firsthand, and for certain, what Caesar’s intentions really are; they then evaluate Cicero’s situation in either one of two eventualities (that Caesar seeks reconciliation with Pompey or that he pursues war). The views that they do express as their own are carefully marked as potentially unwise (quod si non fuerit prudens . . .) but based on personal goodwill and on faith in Caesar’s good qualities (pro sua humanitate). The letter from Balbus alone that follows exploits the rhetoric of personal connection between writer and addressee: Balbus personally feels Cicero’s difficulty (sentio quod tu . . .), and can point to his own similarly compromising relationship with Lentulus (which is willingly tolerated by Caesar, .B.). He is delighted to be able to share a letter from Caesar (.C) that just happened to arrive after the sending of the joint letter. Everything, it seems, conspires to confirm the views expressed in .A, and the fiction that Balbus and Oppius are merely participants in the wider epistolary project of “decoding” Caesar is consciously and almost overtly sustained as Balbus represents himself as sharing with Cicero a “discovery” of Caesar’s honorable sentiments. In the context of Cicero’s letter and the two enclosures we have looked at so far, Caesar’s letter to his aides (.C) makes a commensurately greater impression and once again highlights Caesar’s conscious mastery in his epistolary environment. It has been circulated at least partly as confirmation that his agents’ assurances of Caesar’s clemency and fairness are not misplaced – and even Cicero’s comment on the letter suggests its success (sana mente scriptas litteras quo modo in tanta insania, ..). Caesar welcomes his friends’ approval of his actions at Corfinium, reports his capture and release of a second Pompeian prefect, Magius, and advertises
Another joint letter may be found in this book, at Att. .A (from Matius and Trebatius – both Caesarians – reporting rumors of Pompey’s departure).
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his commitment to reconciliation, his amenability to advice (consilio vestro utar libenter, .C.) and his determination not to follow Sulla’s example. All this has the feel of an open letter, written for public consumption, and yet Balbus makes it look like a private line to Caesar’s thoughts and intentions. Caesar’s emphasis on his gratitude for Balbus’ advice, and his solicitation of further thoughts on how best to implement his nova ratio vincendi, work to reinforce the advice given to Cicero by Oppius and Balbus: Caesar values our advice, so the implicit argument goes, and so should Cicero. These letters, then, offer a kind of “readthrough” performance for Cicero’s benefit of the rhetoric appropriate to these tricky circumstances. In the light of that “performance,” the disastrous personal meeting between Cicero and Caesar (.) towards which book ’s narrative gradually builds begins to look like an instance of Cicero’s failure to understand how to construct a character for himself within the “script” that all these epistolary clichés cumulatively construct, as much as it is a brave stand by a man of conviction. On the one hand his version of the congratulations after Corfinium that Balbus and Oppius are seen to have offered in .C. was overly effusive, but on the other his behavior in the long-awaited meeting with Caesar spectacularly fails to maintain the fragile veneer of rhetorical politeness, and Caesar’s angry outburst (“if he could not avail himself of my counsels he would avail himself of those he could get and stop at nothing,” ..) should be no surprise in the light of the careful, assiduous epistolary “facework” that has been devoted to this tricky relationship. Caesar’s response to congratulations and approval, as well as his commitment to almost excessively courteous treatment of a problematic addressee, are once again in evidence in another brief letter to Cicero that is enclosed with Att. .. Cicero has written to commend his clemency at Corfinium and now introduces the brief reply from Caesar. Once again, however, the focus is narrowly upon a small part of the letter that contains a new version of the offending sentence of .A (iam “opes” meas, non ut
A passage all the more striking because of Cicero’s observation in .. that Pompey’s ambition to emulate Sulla is one of the few things he does not cover with misdirection and ambiguity (nihil ille umquam minus obscure tulit). On the prevalence of the open letter in in particular, see Jal (, ). Note in particular Caesar’s use of the first person plural: temptemus hoc modo si possimus omnium voluntates recuperare, “Let us try whether by this means we can win back the good will of all,” .C.. Note the defensiveness of ... Cicero has interested himself specifically in the fate of Lentulus, who is mentioned in Att. .A. and ...
The Letters of Caesar
superioribus litteris “opem” exspectat, “he now counts upon my ‘resources,’ not, as in his former letter, on my ‘help,’” ..). Once again, however, Cicero ignores the courteous expression of Caesar’s letter, which emphasizes the long-standing acquaintance between the two men (bene enim tibi cognitus sum, ..), expresses joy at Cicero’s approval, hopes to be able to meet him in Rome to continue the process of profitable interaction (ut tuis consiliis atque opibus, ut consuevi, in omnibus rebus utar, ..) and finally lavishes praise upon Cicero’s son-in-law (establishing relationships in common, in a classic epistolary move). Cicero may be right to be suspicious of Caesar, but nevertheless it should be acknowledged that Caesar plays the game; once again, comparison with Pompey’s even briefer communications with Cicero (.A and .C), both of which are marked, in Cicero’s own word, by neglegentia (..), demonstrates how carefully Caesar is working to maintain at least a superficially healthy epistolary interaction with Cicero. Readers (including Atticus, the first reader of these “packages” of letters) are encouraged by the enclosure format to conduct precisely this kind of comparative work in dealing with Caesar’s letters. The cluster of letters and enclosures from and May gives another invaluable opportunity for comparing crisis letters on the same topic, to the same addressee, but from three different individuals, including Caesar himself. Att. . accompanies two letters that both respond to a rumor that Cicero is finally about to join Pompey: a thoroughly unpleasant missive from Antony (.A) and a more emollient one from Caesar himself. Att. . then encloses a letter from Caelius in which he explicitly presents himself as joining in the chorus of Caesarian pressure upon Cicero from the standpoint of a longstanding intimate. Once again, we see a version of the “clustering” phenomenon that made the enclosures of . and . so powerful: Caesar’s own letter is embedded, as it were, between letters from an enemy and a close friend, and Caesar’s arguments are echoed and reinforced to Cicero from two different perspectives. Cicero calls Antony’s letter odiosas, and it is indeed a threatening and rhetorically contorted piece, in which Antony couches a warning to Cicero within a network of hypotheticals and conditionals (“If I did not have a great affection for you, much more indeed than you suppose, I should not have been so alarmed at a report which has been put about concerning you, especially as I did not believe it”). Unlike the letter from Balbus, which built its case upon a textbook expression of personal friendship, and dealt in hypotheticals only to highlight positive outcomes of alternative situations, Antony’s letter openly acknowledges that it is bridging a gap
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between two people whose relationship is not based on healthy affection – Antony likes Cicero “more than he supposes” and refers to offensio nostra, barely softening this acknowledgement with an assumption of responsibility (Antony’s jealousy, rather than any injury done him by Cicero, is the root of the problem). Whereas Balbus put Cicero in the group of his dearest friends (with Caesar’s life as the pledge), Antony makes a convoluted triangulation of the relationships of all concerned in his letter: Cicero comes second to Caesar for Antony, but Cicero is especially important to Caesar – and for that reason to Antony too. The letter, he says, will be brought by one of his own closest associates, as proof of his true concern for Cicero – a tour de force, then, managing the failure of their relationship within the context of the epistolary language of friendship. In this context, .B, written by Caesar himself to express alarm at the same rumor and to urge honorable neutrality, appears straightforward and direct, using the language of friendship, honor, and pragmatism smoothly and skillfully. His arguments are more expertly targeted than Antony’s to Cicero’s own patterns of thought, balancing an appeal to Cicero’s sense of duty to friendship (namque et amicitiae graviorem iniuriam feceris) with encouragement to self-preservation (et tibi minus commode consulueris); he ends with an appeal to the philosopher and the student of the powerful in Cicero’s nature (tu explorato et vitae meae testimonio et amicitiae iudicio neque tutius neque honestius reperies quicquam quam ab omni contentione abesse). This is the language, surely, of an expert reader of the De Officiis (or, indeed, of some of Cicero’s letters of this period). This is not to say that there is no threat conveyed in Caesar’s friendliness; nevertheless, as Grillo notes, it is a marked feature of the surviving letters that Caesar consistently deploys the language of friendship and intellectual kinship, even when under severe pressure. Both these letters should be compared with Caelius’ longer and more emotional appeal to Cicero (.A). Like Balbus, Caelius represents himself as Caesar’s adviser, even claiming some responsibility for the terms in which Caesar’s own letter was framed (.A.), but unlike Balbus he writes to Cicero as an equal, in a letter that Cicero says deeply moved his whole family. Like Antony, Caelius highlights the danger of Cicero’s proposed departure (indeed Caelius magnifies the likely threat from an angry Caesar), the betrayal of friendship (in creating a conflict of interests for friends like Caelius and Dolabella), and the folly of declaring open
See, e.g. Att. ... Grillo (, –), on the threatening quality of Caesar’s deployment of the language of amicitia.
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opposition to a victorious Caesar after long vacillation during more uncertain times. Like Caesar, Caelius appeals in particular to issues of principle: Cicero’s fear of falling short of the qualities of the true optimate, Caelius says, has blinded him to the truly “best” option, namely friendly neutrality (vide ne, dum pudet te parum optimatem esse, parum diligenter quid optimum sit eligas, .A.).
Conclusion Reading Caesar’s few surviving letters within the “narrative(s)” of the books in which they are preserved allows us to see more clearly the sustained effort expended by Caesar upon his courtship of Cicero, and perhaps also the potential for failure (given the angry exchange between the two when they met face-to-face in Att. .). In retaining the Caesarian “enclosures” in books and , the editor of the Ad Atticum collection has encouraged the reader to read Cicero’s motivations and his hermeneutic struggles with Caesar’s letters (and with the man himself) with perhaps a more suspicious eye, while still allowing the flavor of Caesar’s manipulativeness to develop and become increasingly dominant as the books progress. We cannot help but see Caesar’s letters in these books mostly through Cicero’s eyes, but nevertheless, we see the persona of the busy, driven epistolographer who needs to make smoothly packaged epistolary clichés work to his best advantage, and who will persist in his attempts to teach even Cicero how to play that game. Ultimately (if we can believe Nepos), it was Atticus who understood better than Cicero how to play, and perhaps the most serious impediment to our understanding of Caesar’s preserved letters is the absence of Atticus’ analyses of the extraordinary packages of correspondence which arrived from his old friend in the early months of BC. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H The two essential discussions of Caesar’s letter writing and its significance are still Ebbeler (), who approaches Caesarian epistolography from the perspective of the literary historian, and White (). More recently, Osgood () offers a stimulating discussion of Caesar’s mastery of communication more generally (including, but not confined to, his epistolary works). Further reading should necessarily include attention to the wider epistolary context, of course, particularly in view of the scant survival of the Caesarian letters themselves. Henderson (), for example, includes an important discussion of the degree to which Caesar is also the intended addressee of Cicero’s ad Quintum fratrem ., while
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Henderson (forthcoming) further develops the theme of Caesar’s importance in the brothers’ epistolary relationship in a broader study of the Q Fr. collection. White (passim) is also well worth consulting on the wider context of Ciceronian letters written in the shadow of Caesar. Much has been done on the complex social and political interactions in evidence in the letters of the Ciceronian corpus, and extensive research in epistolography in other fields (particularly Renaissance) has suggested useful approaches to epistolary rhetoric and pragmatics that are already being applied to good effect in the study of classical epistolography and will continue to be fruitful. Although Caesar’s own letters are frustratingly few, and our study of epistolary communication at his time is inevitably dominated by the surviving Ciceronian corpora, there are still rich opportunities for studies of the epistolary interactions of the Caesarians whose letters are preserved in the collections (as also more widely of non-Ciceronian epistolary voices in the corpora), particularly in the civil war and post-assassination periods. The phenomenon of the “open letter,” and the creative pressures exerted upon the composition of epistolary communications by writers’ awareness of “further readers” (e.g. Pompey or Caesar) would also merit further study. Finally, it would be particularly interesting to see a thorough assessment of the degree to which the unknown editor’s design and organization of the Ciceronian collections shaped later reception of Caesar’s personal and political agenda.
Sources and Nachleben
Caesar and Greek Historians Luke Pitcher
Introduction Caesar’s intellectual attainments are beyond question. His biography attests to his rhetorical training (Plut. Caes. .), his lost works to the breadth of his interests. Familiarity with Greek literature would have been eminently possible for an individual in his position. We may legitimately be skeptical that Marius in the previous century actually decried those Roman commanders who conned Greek military manuals for guidance after their election, as Sallust claims in the Bellum Iugurthinum (.). But Sallust, at least, regarded this as the sort of jibe that Marius might have made, and therefore not an obviously implausible one. It is no great stretch, then, to assume that an acquaintance of some sort with the Greek historiographical tradition underlies Caesar’s extant works. Several factors make the study of this acquaintance challenging. Caesar’s reluctance to cite predecessors is standard practice in ancient historywriting. To stick with the example of Sallust’s Bellum Iugurthinum, we find little in the way of citation in its pages beyond a vague and unhelpful reference to “Punic books” (.). In Caesar’s Commentarii, there is only one passage that explicitly names an author whom we know to have written in Greek. This appears in the discussion of the differences between the Galli and the Germani in the sixth book of the Bellum Gallicum. Mention of the Hercynian forest brings a remark about those earlier authors to whom that forest was known: Hercyniam silvam, quam Eratostheni et quibusdam Graecis fama notam esse video, quam illi Orcyniam appellant, “the Hercynian forest, which I see is known by reputation to Eratosthenes and certain Greeks – they call it the ‘Orcynian’ forest” (BG ..). We may also note an even vaguer reference to “several” (nonnulli) authors who have made claims
See Raaflaub – and Pezzini – in this volume. On possible reading of the Greek historians in the second century, see also Quint. Inst. .., with Bartley (, –).
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about the smaller islands around Britannia at BG ... Some or all of these authors may have written in Greek. A second factor which complicates the study of Caesar’s relationship to Greek historiography is another which he shares with many extant ancient authors. So much of the pertinent material has been lost. Eratosthenes exists now only in exiguous fragments. Reams of Hellenistic writing on matters of history, geography, and ethnography have fared no better. Where Caesar is alluding to a Greek predecessor, we cannot always be sure of picking this fact up by studying verbal similarities between his work and earlier texts. These two factors are joined by a consideration that is more of an issue for Caesar than it is for some other ancient historians. The Commentarii are predominantly the record of Caesar’s own campaigns. He may (and often does) describe engagements at which he was not personally present. He may expatiate about the geography, customs, or earlier history of the regions with which his narrative concerns itself, but there is usually no good reason for assuming that Caesar’s accounts, particularly in the BG, are heavily indebted for their data to the lost Greek authors who happened to write about the relevant areas. Caesar had eyes, and he had local informants. For military purposes, these would have been more pertinent than Posidonius.
Caesar and the Structures of Greek Historiography But a work can take more from its predecessors than just raw data. The canonical works of Greek historiography also established narrative structures for articulating and interpreting historical events and human behavior. Can it be demonstrated, then, that Caesar owes a debt of this kind to the Greek historians? Concinnities may readily be spotted. The BG is organized into seven books, though the view one takes on its publication history has an impact on whether one regards this as fortuitous or by design. It features a narrator-protagonist, leading a military expedition in a foreign land, who characteristically refers to himself in the third person, with only very occasional irruptions of an “I” perspective. The analogy to the Anabasis of Xenophon is tempting. Even the introductions to the two texts have
For Posidonius on the Germani, see Ath. . (= FGrHist F, Edelstein and Kidd (, F )). For a summary of the issues here, see Riggsby (, –). Kraus ( –); cf. Grillo – in this volume. Kraus (, ).
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their affinities: both the Anabasis and the BG open with accounts of political/dynastic rivalries in a foreign land, which fester for some paragraphs before the individuals who will turn out to be the main focus of the text are pulled in. The sagacity and good generalship of the narratorprotagonist are illuminated at many points in each of these works. And, of course, the Anabasis offers the extant model par excellence of how to tell the story of a (more or less) coherent group of fighting-men across several years and several books, as Caesar does in the BG (The lost historians of Alexander would presumably have offered another model, but their stock in antiquity was not the highest). Xenophon was not the first or the last soldier-historian of antiquity. For all the similarities of structure between the Anabasis and the BG, aspects of the narrative texture of Caesar’s work are equally reminiscent of the pragmatikê historia of Polybius. In particular, the characteristic Caesarian preoccupation with the minutiae of successful campaigning – the building of siege-equipment, the possible problems for discipline created by the matter of booty, and the narrative voice that discourses on such matters with carefully projected authority – are most easily paralleled in Polybius. The Megalopolitan’s explicitness on the subject of how far the calculation and foresightedness of a proper general differ from the enthusiasm of a soldier finds ready parallels in the work of the Dictator. Analogy should not be stressed at the expense of differentiation, though. The manner and matter of the BG have differences from those of the
The ambitions of Orgetorix and their effect on the Helvetii absorb Caes. BG .-; Caesar only appears at .. Although Greek hoplites appear already at Xen. An. .., the description of Persian regnal tensions only leads to the levy of the mass of Peloponnesian troops at ... E.g., Xen. An. .. (Xenophon’s approachability on military matters), An. .. (Xenophon takes the lead in chopping wood), .. (establishing a guard where other generals failed), .. (Xenophon’s piety), .. (sharing a march with his men); Caes. BG .. (removing horses to guarantee a level playing-field), .. (speedy response to crisis situations), .. (deducing the shift in attitude of the Britanni), .. (unfooled by the perfidious Indutiomarus), .. (foreseeing unrest in Gallia), .. (unfooled by the perfidious Aedui), .. (Caesar’s judgment vindicated against that of his impetuous troops). Cf. Cawkwell (, –) and Bartley (, ). It is not quite accurate, pace Bartley (, ), to describe Thucydides simply as one “who wrote about the exploits of others.” Cf. Reggi (, ); cf. Grillo – in this volume. While detailed accounts of siegecraft go back, of course, as far as Thucydides (Thuc. .), the disposition to return to the details again and again is more Polybian. Polyb. . and ..- are good examples; cf. Caes. BG ..–, ., ..–, ..–. Polyb. ..–.. The note at .. that Romans are never vulnerable to the problems that ensue when individual desire for booty conquers collective discipline is not borne out by what happens at Caes. BG ... Polyb. ... Cf. Caes. BG ..– and ..– for the distinction between soldier and general.
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Anabasis. Caesar is not leading a nostos, and is in charge already from the moment of his first introduction. Xenophon, despite sporadic appearances beforehand, only emerges as a dominant force at the beginning of the third book of the Anabasis (..). Caesar’s fighting-men receive comparable air-time to Xenophon’s. They show a not dissimilar blend of competence and occasional delinquency. But the nature of their misbehavior is rather different. To take one small example, Xenophon’s men are occasionally portrayed as vulnerable to erotic distractions. We may legitimately doubt that Caesar’s men were without their complement of camp-followers, too; what is certain is that Caesar never mentions them – though the possibility of soldiers rampaging while off the leash is one against which he explicitly guards. Instead, the characteristic vices of the soldiers in the Commentarii are credulousness (as in the stories that they swallow about the Germani at BG .) and impetuosity (as in the illtimed advance at Gergovia at BG ..). The mechanisms of the narration likewise display their differences. Xenophon’s use of the third person is not, in fact, quite the same as Caesar’s, and there is a readiness to shift in space and time in the Anabasis that Caesar does not emulate. Even if Caesar had lived long enough to retire somewhere like Xenophon’s Scillus (An. ..), it is hard to imagine him talking about it in the Commentarii. While Caesar’s readiness to inform on matters of military detail is quite Polybian, he almost entirely lacks the pugnacious narrative stance of his Megalopolitan predecessor: Caesar likes to show how his procedures are right, but is mostly devoid of Polybius’s zeal for explaining at length why those of others are wrong. And while (as we shall see) the vicissitudes of fortuna are thematized in Caesar’s narratives, they lack the extended methodological disquisitions on what may or may not legitimately be ascribed to the realm of tyche which we associate with Polybius. In general, there is much that is reminiscent of Greek historiography in the BG and the BC. What we often see happening in the text of Caesar, however, is not so much systematic allusion to a single model as dipping into the grab-bag of narrative possibilities which Greek historiography in the round has established. The Greek historians borrowed from each other, and Caesar’s largely lost Roman predecessors borrowed from them. In many instances, it is probably futile to seek one special source for a
Bartley (, ). Xen. An. .. and ... See also Lane Fox (, –). Caes. BG ... See also n. above. Pelling (). A rare exception is his criticism of the theory behind Pompey’s strategy before Pharsalus (Caes. BC ..–). Polyb. .., .. For analysis of a meditation on fortuna in Caesar, see below –.
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particular characteristic of Caesar’s method. It does not follow, however, that examining Caesar in the light of the general tradition that lies behind the way he constitutes his text cannot be rewarding. And specific intertextualities, while rarer, may yet be uncovered.
Allusions and What They Achieve As an example of Caesar’s “grab-bag” tendency, we may note the patterns that emerge in his characterization of things as “easy.” Caesar often represents the individuals in his texts as asserting or believing that a certain course of action will readily be accomplished. At the very beginning of the BG, Orgetorix convinces the Helvetii that it will be “very easy” to assume a position of primacy in Gaul (..). He then stresses the ease of the undertaking to Casticus and Dumnorix (..). Cotta’s men, facing possible ambush, judge that, whatever decision they make, ease will arise from unanimity (.–). Vercingetorix tells his council of war that it will be easy to cut off the Romans from their supply-lines (..). This is a strategy that he repeats with equal confidence later in the book (..). The people of Avaricum say that their city should not be abandoned, because it can easily be defended (..). In the BC Domitius is sanguine that Caesar can easily be cut off from his supplies (..). All these expectations turn out to be wrong. The Helvetii are slapped down by Caesar. Orgetorix is dead before his plan comes to fruition. Cotta’s men reach a decision (to sally forth) and are almost wiped out as a result. Neither Vercingetorix nor Domitius succeeds in cutting off his enemy. Avaricum falls. Only one individual in the whole of Caesar’s corpus who says that something is going to be easy comes anywhere close to being validated in his claim. That case is, to put it mildly, a double-edged one. Ambiorix says that he can easily convince with his statement that his city has been unable to hold out against the general insurrection of the Gauls. He does easily convince the local Romans of what he is saying, but his rhetoric is later exposed as a trick to which his interlocutors succumb.
Kraus (, ) and Grillo – in this volume. For the distinction here between use of the general set of possibilities well-established within a genre and use of exact allusion to a passage in a particular predecessor, compare Hinds (, ) (following Conte (, )) on “modello-codice” vs. “modello-esemplare.” Cf. Grillo – in this volume. Caes. BG ..: Id se facile ex humilitate sua probare posse, quod non adeo sit imperitus rerum ut suis copiis populum Romanum superari posse confidat, “[he said that] he could easily prove it from his own lack of power, on the grounds that he was not so unaware of affairs that he thought the Roman people could be overcome by his own forces.”
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The rhetoric of ease as used by individuals in Caesar’s text is, then, almost invariably undermined. Now, Caesar is by no means the first historian in whose work we find a fatal association between this sort of rhetoric and failure – or, at the least, striking disingenuousness. The ur-example is perhaps Aristagoras in Herodotus, with his trademark claim that matters may be achieved εὐπετέως, “easily.” The pattern continues. In Thucydides, the belief that things can be accomplished with facility (ῥᾳδίως is this historian’s word of choice for it) is revealed to be misplaced with equal frequency. This applies whether those who entertain this belief are the Thebans in their first attempt on Plataea (..), the Plataeans reacting to the incursion by the Thebans (..), the Ambraciots and the Chaones making a play for the whole of Acarnania (.. and ..), the Acarnanians and Messenians at the end of book (..-), or the Spartans at Sphacteria (..). By the time the informed reader encounters Caesar, his or her encounter with confident expectations of easy fulfillment in a historiographical context is going to set off some warning-bells. The subsequent narrative confirms the validity of such alarm. This model for Caesar’s interaction with his Greek predecessors functions well for many notable sequences in his work. The discovery of opulent furnishings in the camp of Pompey after the battle of Pharsalus, for example (BC ..–), shares few close verbal similarities with the description of Mardonius’ camp after Plataea in Herodotus (..). But it is reasonable to suppose that, even if Caesar does not have that particular account in mind, the topos of which it is a representative example (luxury is for the losers) is informing the way he treats the fall of the Pompeians. Luxury is not the whole story. The trinkets in the tents also represent another Pompeian flaw – focusing on the pleasant consequences of winning a battle before the battle is, in fact, won – of which we have already seen an extended instance in the squabbling over the future
For instances of Aristagoras using this rhetoric, see Hdt. .. (urging Artaphrenes to attack the Cyclades), ..– (on how easy it would be for the Spartans to beat the Persians) and .. (on the ease of defeating the Persians again – this time, at Athens). See further Pelling (, –). Rood (, with n. ). Cf. also Maurach (, –). This theme is already present in the BG, where martial valor is presented from the outset as varying in inverse proportion to access to luxury goods. Caes. BG ... Rossi (, –), who also gives instances of the use of this sort of scene from the tradition about the aftermath of the battle of Issus (Diod. ..–, Curtius .., Plut. Alex. .–). On this description and luxuria, cf. Grillo (, –). Hence the authorial comment: facile existimari posset nihil eos de eventu eius diei timuisse qui non necessarias conquirerent voluptates, “it could easily be surmised that they had had no fear about the outcome of that day inasmuch as they sought out unnecessary pleasures” (Caes. BC ..).
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disposition of honors before the engagement (BC .). Nonetheless, it is useful for Caesar to have a repository of such resonant scenes into which he can tap. Similar considerations apply to sequences such as the ones in which Caesar brings out the difficulties of fighting a foe that repeatedly melts away, disconcertingly, into an unfamiliar landscape. The Scythians who eventually break Cyrus the Great in Herodotus are at the beginning of the extant tradition here (Hdt. ..). It is tempting to read Caesar’s account of the elusive Germani and other masters of guerrilla warfare against it. But exact verbal correspondences with Herodotus are, again, distinctly lacking at this moment in the narrative. Moreover, the disconcerting quality of fighting a more mobile foe became a feature of post-Herodotean historiography in its own right. Thucydides’ account of the travails of the Spartan hoplites when faced by light infantry at Pylos is a case in point, and is in fact rather closer on points of detail to some of the sequences in Caesar, especially the abortive action in Britannia. Many motifs in Caesar’s work are familiar from prior historiography. Tensions between the aristocracy and the populace in the cities of Caesar’s Gaul, with the threat that one side might be impelled to turn on the other, are depicted in a fashion that is not far from the way Thucydides
Caes. BG .,, .., ., .., with Krebs (, ). Krebs (, n. ) is rightly cautious about reading Caesar’s account at these points as particularly indebted to Herodotus. Thuc. ..: τοὺς δὲ ψιλούς, ᾗ μάλιστα αὐτοῖς ἐπιθέοντες προσκέοιντο, ἔτρεπον, καὶ οἳ ὑποστρέφοντες ἠμύνοντο, ἄνθρωποι κούφως τε ἐσκευασμένοι καὶ προλαμβάνοντες ῥᾳδίως τῆς φυγῆς χωρίων τε χαλεπότητι καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς πρὶν ἐρημίας τραχέων ὄντων, ἐν οἷς οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι οὐκ ἐδύναντο διώκειν ὅπλα ἔχοντες, “they were repeatedly putting to flight the light troops whenever they ran up and approached too closely, but those who were turning in flight thus were holding them off, being lightly equipped and easily taking to flight on account of the terrain’s trickiness (which stemmed from the difficulty of the ground and its prior desolation). The Spartans were not able to pursue there on account of their armor.” The soldiers faced with an unaccustomed sort of fight: Thuc. .., Caes. BG ... Weight of armor an issue in pursuit: Thuc. .. (see previous note); Caes. BG ... Caes. BG .., .., and .. (popularity of Dumnorix with the people of the Aedui); BG .. (orator blames the populace for misbehavior): in petenda pace eius rei culpam in multitudinem contulerunt et propter imprudentiam ut ignosceretur petiverunt, “in seeking peace they put the blame on the populace and sought forgiveness on the grounds of their ignorance;” BG .. (Indutiomarus claims disingenuously that he is afraid to leave ne omnis nobilitatis discessu plebs propter imprudentiam laberetur, “for fear that the people should become unstable on account of ignorance through the departure of the whole nobility”; BG .. (lack of possessions among the Gauls as a means to keep the populace happy by making their state nearly equal to that of the powerful); BG .. (the people who were thought to have stirred up the populace at Noviodunum are delivered to the Romans); BG .. (Convictolitavis stirs up the people at Gergovia). It will be observed that imprudentia (rashness) is presented as a characteristic fault of the populace off its leash by orators in Caesar.
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portrays the squabbling Greek city-states reacting to the stress of the Peloponnesian War, although we may note that Caesar is also at some pains to stress that the position of leaders in regard to the populace in Gaul is quite peculiar. Caesar as general puts heart into his men by slugging it out at the front line, with a notable emphasis on the role played by his shield; an analogy is possible with Brasidas at Pylos. Speed of action in siegecraft produces fear and astonishment in the besieged of Caesar’s Gaul, just as it does in Thucydides’ Syracuse. In all these cases, it is probably more profitable to think in terms of topoi up for grabs than of a careful linkage between a given passage in Caesar and another in a predecessor historian. On the other hand, there are moments in Caesar’s text when specific allusion to a key passage in a predecessor looks like a very real possibility. Consider Caesar’s account of financial exactions by the Pompeians in the build-up to Pharsalus: cuius modo rei nomen reperiri poterat, hoc satis esse ad cogendas pecunias videbatur. Non solum urbibus, sed paene vicis castellisque singuli cum imperio praeficiebantur. qui horum quid acerbissime crudelissimeque fecerat, is et vir et civis optimus habebatur, “whatever thing could be found to have a name was considered sufficient for the purposes of gathering money. People were put in charge not just of cities, but almost of hamlets and outposts. Whoever of these had behaved most cruelly and harshly, that one was considered the best man and citizen” (BC ..–). The sting in this passage comes from the final sentence. In these topsy-turvy times, the
Thuc. .– (on which more below) is the most famous example, but there are many scattered through Thucydides’ history. See in particular Caes. BG .. Ambiorix paints a picture of himself as subject to his people (Caes. BG ..), but soon turns out to have been disingenuous in much of what he has said (see above). Caes. BG ..: scuto ab novissimis uni militi detracto, quod ipse eo sine scuto venerat, in primam aciem processit, “[Caesar], having taken a shield from one of the rearmost soldiers, because he himself had arrived there without a shield, came forward into the front line.” Thuc. ..–.; Thucydides focuses on the loss of the Spartan general’s shield at ... Caes. BG ..: nova atque inusitata specie commoti legatos ad Caesarem de pace miserunt, qui ad hunc modum locuti: non se existimare Romanos sine ope divina bellum gerere, qui tantae altitudinis machinationes tanta celeritate promovere et ex propinquitate pugnare possent, “thrown into confusion by the new and unaccustomed appearance they sent legates to Caesar concerning peace, saying that they thought the Romans waged war with divine assistance, since they could move forward devices of such size with such speed and fight from close at hand.” Thuc. ..: ἐχώρουν πρὸς τὴν Συκῆν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, ἵναπερ καθεζόμενοι ἐτείχισαν τὸν κύκλον διὰ τάχους. καὶ ἔκπληξιν τοῖς Συρακοσίοις παρέσχον τῷ τάχει τῆς οἰκοδομίας, “the Athenians went to Syca, where, taking up a position, they swiftly set up their fortification and produced astonishment in the Syracusans on account of the speed of the building.” For an analysis of Thucydidean and Xenophontic allusions in Caesar’s account of Massilia, for example, see Reggi (, –).
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worse people behave, the more extravagantly they are considered (note the “habebatur”) worthy of praise. This praise, moreover, is couched in terms of virtues that no one under normal circumstances would consider such individuals to be displaying. This combination of increasingly positive reinforcement for increasingly negative activity, with a sinister shift in the usual relationship between a deed and its evaluation, is evocative of a famous moment in earlier historiography. This is Thucydides on the nature of civil strife in Corcyra: καὶ τὴν εἰωθυῖαν ἀξίωσιν τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐς τὰ ἔργα ἀντήλλαξαν τῇ δικαιώσει. τόλμα μὲν γὰρ ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρεία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη, μέλλησις δὲ προμηθὴς δειλία εὐπρεπής, τὸ δὲ σῶφρον τοῦ ἀνάνδρου πρόσχημα, καὶ τὸ πρὸς ἅπαν ξυνετὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν ἀργόν, “and they exchanged their usual verbal evaluations of actions for new ones, in the light of what they thought justified; thus irrational daring was considered courage and loyalty to one’s party, far-sighted delay specious cowardice, prudence the cloak of cowardice, and general cleverness general impotence” (Thuc. ..). The Pompeians, in praising rapacious behavior, are showing what Thucydides characterizes as the classic marks of individuals in the grip of intra-civic turmoil. As in the previous examples we have examined, differences merit equivalent attention to similarities. Caesar has made a number of polemical tweaks. In Thucydides’ Corcyra, the whole polity goes bananas. The worst symptoms of civic discord in Caesar are reserved for those on the wrong side. Moreover, Caesar has chosen to highlight financial rapacity as his Exhibit A for the bad behavior of the Pompeians. Money is a factor at Corcyra. The five richest men play an important part as troubles begin (Thuc. ..), and some individuals are murdered by their debtors (Thuc. ..). On the whole, however, money is not the focus of Thucydides’ attention. In Caesar’s BC, by contrast, financial management is a leitmotif. Caesar’s own carefully documented fiscal repair packages in book and at the beginning of book are succeeded by the stasis-suggesting rapacity and wrong-headedness of the other side. This culminates, as we have already seen, in the plundering of temples
It is a (probably fortuitous) irony that book of the BC, in which Caesar’s most extended treatment of the effects of Roman stasis is found, is also the only book of Caesar in which Corcyra itself plays a part (Caes. BC ., –, , –, , and ). Caes. BC ..: Hoc et ad timorem novarum tabularum tollendum minuendumque, qui fere bella et civiles dissensiones sequi consuevit, et ad debitorum tuendam existimationem esse aptissimum existimavit, “He thought that this was best fitted to remove and diminish the fear of debt cancellations, which tends to follow wars and instances of civic strife, and to protect the good faith of debtors.”
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and the riches on display at Pompey’s camp after Pharsalus. Caesar uses an allusion to Thucydidean phrasing in order to suggest, economically, the sort of behavior in which the Pompeians are indulging. But his own diagnosis of how civic strife functions deliberately places its emphases elsewhere. Precise allusion also fuels our final example of the ways in which Caesar can redeploy his Greek predecessors. This appears when Caesar dispatches Vibullius Rufus in a last-ditch attempt to reconcile with Pompey. One particular phrase of his transmitted plea demands our attention: proinde sibi ac rei publicae parcerent, quantum in bello fortuna posset, iam ipsi incommodis suis satis essent documento, “they should spare both themselves and the state, since they were themselves through their own misfortunes sufficient testimony to how much power fortune had in war” (BC ..). The envoy points to the attitudes that the parties have toward this envisaged agreement to illustrate how a presently acceptable situation should be exploited. Again, the parallel passage is in Thucydides, and, again, the episode of Pylos and Sphacteria is illuminating. Thucydides depicts the Spartan envoys to Athens as urging the Athenians to use the current state of the Spartans as a lesson that good times do not necessarily endure: γνῶτε δὲ καὶ ἐς τὰς ἡμετέρας νῦν ξυμφορὰς ἀπιδόντες, οἵτινες ἀξίωμα μέγιστον τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἔχοντες ἥκομεν παρ᾽ ὑμᾶς, πρότερον αὐτοὶ κυριώτεροι νομίζοντες εἶναι δοῦναι ἐφ᾽ ἃ νῦν ἀφιγμένοι ὑμᾶς αἰτούμεθα ... ὥστε οὐκ εἰκὸς ὑμᾶς διὰ τὴν παροῦσαν νῦν ῥώμην πόλεώς τε καὶ τῶν προσγεγενημένων καὶ τὸ τῆς τύχης οἴεσθαι αἰεὶ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἔσεσθαι, “consider also looking on the present fortunes of us who, despite having the highest position of the Greeks, have come to you, having formerly thought ourselves more able to give what we have now come to you to seek ... so that it is not reasonable for you to think on account of the present strength of your city and her accessions that fortune will always abide with you” (Thuc. ..-). Caesar’s version is, once more, an adapted one. The Spartans of Thucydides are presenting a situation where the Athenians are (currently) in the ascendant and they themselves are downcast. Caesar’s point is rather that both he and Pompeius have had their own recent reverses with which to contend. Now is an ideal time to parley, before the balance shifts again. Nonetheless, the appeal from the state of the one offering parley to the fragility of fortune strikingly links the two passages. The reader of Thucydides who comes to the passage in Caesar knows that the narrative
Above, .
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of Pylos and Sphacteria will illustrate in itself the instability of fortune: there will be many switches before the final outcome. While the Athenians will emerge temporarily on top, the restless inability to stay content with what they have that the Spartans identify here will later spawn the Sicilian Expedition. Caesar’s offer is patterned on one which we know that the target did not take – even though it would probably have been a good idea. Studied intertextuality dooms the embassy of Vibullius Rufus, even in the act of speaking.
Conclusion In conclusion, then, the contribution of the Greek historians to Caesar’s Commentarii is a knotty question. Caesar himself is keen, on occasion, to depict his text as one which replaces, rather than builds upon, its predecessors: one of the effects which that single reference to Eratosthenes in the BG produces is a firm statement of difference on a matter of nomenclature between these fine authorities and what has been discovered by Caesar, who is actually there. On the other hand, Greek historiography had already established a spectrum of narrative possibilities which Caesar did not hesitate to exploit. In many cases, what we see is not so much a onefor-one correspondence between Caesar’s text and that of a designated predecessor as the use of topoi which had become common within the historiographical tradition (and may, by this stage, have already become as much part of the property of Latin historiography as of Greek). In some instances, however, Caesar does have a particular passage of a Greek predecessor very clearly in his sights. When he does, study of that relationship is fulfilling. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H The relationship of particular passages of Caesar to particular Greek predecessors has been the subject of several studies: see in particular Bartley () and Pelling () on Caesar and Xenophon and Reggi () and Krebs () on Caesar and Thucydides as well as Grillo () on Caesar and Polybius. The most thoroughgoing study of the tropes of authorship which Caesar shares with his predecessors remains Marincola (). As we have seen above, the study of allusion (whether specific or generic) in Caesar remains an area where there is much to be done, and one that even some
See above, . There is a certain amount of play with writing and knowledge going on elsewhere in this book, too. The druids, notably, are averse to writing any of their secrets down (BG ..).
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quite compendious works on reception have left more or less untouched: Fromentin, Gotteland, and Payen (), for example, which otherwise has a remarkable chronological inclusiveness, nevertheless passes by the reception of Thucydides in Caesar. Caesar’s relationship to Greek predecessors is also relevant to several other interesting areas in thinking about Caesar as an author: how far is his authorial persona comparable to/different from theirs? What of his treatment of time and space?
Caesar and Roman Historiography Prior to the Commentarii Martine Chassignet
Various works have discussed the nature of Caesar’s Commentarii. Are they memoirs? Journalism? Or a piece of political and military propaganda? Or a narrative text? Or all of these at once, as suggested by Rambaud? Tellingly, almost all modern literary histories deny Caesar the title of historian, and yet he appears in most studies of ancient historiography. Numerous analyses, different in kind and perspective, have been devoted to Caesar’s method, focusing on his juxtaposition of three types of material: the briefings of his legati, his correspondence or reports to the senate, and his personal notes. Caesar’s debt to his Roman predecessors, however, remains heavily understudied, and this debt is precisely what I intend to discuss. Modern scholars usually restrict themselves to a comparison of Commentarii either with the Memoirs of Sulla and Cicero on the basis of autobiography or with the annalistic tradition based on chronological organization. Many other histories and autobiographies, however, influenced Caesar’s Commentarii in different ways.
Commentarii Versus Historiography We take our cue from a generally acknowledged fact: a discussion of the ways in which earlier historiography influenced Caesar’s Commentarii is Translated by Dan-el Padilla Peralta and Luca Grillo. As memoir: André and Hus (, ); Cizek (, ). As a work of military and political journalism: Powell and Welch passim. As narrative: Martin and Gaillard (, ). For a sound and updated discussion on the genre of the commentarii, one could also refer to the discussion in Riggsby (). “Memoirs in the service of propaganda, in historical form:” Rambaud (, ); cf. Krebs – in this volume. Examples: André and Hus (), Cizek (), Mehl (), Kierdorf (). But see Walter (, –) and Krebs (), an article that the author made available to me before publication. For the annalistic tradition, see e.g. André and Hus (, ), Martin (, ), and Guillaumin (, ). For the originality of Caesar’s Commentarii as compared to Sulla’s Mémoires, see Cizek (, ).
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complicated by the degree to which the commentarii stand apart from this earlier historiography. Cicero’s judgment in the Brutus attests this problem. In response to Brutus, who mentions “the commentaries which he [i.e. Caesar] has written about his military campaigns,” Cicero declares (): Excellent across the board! They are naked, they go straight to the point, they have a grace devoid of any oratorical flourish, much like a body denuded of clothing. In wishing to furnish material to future historians, he has perhaps brought pleasure to the oafs who will be tempted to apply their curling-irons to it. But he has deterred sensible folks from writing; for there is nothing sweeter in the writing of history than elegant and luminous brevity.
A celebrated passage of Hirtius, who after having served under Caesar undertook the completion of his Commentarii, confirms this perspective. In chapters – of his preface to Book of the Bellum Gallicum he writes: (These commentaries) were published to furnish material to historians concerning these accomplishments – and yet such is the worth ascribed to them that in place of having facilitated the task of historians they have rendered it impossible.
Both Cicero and Hirtius leave little doubt: the aim was to furnish material, not to write history, and consequently they do not fall under the penumbra of historiography. Two other passages confirm the idea that Caesar was not seen as a historian. The first we owe to Cicero, who in De Legibus (written in , after the BG had been published) deplores Rome’s ongoing lack of a historian, thus implying that he did not see Caesar as such (Leg. .). Similarly, Quintilian’s inventory of Latin historians does not include Caesar; instead he mentions him among the orators. Modern scholars have chimed in and underlined just what precisely differentiates the commentarii from typical works of historiography: ) the title commentarii ) the absence of a preface, traditionally placed at the beginning of a historical work ) the absence of a conclusion, in contrast to the scintillating finale of, say, Sallust’s Catiline and Bellum Iugurthinum ) the virtual absence of “authorial intrusion,” as again in contrast to the practice of Sallust and other historians
Quint. Inst. .–, .
Martin (, ); Flach (, –).
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) the abundance of indirect discourse (almost to the exclusion of direct discourse), at least in the BG ) the conspicuous lack of rhetorical adornment, which constitutes a standard feature of historical works. Clearly, apart from being well-written and dealing with events close to the author’s lifetime, neither the BG nor the BC conform to Cicero’s historiographic expectations. To wit: a history had to be an essentially rhetorical work; to research the causes of deeds; to aim at the truth; and, in attributing an exemplary status to the past, it had to pursue a moral objective. In short, the Commentarii do not fall in line with the characteristics of Roman historiography prior to Caesar. Let us recall that Roman historiography began with Fabius Pictor, at the end of the third century . In this first stage, which ended around , Roman historiography was not confined to one specific literary form. The various texts more or less fall into two categories, annales and historiae, but their borders, carefully delimited in theory, prove much harder to discern in practice. Sometimes, the generic term “annalists” designates those historians who wrote annales, from the originators of Roman historiography to Aelius Tubero; more often, however, it includes the entire group of Republican historians prior to Cicero, authors of annales or of historiae alike, whose works survive for us only in fragmentary form. Of these two types of writing, the more ancient appears to have been the annales, whose etymology (ab anno) was very clearly perceived in antiquity. According to Cicero, this literary form took its inspiration from the tabula dealbata of the Pontifex Maximus and from the annales maximi. The authors of annales thus followed an annual narrative structure. Moreover, their works exhibited another characteristic: their subject was the history of Rome from the origins of the city to the author’s lifetime. In contrast to the annales, which extended over a great number of years and followed the sequence of facts, historiae were associated with events within the author’s lifetime and thus focused more on contemporary history. To these two forms of historiography let us add Cato’s Origines, which occupies a separate place in Latin literature. This work recounts the origins of Rome and the Italian cities, and then proceeds to the history of the period immediately prior to and contemporary with the censor’s lifetime.
Cf. Nousek – in this volume. Chassignet (, VII–VIII) and for further discussion Krebs (). Cf. Chassignet (, XXIII–XLII); Cornell (, vol. , –). Chassignet (, X–XII); Cornell (, vol. , –).
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In this way it breaks with the annalistic tradition of chronological sequence in favor of an ethnological framework; it opens a window to the nonRoman world, reflects on the identity of Italy, and lastly innovates by inserting composed speeches into the body of its narrative. It is significant that neither the BG nor the BC received the title of Annales or Historiae. The two were commentarii, as documented by Hirtius’ word choice in the preface to Book (), the passage from Cicero’s Brutus discussed above, by Suetonius’ testimony (Iul. ) and the subscripts to the manuscripts of both works: C. Iulii Caesaris Commentarii Rerum Gestarum. The commentarius (liber) or commentarium has a more limited and technical character: it could be a collection of commenta, the records of the priestly colleges or of magistrates; it could also be a domestic journal in which wealthy families or merchants would have recorded daily events and enterprises. Additionally the word can refer to the minutes of an assembly or a tribunal, or a general outline for a speech or literary work (notes, a synopsis, or a sketch). Finally, the term commentarii was applied to personal memoirs, which discussed the predicaments of their authors and events related thereto. To this category belongs Cicero’s Commentarius de Consulatu Suo composed in Greek in : Cicero sent it to Posidonius hoping that he would mold it into a form commensurate with his glory, as he had done some time before for Pompey. The term thus served to designate a work that praised the actions undertaken by the author (or a select part of it) and would furnish useful material to historians for their own work. The text would necessarily be subjective; it would be precise and clear but without any rhetorical flourish, in contrast to the historia of the type recognized by the Greeks and elaborated by Cicero in his definition of the opus oratorium maxime.
Bömer (), Thédenat (), Rüpke (a), Kaster (), Riggsby (, ). See also ThLL , s.v. commentarius (-um) col. –. Of the entry’s two definitions, the first is of direct relevance to our project: I. notae, tabulae, collectio, summaria comminiscendi causa facta, with its two subdefinitions: A. spectat ad administrationem vel publicam vel privatim; B. spectat ad usum litterarum. . collectio, congestio rerum locorum verborum ad scientiam firmandam augendam facta; . breviarium, capita, summa, chirographum orationis vel rei docendae, tractandae. The second definition is somewhat further removed from our topic: doctrinae vel artis expositio, fore i.q. opusculum, libellus, pluralis significant interdum partes, libros -ii. Cic. Att. .., ..–. The term commentarii surfaces again in Fam. ..: Cicero, in a letter addressed to the praetor L. Lucceius, asks him whether he would be willing to compose a monograph that took as its subject Cicero’s actions from the coniuratio of Catiline to his (Cicero’s) return from exile in . Should Lucceius respond favorably to the request, Cicero promises to send him commentarios rerum omnium (commentaries on his accomplishments) on which to base his work.
Caesar and Previous Roman Historiography
In light of these peculiarities of Caesar’s Commentarii, are we to affirm that they are not embedded unto the tradition of some of their predecessors? The hurdles seem difficult to overcome; connections to possible precedents might appear tenuous, but they nevertheless exist.
Annalistic Structure First, we should not forget that the Commentarii follow an annalistic arrangement. Both in the BG and in the BC, events are organized by a year-to-year frame: each book begins with the opening of the campaign season in the spring and ends with the conclusion to military operations at the end of the fall and the quartering of troops for the winter. Book covers the events of , Book those of , and so on up to , the focus of Book . Within the annalistic frame, each book is subdivided into large chunks, each concerned with a specific campaign. At first glance, the BC does not seem to follow this same pattern. The work narrates the events of and , beginning from the account of the senate meeting on January , , continuing with the death of Pompey and the first episodes of the Alexandrine War, and ending abruptly in the middle of November . If we believe the majority of the manuscripts, the narrative of these two years is divided into three books, with Books and allotted to and Book to . If we take a closer look, however, it becomes apparent that this division into three books, traditional though it might be, has scarcely any foundation. Four of the eight manuscripts that have preserved the BC for us do not separate Books and ; two of these four (S and N) have Book as the tenth book of Caesar’s entire corpus. With the number of books being reckoned from the beginning of the BG (which consists of eight books), the tenth book of the Commentarii is therefore the second and not the third of the BC. The most striking confirmation of the original division of the BC is undoubtedly a passage from Hirtius: halfway through Book of the BG, as he transitions from to , he feels the need to justify himself in a second preface (BG ..), where he differentiates himself from Caesar who “had composed a commentary for each year.” If we refer to Hirtius’ first preface, it seems that the remark applies as much to the BC as to the BG: there (praef. ) Hirtius claims to have “joined to the Gallic commentarii of our dear Caesar what was missing” and to have “linked them up with the subsequent writings of the same author.”
Fabre (, vol. , XVI–XVIII), followed by Klotz in his Teubner edition. Contra: Batstone and Damon (, –); Grillo (, –).
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An Account of Experienced Events, Typical of Historiae Though they follow an annalistic structure, the Commentarii also display features which are typical of historiae. As seen above, the main difference is that annales focus on past events, but historiae are associated with events that their author experienced directly. This distinction can be traced back to the first two fragments of Sempronius Asellio, whose Res Gestae covered contemporary history (from the Numantine war to the death of Drusus in ). Later, the Augustan historian Verrius Flaccus, employing the Greek word historia, which indicates knowledge of current events, explicitly formalized such a difference: historiae were concerned with directly experienced events, while annals instead narrated past events. Servius, following this distinction, insists on the visual experience needed for writing historiae, as does Isidore. Of course, Rutilius Rufus, who wrote Historiae in Greek toward the beginning of the first century is the inventor of this genre; and without doubt the characteristics of the genre were then shaped and molded by Sisenna. His Historiae were published around , mainly to justify Sulla’s deeds, and must have covered the events between and . Under such a distinction, clearly the Commentarii resemble historiae, given the former’s content, and especially given that it accounts for events Caesar experienced and “saw.” Beyond this, assessing Caesar’s debt to Sisenna is difficult, because of the problematic transmission of his work: indeed the fragments, mostly preserved by Nonius, are generally very short and allow only for very specific lexical and stylistic comparisons.
Geographic and Ethnographic Developments The ethnographic and geographic interludes in the Caesarian narrative (particularly in the BG) undeniably resemble some passages in a number of earlier Roman historians. For example, we might call to mind the description of the Italic peoples in Books and of Cato’s Origines. To be sure, no extant historiographic text written before Caesar engages in a
Gell. ..–. Serv. ., Isid. Etym. . and ... On the difference between annales and historiae, see Chassignet (, IX–XIII). On the Historiae of Rutilius Rufus, attested by Athenaeus and Plutarch, see Chassignet (a, XIV–XVI); Smith (c). On Sisenna, see Chassignet (a, XXXVIII–XLIX); Briscoe (a). But see Krebs , who establishes linguistic and stylistic parallels between Sisenna’s Historiae and Caesar’s Commentarii and concludes that Caesar, rather than simply knowing Sisenna, imitated him in the Commentarii.
Caesar and Previous Roman Historiography
digression as long as the one he devotes to the Gauls and Germans (BG .–). The various digressions of the BG (the description of Gaul at ., the elucidation of the customs of the Suevi at .–, the description of the Meuse and the Rhine at ., the description of Britain and its inhabitants at .–, or the above-mentioned excursus on the Gauls and Germans) have been variously interpreted: some scholars believe that Caesar’s secretaries compiled them from Greek geographical works concerning the peoples whom Caesar fought. While Caesar would not be directly responsible for these compilations, he would still have intended them to figure prominently in the BG. Other scholars have taken these digressions as the product of Caesar’s own hand. In either case, one cannot avoid being struck by the similarities that exist between Cato’s presentation of Gallia Cisalpina (in Book of the Origines) and Caesar’s presentation of Gallia Comata in the BG. First, they offer a similar vision of an idealized land of plenty whose resources they elucidate. Cato mentions the Gallic poppy, the abundant salted pork, the wine output of the ager Gallicus Romanus (fr. ., ., . Ch = fr. , , Cornell); everything there is extraordinary, from the Alpine mice that weigh eleven pounds, to the onefooted pigs, the unusually hairy dogs, and the horn-less bulls (fr. . BeckWalter ap. Paradox. Palat. Giannini = fr. Cornell). Noticeably, Caesar counts on his first-hand knowledge and mentions forests as a source of commercial profit, derived from wood for heating and timber for shipbuilding; wheat grown by the Aedui and the Sequani, the Remi, the Leuci and the Lingones; and wheat stored by the Veneti and by the inhabitants of Avaricum. But our list would be incomplete without including the passages devoted to animal husbandry (both of horses and of beasts for slaughter and clothing) and the resources for hunting, the natural complement of agriculture and animal husbandry. In both of Cato and Caesar’s sketches, the vision of the countryside is utilitarian and oriented toward rent extraction. Caesar and Cato conceived their works differently, but they unmistakably converge on a second point: their works reflect Roman imperialism and, at the same time, the ideology or propagandistic ambition of their authors. Cato saw in the exploitation of the Cisalpine countryside an illustration of his conception of agriculture, fully geared toward productivity but above all guaranteeing the preservation of ancient virtues. Caesar, for his part, succeeded in skillfully showing how the conquest of Gaul was inevitable and how this conquest retroactively demonstrated the
Chassignet (b). Cf. Riggsby – in this volume. For references to the Caesarian corpus: Chassignet (b, –).
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potential menace that the Gauls would have posed to Italy; he presents himself as a hero who had triumphed in the conquest and pacification of a country endowed with considerable agricultural and human resources.
Numerical Figures Other elements of Caesar’s work find antecedents in previous Roman historiography. First we might consider the presence of numerical figures in the text: miles separate Lake Geneva from the Jura mountain range (BG ..); miles the Sicoris river from the Cinga river near Ilerda (BC ..); the siege works around Alesia or near Dyrrachium have a perimeter of specific lengths (BG .–; BC ..); towers of Quintus Cicero’s camp total (BG ..). The men killed or taken prisoner are often numbered. , Pompeians fell at Pharsalus, as opposed to Caesarians, thirty of whom were centurions (BC ..–). Equally remarkable is Caesar’s precision in counting the people who want to immigrate to western Gaul: , Helvetii, , Tulingi, , Latovici, , Rauraci and , Boii totaling , people, of whom , were capable of bearing arms (BG ..–). To take another example: at the battle of Alesia, , Romans are trapped between the fortress containing Vercingetorix’s , soldiers and a reinforcement army of , Gallic foot-soldiers and , knights (BG .–, ). Caesar’s predilection for figures when listing troop deployments is a fixture of the BG, but we can find examples also in the BC: he gives numbers both for Pompeian forces at the beginning of (.) and for Pompey’s and his soldiers present at Pharsalus (. and .). We should not hesitate to compare these figures to the measurement of the perimeter of Lake Como provided by Cato (Origines fr. . Ch = fr. Cornell), or that of the distance from Spanish Cartagena to the Po valley in Coelius Antipater’s narrative of the Second Punic War (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell). We might also recall the figure of soldiers led to their death by the Roman tribune in order to save the rest of the Roman army during the First Punic War (–), an exploit also narrated by Cato in the Origines (fr. .a Ch = fr. Cornell). Similarly irresistible is a comparison with the numerical elaborations of Acilius or of Claudius Quadrigarius, or better yet with the hypertrophic figures (denounced by Livy as mendacious) of the first-century annalist Valerius Antias. Comparing three
Livy .., concerning fr. Ch: “The figure is so large that either its invention is a shameless fiction or its omission exceedingly careless.” The same condemnation resurfaces at .., .., and ..–.
Caesar and Previous Roman Historiography
fragments of Acilius, Claudius Quadrigarius, and Valerius Antias will illustrate this practice. Reporting the same event, the capture of two Punic camps by L. Marcius in , Acilius (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell) and Claudius Quadrigarius (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell) state that , enemies were killed in the engagement and , taken prisoner. Valerius Antias gives a total of , killed and , captured in two separate military operations (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell): first the seizure of Mago’s sole camp, then a follow-up sortie against Hasdrubal. According to Calpurnius Piso (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell), , Carthaginians were killed in an ambush sprung on Mago as he pursued the Romans. Overestimation is par for the course in Valerius Antias, who exaggerates the number of scorpions (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell), enemy killed in battle, or the total of two piles of booty (fr. – Ch = fr. – Cornell). Critics underlined the enormous number of defeated enemies killed or taken prisoner. We will not take up anew the debate over the authenticity of the Caesarian figures. It will suffice here to say that, even if Caesar exaggerated, he was only following a tradition at once both military and historiographic, Greek as well as Roman, and unmistakably attested in Valerius Antias. Just as numerical figures are characteristic of historiography, so is the insertion of speeches.
The Insertion of Speeches From Herodotus and Thucydides onward, speeches were an indispensable feature of every historical work. Almost always these speeches were fictional, either because they had never actually been delivered, or because the historian adorned the original according to the rhetorical practices of his time. The ancients did not view such speeches as problems; rather they accepted them as literary constructions that filled out the narrative’s exposition, illustrated in dramatic form the character of specific individuals, or developed political or moral concepts. The first Latin historian to have made use of speeches is Cato the Censor, who inserted two of his own speeches into the Origines: the Pro Rhodiensibus in Book (fr. . a–g Ch = fr. – Cornell) and the Contra Ser. Galbam in Book (fr. .– Ch = fr. , , and Cornell). The Pro Rhodiensibus, delivered in , offers an exposition of a specific philosophy of conquest
Rambaud (, n. ). On speeches in the Commentarii, cf. Grillo – in this volume. See Aulus Gellius (()..) and Livy (..) for the Pro Rhodiensibus, Cicero (Brut. ), the Livian periochae (Per. .), and Aulus Gellius (..) for the Contra Ser. Galbam.
M. CHASSIGNET
and empire together with its moral and political implications. From start to finish it is a propagandistic text, very close in spirit to the open letters that circulated in the second century. Among other things, the speech allows Cato to pursue themes dear to him, like the iustum bellum, fides, and, above all, superbia and ferocia, subsequently taken up by Sallust. The Contra Ser. Galbam, which dates to , revisits the theme of fides and provides Cato with an opportunity to give vent to his bitterness at the acquittal of Galba. To be sure, it is difficult to make full sense of the fragmentary historians, since our knowledge relies solely on the citations or paraphrases of later authors. Nonetheless, it is common knowledge that other historians besides Cato resorted to the use of speeches, in the form of direct or indirect discourse, as documented by various fragments. Both Sisenna (fr. , , , , , and Ch = , , , , , and Cornell) and Valerius Antias (fr. Ch) reproduce the speeches (authentic or not) delivered in the course of the trial of the Scipiones, focusing on the speeches of the two defendants and Ti. Sempronius Gracchus. Caesar in turn would avail himself of this practice: speeches abound in both the BG and the BC. It has been rightly observed that most speeches are in indirect discourse until Book of the BG and in Book of the BC, while speeches in direct discourse appear in Book of the BG and in Book and of the BC. Some of these speeches conform to the characters of the individuals who deliver them, in keeping with Thucydides’ instructive remarks. So for example Ariovistus, in a celebrated speech, displays a contemptuous tone commensurate with his pride, whereas Caesar responds to him in a calm and dignified manner (BG .–). Speeches are also a weapon for self-justification, especially in the BC. Caesar’s concern for self-justification explains the abundance of speeches which round out or frame the narrative of events, as if to draw out some type of lesson. In this respect, the BG contrasts sharply with the BC, whose clauses resound like the clash of cymbals. In the first thirty-two chapters immediately preceding the passage of Caesar’s legislation (covering the events of January to March , ), there are no fewer than nineteen speeches. Put differently, fourteen out of the thirty-two chapters (that is,
On the question of the authenticity of P. Scipio’s speech, Gell. .. and are in support; Scullard (, – no. ) against. Rasmussen (); Grillo – in this volume. Cizek (, ). Contra Rambaud (, ) thinks that “Caesar did not attempt to compose a piece of oratory, which would have maintained the tradition of Thucydides or of Polybius.” Martin (, ). Cf. Rambaud (, –).
Caesar and Previous Roman Historiography
almost half of them) either are speeches or feature them. Of these nineteen speeches, six are placed in Caesar’s mouth, including his famous uninterrupted address to the senate, which is paired with his contio before the th Legion (BC ..– and .).
A Political Autobiography? Having taken into account this practice of self-justification, should we return to affinities with the historiographic genre? Might the commentarii be closer to the genre of political autobiography? The time of the Gracchi saw the development of political autobiography, a new literary genre, closely related to historiography and characteristically Roman. The first memoir-writers were undoubtedly more numerous than we think. The first known one is M. Aemilius Scaurus, princeps senatus and author of a De Vita Sua in three books, published posthumously between and . To reckon from the seven fragments that have survived, Scaurus began the narrative with his youth (fr. Ch = fr. Cornell) and subsequently followed a chronological order up to the Social war. On the heels of Scaurus came P. Rutilius Rufus, himself author of a De Vita Sua (in five books), that probably responded to the memoirs of Scaurus; an important part of this work was almost certainly devoted to Rufus’ trial in . From the fragments in our possession we might infer that both these texts embraced the entirety of their authors’ lives. Q. Lutatius Catulus’ De Consulatu et De Rebus Gestis, however, covered a shorter period and was limited to one book dealing with – . In his account of the events of , the author indulges in a personal apologia: his version of the battle of Vercellae reproached Marius for his inappropriate actions. According to some modern scholars, this book should be considered a commentarius. The Res Gestae of Sulla, the man who vengefully persecuted Marius’ nephew, were considerably heftier, consisting as they did of twenty-eight books; these undoubtedly gave a definitive structure to the genre, focusing it on larger political matters and on the apologiae of stand-out political personalities. But to which did they belong? Plutarch calls these memoirs hypomnemata nine times, and once
Misch (, –). Bates (, –). We cannot rule out the possibility that C. Sempronius Gracchus was the first Roman to author an autobiography. In the two fragments that have come down to us (fr. and P = fr. and Cornell). For the problems posed by these two fragments, see the good assessment by Briscoe (b). Misch (, ).
M. CHASSIGNET
hai autou praxeis, while Cicero calls it a historia; Aulus Gellius mentions Sulla’s Libri Rerum Gestarum and Priscian Sulla’s Libri Rerum Suarum. Probably, the exact title should have been L. Cornelii Sullae Res Gestae or L. Cornelii Sullae Commentarii Rerum Gestarum, and the work was certainly dedicated to Lucullus, “with the understanding that he would put it in order and present its contents better than anyone else might” (Sulla fr. Ch = fr. Cornell ap. Plut. Luc. .). This brings us back to the definition of the commentarius discussed above. Judging from the twenty-three bits of text that have come down to us (mostly through the mediation of Plutarch), Sulla described his participation in the Cimbrian War and explained his first failure at securing the praetorship, and among his successes he highlighted the capture of Nola. In addition, he described his attitude in the face of P. Sulpicius Rufus’ betrayal in ; some of the fragments address his actions in Greece during the civil war; and, finally, the last testimonium discusses the dream prophesying his death. No extract about his dictatorship has come down to us. Assimilating Caesar’s Commentarii into the autobiographical genre is a tempting proposition. Just like the above-mentioned political autobiographies, the Commentarii are a personal work geared towards their author’s self-defense or apologia. This tendentiousness, already on full display in the BG, is even more prominent in the BC. Its characterizing features are the sustained deployment of rhetorical techniques, in particular the number of direct speeches placed in Caesar’s mouth. In spirit, both Commentarii are closer to Rutilius Rufus’ De Vita Sua and to Lutatius Catulus’ De Consulatu et De Rebus Gestis than to their Historiae or Communis Historia. Equally striking is their affinity with the apologetic aims of Sulla’s autobiography: Sulla’s idiosyncratic emphasis on the felicitas he claimed to enjoy receives its counterpart in Fortuna, a genuine leitmotif of Caesar’s work. To be sure, the differences remain important. To those noted by L. Grillo in his work dedicated to the BC, we must add a fact of primary importance: in contrast to Sulla’s memoirs, Caesar’s Commentarii are
Chassignet (a, vol. , CI and –); Smith (a). To judge from the seven fragments of the Historiae of Rutilius Rufus that have come down to us, his work – in keeping with the definition of the genre of historia – must have had as its subject the history of events close to or contemporary with the author’s own lifetime. The subject of Lutatius Catulus’ Communis Historia is much harder to pin down; see Chassignet (a, XX) and Smith (b). On the difference between Sulla’s felicitas and Caesar’s fortuna, see Grillo (, ). Grillo (, –).
Caesar and Previous Roman Historiography
written in the third, rather than first person. Thus Caesar creates a distancing effect, an apparent objectivity, by presenting himself from beginning to end in the third person – as a historical personage exterior to himself, the author. This practice is by no means anodyne: The fundamental contribution of the Commentarii to the glory of Caesar is their repetition of his name on almost each page: they make it ever present, they impose it . . . The use of the third person, a practice in which some have claimed to recognize a mark of his modesty and impartiality, underpins this obsession.
Moreover, Caesar’s manner of writing belongs to the historiographic genre. Commentarii often designed an unfinished product, which could be recast into a final form, but in fact already Cicero (Brut. ) and Hirtius (BG praef. –) acknowledged that Caesar’s are surprisingly polished. Their above-mentioned testimonies agree and demonstrate that theoretically Caesar’s works, as military and political accounts of his activity, could be reused by a professional historian in the manner of the Sullan commentarii; at the same time, however, if we believe them, both the BG and the BC were composed in such a satisfying way as to discourage any effort at exornatio. Their natural elegantia satisfactorily substitutes for such exornatio. Indeed, Caesar’s prose strikes the reader through its simplicity and brevity, the primary attributes of historical writing in the eyes of Cicero. Moreover a considerable number of Caesarian expressions correspond to the phraseology of historical narrative. We might also note that Caesar’s stylistic skillfulness, in particular the recourse to binary groupings that endow the text with clarity and precision, was already on display in the work of Elder Cato (fr. .a Ch = Cornell) and of Claudius Quadrigarius (fr. Ch, not taken into account in Cornell’s edition). In conclusion, Caesar was almost certainly familiar with the works of his predecessors and had read them, at least partially. He had a first-rate literary education, and took lessons first from the grammarian M. Antonius Gnipho and subsequently from the rhetor Molo at Rhodes.
Rambaud (, –). On the introduction of the third person, see also Riggsby (, –), Grillo (, –) and – in this volume and Pelling (). Cf. Woodman (). Chausserie-Laprée (, ). On the lessons of Antonius Gnipho, cf. Suet. Gram. .. Suetonius’ statement – “He [sc. Antonius Gnipho] taught first in the house of the divine Julius, an infant at the time, then in his own” – is ambiguous; it cannot be excluded that Antonius Gnipho taught in the house where Caesar lived without actually having been his teacher. On the instruction Caesar received from Apollonius Molo at Rhodes: Suet. Iul. . and Plut. Caes. .. On Caesar’s education, see Carcopino (, ).
M. CHASSIGNET
Accordingly, Suetonius provides us with a fine page of literary history centered on Caesar: at Iul. – he lists his other writings, which unfortunately are lost to us, because Augustus banned them as unworthy of his divine “father.” We can be certain of Caesar’s refinement and learned interests; and both Cicero’s elogium to his eloquence and Caesar’s own speeches to his troops and to the senate at the beginning of the civil war document his awareness of the power of words. The Commentarii themselves constitute one more way in which Caesar deploys this power: first to convince the Romans that he was the only man capable of bringing an end to the Gallic nightmare that had haunted the Romans for five centuries; then both to justify his actions in the civil war, in a work that swings between pamphlet and apologia, and to enhance his self-image as a reluctant fighter, eager to exercise clemency over the defeated. Caesar’s originality lies in his synthesis of earlier annales, historiae, commentarii, and political autobiography into his own atypical work. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H For an excellent overview of historiography before Caesar (including political autobiography), see Suerbaum (); for a collection of the fragments, other than Chassignet (, , and a), with translations and notes in French, see Beck and Walter ( and ), with translation and commentary in German, as well as Cornell et al. (), with translation and commentary in English. For political autobiography, see Chassignet () and Walter (), but also Bates (). On Caesar and Sisenna, see Krebs () A comparison between Sulla’s felicitas and Caesar’s fortuna would certainly bear much fruit; see some premier reflection in Guillaumin (, ) and Grillo (, ).
Cic. Brut. . This pronouncement, which dates to and could therefore be construed as flattery directed at Rome’s master, is confirmed by the opinion expressed by Cicero himself in a letter addressed to Cornelius Nepos (cited by Suet. Iul. .).
The Corpus Caesarianum Jan Felix Gaertner
When Caesar was stabbed to death on the Ides of March in , not only his plan of a comprehensive reform of the Roman state was unfinished, but also the account of his deeds during the Gallic and civil wars. At this point, only the first seven books of the Gallic War had been written and published. Caesar’s deeds during the last two years of his proconsulship in Gaul still had to be described, and his narrative of the civil war was both incomplete and unpublished. After Caesar’s assassination, his followers published the drafts which they found in Caesar’s Nachlass and closed the gaps by adding an eighth book to the Gallic War and composing the Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africum, and Bellum Hispaniense. Many details of this process are still a matter of debate. Therefore, it is best to start with the style and literary technique of the four supplements and treat the question of authorship and the composition of the so-called Corpus Caesarianum at the end.
The Eighth Book of the Bellum Gallicum The eighth book of the BG consists of a prefatory letter to Caesar’s friend and follower Lucius Cornelius Balbus (Epistula ad Balbum) and an account of the last two years of Caesar’s proconsulship in Gaul (i.e. the years – ). Its end and the beginning of the subsequent book (i.e. BC ) appear to have been lost in the process of transmission. At first sight, the style of the historical narrative closely resembles that of the previous books of the BG. The syntax and morphology are largely consonant with the conventions of “classical” Latin, and most of the words used in BG are also attested in the Caesarian commentarii.
Cf. e.g. Nipperdey (, ), Collins , Richter (, –), Gaertner and Hausburg (, –). Cf. Richter (, ). Cf. Canali (, ), Richter (, ), Buffa (, ).
J. F. GAERTNER
When looked at more closely, however, a few differences emerge. The author employs more specialized, technical vocabulary than Caesar, and many iuncturae (or combinations of words) can be contrasted with similar, but different phrases in the Caesarian commentarii or have their closest parallels in Cicero. Moreover, the author sometimes uses bulky or slightly awkward phrases where Caesar would have chosen a simpler and plainer expression, he makes more extensive use of the relative connective, and he likes to artificially postpone the conjunction cum and dependent genitives. More prominent are the differences in narrative technique and format. The author consciously diverges from the year-by-year structure of the preceding Caesarian commentarii and adds the events of the year after a short second preface (..–). Also, he paraphrases utterances of the historical figures in indirect speech and concentrates on giving a chronological account of the historical facts. This resembles Caesar’s practice in the early books of the BG, but stands in stark contrast to the later books of the BG and BC, where Caesar inserts passages of direct speech and fashions his account in a more dramatic and captivating fashion. Finally, there are also differences in the evaluation of the historical events and the temporal perspective. Whereas Caesar generally abstains from explicitly commenting on the events, the author of BG evaluates persons and events by remarks such as re bene gesta (..). Furthermore, the portrayal of Caesar is influenced by the propaganda of the civil war, for the author takes Caesar’s clementia, which had been a key element of his self-presentation in the s , as an established fact (..). Surprisingly, however, he does not suppress incidents that could cast doubt on Caesar’s mildness such as the cruel punishment of
Cf. e.g. loricula (Hirt. BG ..). Klotz’s view (, –) that the author is unfamiliar with the military terminology has been thoroughly refuted by Bojkowitsch (–). Cf. e.g. impressionem facere (..) instead of invadere or sine ullo paene militis vulnere (..) instead of incolumis. Cf. Buffa (, ). Cf. e.g. .. and Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel (, th edn, vol. , ). Cf. e.g. ..: primum adventum potuerant effugere Romanorum and Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel (, th edn, vol. , ). For further characteristic traits see Satô (–) (omission of esse in future infinitives, gerunds, etc.), Canali () (vocabulary), and Buffa (, –). Cf. Richter (, ), Buffa (, –). Cf. Richter (, –) and the detailed analysis of BG by Scholz (). Cf. e.g. Griffin (, –) and Grillo (, –), with further literature. Cf. Richter (, ).
The Corpus Caesarianum
the male population of Uxellodunum (..) or the attempt to assassinate Commius (..–).
The Bellum Hispaniense The three supplements to Caesar’s account of the civil war have been regarded as far less polished than BG and are often connected with the concept of “colloquial” Latin. This view has been most strongly expressed with regard to the Bellum Hispaniense, and so it seems best not to follow the chronological arrangement of the medieval manuscripts (i.e. Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africum, Bellum Hispaniense), but to discuss the three texts in reverse order. The Bellum Hispaniense, which describes Caesar’s campaign in Spain between December and May , has been generally regarded as a piece of poor writing. Some scholars have thought that the author was a simple, uneducated soldier whose mother tongue was not Latin. The linguistic evidence adduced in favor of this view seems impressive at first sight, but there are several facts that diminish its significance. Firstly, the Bellum Hispaniense has been transmitted in a much worse condition than the rest of the Corpus Caesarianum: the end of the work is missing, and the text is often corrupt or lacunose. Consequently, some of the linguistic defects have to be attributed to the transmission and not to the author. Secondly, the references to Ennius and the allusions to Furius Bibaculus’ epic on the Gallic war show that the author tries to give some epic splendor to his account and must have received at least some basic education. Thirdly, the standard of “classical” Latin, against which the Bellum Hispaniense tends to be measured, gradually developed during the late Republic and only became normative in later times. Hence, it would be a-historical to judge the Bellum Hispaniense by the norm of “classical” Latin and declare it a subliterary text. And fourthly, many of the alleged
Cf. Scholz (, –, –), Richter (, –). Cf. Clarke (, ), Madvig (, ), Norden (, ), Pascucci (, ), Richter (, ), Diouron (, lxx–lxxxiii). For further references see Gaertner (, ). Cf. Goduinus (, ), Wölfflin (a, and , ). Cf. Heubner (, –), Faller (, –), Pascucci (, –), Richter (, –), Diouron (, lxx–lxxxiii). Cf. ., . and Wölfflin (a), van Hooff (, –). Cf. ., Hor. S. ..–, Furius Bibaculus fr. Courtney with Courtney’s note ad loc. (, ) and Diouron (, –), Gaertner (, n. ), Hollis (, –) interprets Horace’s words as alluding to an (other unattested) Aethiopis of Furius Bibaculus. Cf. e.g. Adams ().
J. F. GAERTNER
substandard features have parallels in late annalistic prose, Cicero, Caesar, or other roughly contemporary texts and hardly qualify as evidence for a subliterary character for the work. Moreover, the most characteristic features of the Bellum Hispaniense such as the fondness for poetic expressions, the preference for paratactic constructions, the extensive use of compound verbs, coepisse + infinitive, and expressions of the type facere + noun all have close parallels in Claudius Quadrigarius and Sisenna. This suggests that the author imitated the style of late annalistic prose and never intended to write Caesarian or Ciceronian Latin. In the light of the linguistic links with late annalistic prose, one should also take a fresh look at the contents and literary technique of the work. The Bellum Hispaniense has often been called a soldier’s diary. This view is hardly surprising, for the account closely observes the chronological order of the events and is structured by expressions such as postero die, the next day (., al.), insequenti die, the following day (., al.), insequenti nocte, the following night (., .), or insequenti luce, the following night (., ., .). Also, many passages in chapters – and – read like a day-by-day record of booties and successes, desertions, casualties, indecisive skirmishes, and insignificant details. Furthermore, the author often fails to introduce the historical actors because he seems to assume that the reader has the same knowledge as he himself, and on one occasion he even explicitly admits that certain pieces of information should have been given at an earlier point of the narrative (.). Such defects, which could have easily been removed, convey the impression that the work was not meant to be published in its present form. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of a soldier’s diary fails to do justice to the text. To begin with, the author had access to the reports coming in from
Cf. Gaertner (, –). Cf. Gaertner (, –). See e.g. Clarke (, ), Oudendorp (, vol. , ), Kohl (). See also Alonso-Núñez (–, ). Cf. especially .–, ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., where the strictly chronological organization leads to abrupt shifts of focus. Cf. ., ., ., ., ., .–, .–. Cf. .–, ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .. Cf. e.g. ., ., ., ., ., ., .. Cf. especially ., .–, ., ., .–, .–., .–, .–, .– and the author’s interest in minor stratagems and tricks at .– and .–. Cf. e.g. . (slaughter of hospites at Ategua), .–. (negotiations with Tullius and Cato Lusitanus), .–, . (tale of a slave who murdered his master and fled to Caesar’s camp), . (escape of a matrona from the besieged Ategua), . (punishment of a soldier who killed his brother). Cf. e.g. .– (rather short introduction of T. Quinctius Scapula) and . (Fabius Maximus).
The Corpus Caesarianum
various military units and was informed about Caesar’s communication with the enemy (.–.) and various Spanish cities. Consequently, he cannot have been a simple soldier, but probably belonged to Caesar’s general staff or was a secretary in his headquarters. Furthermore, the diary-like appearance and the clustering of minor details partly result from the fact that Caesar’s operations near Ategua were largely a sort of phoney war. The author could have easily condensed the narrative, but he can hardly be said to be ignorant or to withhold important pieces of information. Furthermore, we should keep in mind that the selection and presentation of the information need not result from incompetence, but could reflect a conscious decision: just as Ammianus, an experienced and well-informed officer, focuses on the gruesome details of the battle of Strasbourg and gives a sketchy account of the military operations, the author of the Bellum Hispaniense may have deliberately chosen not to write a precise account for scholars of military history, but to give an impression of the daily atrocities. Finally, the author’s preferences and his narrative technique are neither unprecedented nor subliterary. His most obvious source of inspiration is epic poetry. The author not only quotes epic expressions (see above), but also styles his narrative in an epic fashion. In his battle descriptions he zooms in on Einzelszenen and compares the events with epic precedents or evokes famous episodes such as the fighting around Patroclus’ corpse or the duel between Menelaus and Paris. Just as important is the influence of early Roman historiography. The fragments of Quadrigarius or Sisenna often reveal a similar fondness for duels and graphic descriptions of the brutality of war. In addition,
Cf. e.g. .–, .– (information on the deployment of various units), ., ., ., ., . (information obtained from deserters who come into Caesar’s camp), and ., .– (intercepted messages). Cf. e.g. .–, .– (capitulation of Ategua), .– (negotiations with the inhabitants of Bursao). Cf. Amm. Marc. ..– and Flach (, ). Cf. the detailed account of Pompey’s injuries (., .), the references to heaps of dead bodies (., .–), and the mention of atrocities committed by the adversarii (., .–, .–, ., ., ., .–, .–, ., ., .–) and by the Caesarians (.–, ., ., .–, .–). Cf. .– (aristeia of two centurions of the fifth legion). Cf. . and n. above. Cf. B. Hisp. . and Hom. Il. .–.. Cf. B. Hisp. . and Hom. Il. .–. Cf. also the wall of corpses at .–, which can be compared to Il. .– (Hector threatens to put Patroclus’ head on the stakes of the Trojan wall) or Luc. .–, .–. Cf. e.g. Claud. Quadr. FrRHist F, F, F, Anon. apud Gell. NA ..–, Sisenna FrRHist F and see Oakley (). Cf. e.g. Sisenna FrRHist F, Claud. Quadr. FrRHist F, Aelius Tubero FrRHist F.
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both the late annalists and the author of the Bellum Hispaniense try to render the atrocities more tangible and captivating by inserting seemingly insignificant events and anecdotes. For example, one may compare the tales about a slave crossing the front lines in order to escape punishment (.–, .) and a matron desperately trying to escape the fighting (.) with a novelesque story told by Quadrigarius (FrRHist F), in which two slaves first escape from the besieged city of Grumentum and later save their domina from the rage of the victorious Roman troops. A further similarity between the Bellum Hispaniense and Greco-Roman historiography is the use of speeches and letters to characterize the historical actors or highlight key episodes. At .–, for example, the author inserts a letter in which Pompey blames the Caesarians for avoiding battle; these accusations contrast sharply with Pompey’s own reluctance to give battle and are obviously intended to characterize Caesar’s enemy as insincere. In view of these and other similarities between the Bellum Hispaniense on the one hand and epic poetry and historiography on the other hand, the work should no longer be regarded as a subliterary text. With regard to the political aspect of the work, it is interesting to note that the author makes no attempt to hide his pro-Caesarian standpoint. He explicitly praises the valor of the Caesarians (e.g. .), calls the enemies latrones, brigands (.), highlights their cruelty (cf. ., ., .–, . and n. ), and accentuates the very lack of free speech in the camp of the self-proclaimed defenders of the Republic (cf. especially .). Typical traits of Caesar’s self-representation such as his swiftness (., .) or his mildness (cf. e.g. .–) are occasionally taken up; however, they do not play a prominent role and are somewhat undermined by the slow pace of the narrative in chapters – and the references to atrocities committed by the Caesarians (cf. n. ).
The Bellum Africum The Bellum Africum, which treats Caesar’s campaign in modern Tunisia between December and June , is by far the longest of the four supplements. Although its language is much more “classical” than that of the Bellum Hispaniense, it nevertheless contains quite a few usages that are unattested in Caesar or Cicero’s Kunstprosa and have caused the work to be
Cf. also B. Hisp. . ~ Sisenna FrRHist F. (motif of fratricide) and B. Hisp. . ~ Fabius Pictor FrRHist F, Calp. Piso FrRHist F (jewelry as a means to bribe or distract the enemy). Cf. also the speeches in chapters and . The representation of Caesar and the Caesarians in the Bellum Hispaniense is analyzed in detail by Tschiedel ().
The Corpus Caesarianum
classified as “vulgar” or “colloquial.” As in the case of the Bellum Hispaniense, this verdict is misleading. Many of the alleged colloquial features have close parallels in Varro and Vitruvius and should not be regarded as subliterary, but are specialized, technical terms or simply have a “discursive or relaxed feel” (Adams , ). Likewise, occasional archaisms such as suppetias venire to come to someone’s assistance (, al.) or poetic usages such as bracchium gladio percussus hit by a sword on his arm (., cf. .) do not prove that the author was uneducated or indifferent to the various registers of the Latin language. As Adams has observed, colloquial expressions feature most prominently in passages of direct speech. Hence, they may partly be used for realistic effect. In addition, the sometimes more colloquial style also suits the tone and format of the narrative. The narrator of the Bellum Africum is more obtrusive than those of the Caesarian commentarii and the other supplements. He not only inserts qualifications in the first person singular (.: ut arbitror, as I think .: existimo as I judge), but also expresses surprise (.: hercule by Hercules) and explains his procedure and thus enters into a sort of dialogue with his readers. Something similar applies to the poetic expressions and the extensive use of specialized or technical vocabulary. The author of the Bellum Africum does not want to give a jejune report of the military events, but aims at a graphic and captivating description. Unlike the author of the Bellum Hispaniense, he pursues this goal not only on the level of inventio by including insignificant manoeuvres and minor details, but also on the level of enarratio by adopting a more descriptive and sometimes even novelesque style. A good example is Caesar’s stay in Sicily. Instead of merely recording the fact that Caesar’s troops waited for favorable weather, the author writes that Caesar put his tent so close to the shore that it was almost “whipped” by the sea (.): both the metaphorical use of verberare and the singular of
Thus e.g. the copious Studies of Erölich () and Köhler () as well as Militerni Della Morte (, –) and (, ), Bouvet and Richard (–, xxxi–xxxii), as well as Landi (, ). Cf. e.g. .: hippotoxoti, mounted archers .: cothon artificial harbor (~ .,). Cf. Adams (, –); see also Landi (, ). For a more nuanced picture, see Langhammer () and Adams (). Cf. .: non arbitror esse praetermittendum . . . (~ .), .: ut ab sinistro eius cornu ordiar and contrast e.g. Caes. BG ..: quod dignum memoria visum praetereundum non existimavimus. Cf. e.g. ., , .–., .–. Cf. e.g. . (the use of algae, seaweed as fodder for the horses), . (Caesar gives orders in praetorio sedens while sitting in his headquarters), . (the battle cry Felicitas), . (sacrifices after the battle of Thapsus), and the description of the huge corpses of Gauls and Germani scattered across the battlefield at .–.
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fluctus have a poetic flavor and convey a vivid image of the event. Similarly, at .–, the author does not simply mention that Caesar trained his soldiers to fight against elephants, but gives a detailed description of this training; for this purpose, he coins the new compound praepilatus (“tipped with a ball,” .) and employs expressions which are unattested or rare in the Caesarian commentarii such as stridor (.), reformidare (.), and odor (.). Further examples of this graphic style can be gleaned from the battle descriptions (e.g. .: milites in campo iubet galeari et ad pugnam parari), the author’s portrayal of emotions (e.g. .: legiones . . . metu ac terrore obcaecatae), or even such dull details as the indication of daytime (cf. .: caelo albente (= .)). Apart from the vocabulary, the author’s striving for vividness also affects the syntax: in contrast to Caesar and the other continuators, the author of the Bellum Africum frequently employs historical infinitives to mark a dramatic climax. With regard to the presentation of Caesar and his enemies, the Bellum Africum resembles the other supplements in so far as it adopts a clearly pro-Caesarian perspective and evokes key themes of Caesar’s selfpresentation and propaganda during the civil war, such as the clementia Caesaris, the cruelty of his enemies, and their subservience to king Juba. Moreover, like the Bellum Hispaniense, the Bellum Africum records many minor incidents that are historically insignificant, but serve to present Caesar’s opponents in a negative light. However, in contrast to the Bellum Hispaniense and in keeping with his own lavish style, the author does not confine himself to brief hints, but develops these incidents at length and uses dialogues and direct speeches to contrast the arrogance, incompetence, and cruelty of Caesar’s enemies with the virtuous conduct
See Wölfflin and Miodoński (, ad loc.) and Adams (, ). Galeari is paralleled only at Cinna Carm. fr. Courtney and Tert. De Anim. , p. . (galeas Hartel, galeam codd.). Caesar only uses the noun galea. Obcaecare is absent from Caesar, but has close parallels in Cicero (Phil. ., Fam. ..) and Livy, cf. TLL s.v. .–. Caelo albente is attested once in Sisenna (FrRHist F) and Caesar (BC ..); it probably has a slightly poetic touch, cf. TLL s.v. albeo –, Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel (, th edn, ), and Verg. Aen. .. Cf. e.g. ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .. A similar effect is created by the device of ellipsis (e.g. .–). See also Landi () on the use of word order as a means of focalization. Cf. e.g. the references to Caesar’s foresight (., ., ., .; cf. B. Alex. .,) and .: perduci ad sanitatem (of Caesar’s enemy Considius), .: homini superbissimo ineptissimoque (of Caesar’s enemy king Juba). See e.g. ., .,–, , . and chapter where the pardoning of Vergilius is contrasted with the fate of Considius who is murdered by his entourage when fleeing from Thysdra. Cf. also ., . (Caesar prevents plundering). Cf. e.g. ., .,, , .–, .–., ., .–, .–, , , – and especially .; cf. Grillo (, –). Cf. ., .– and BC ..–.
The Corpus Caesarianum
of Caesarian veterans and centurions. Despite these tendentious features, the characterization of Caesar and his enemies is not black-and-white, but is surprisingly nuanced: the author not only acknowledges the integrity of Caesar’s enemy Cato (.–., .–), but he also describes the murderous frenzy after the battle of Thapsus and accentuates Caesar’s failure to stop his men from slaughtering the Republicans (.–).
The Bellum Alexandrinum Like the Bellum Hispaniense and the Bellum Africum, the Bellum Alexandrinum has been ascribed to a dilettante. However, style and composition are a more complex issue in this case. To begin with, the Bellum Alexandrinum is not focused on one theater of war, but treats five different campaigns, viz. Caesar’s war in Alexandria and lower Egypt, after which the whole work is named (B. Alex. –), Domitius’ campaign against Pharnaces in Asia minor (B. Alex. –), the operations of Gabinius and Vatinius in Illyricum (B. Alex. –), the revolt against the Caesarian governor Q. Cassius Longinus in Spain (B. Alex. –), and finally Caesar’s own campaign against Pharnaces in Asia minor (B. Alex. –). Although it would be conceivable that the author participated in all of these events and recorded all of them from personal memory, this is evidently not the case, for the quality of the historical information, the narrative technique, and the language of the respective sections differ considerably, and there are even further cracks within these major narrative blocks. The first chapters give a detailed account of the events in Alexandria between the autumn of and the first months of . The language closely resembles that of the BG and BC, and the account also contains many of the trademarks of Caesar’s narrative technique. The best example is the description of the sea battle in chapters –, which
Cf. .–, .–, ., .–., , , .–.. Melchior (–) discusses some of these passages under the aspect of the Roman interest in exempla. Another characteristic device is the portrayal of emotions, cf. e.g. .– (Caesar’s presence and good cheer boost the morale of his men), .– (Caesar’s compassion with the African cities that have been exploited and harassed by his enemies). For further tendentious features, see Langhammer ( and ). Ironically, the episode is followed by a reference to Caesar’s lenitas and clementia at .. Cf. also the execution of Faustus and Afranius at and the somewhat arbitrary treatment of P. Vestrius and P. Ligarius at .–. Cf. e.g. .: ne suam atque omnium falleret opinionem, that they should disappoint his own opinion or that of all (soldiers) ~ BC ..: ne suam neu reliquorum opinionem fallerent and see Landgraf (, –, –), Zingerle (, –), Dahms (, –), Pötter (, –), Simonetti Abbolito (), and Gaertner and Hausburg (, –, –), for further examples. Cf. Gaertner and Hausburg (, –).
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shares many expressions with BC .– and draws from the same literary model, viz. Thucydides’ famous account of the decisive sea battle in the harbor of Syracuse (.–). Furthermore, like Caesar, the narrator generally gives a rational account that focuses on human behavior and natural factors like terrain and weather, and he characterizes the historical figures indirectly by their words and deeds. Also, he does not omit setbacks, but occasionally directs our attention to other aspects of the war to camouflage unsuccessful endeavors or to exculpate Caesar: in chapters – the focus on the Alexandrian side obfuscates the failure of Caesar’s attempt to reach Lake Mareotis, and in chapters – the description of the irrational behavior of Caesar’s soldiers lets us forget that the general himself may have committed some serious tactical blunders. At the beginning of chapter – right in the middle of the account of the Alexandrian campaign – the narrative changes abruptly. The narrator seems less familiar with the topography of Lower Egypt (cf. .–), important pieces of information are missing, and the lack of precise information is sometimes covered up by moralizing remarks. A good illustration of these tendencies is the account of a sea battle near the Nile Delta in chapter : the narrative focuses on the death of Caesar’s admiral Euphranor and emphasizes the influence of the goddess Fortuna, but it does not tell us which of the two sides eventually prevailed in this battle. Furthermore, the narrator of chapters – explicitly comments on the events and presents Caesar in a decidedly propagandistic fashion. These tendencies not only inform the latter part of the account of the Alexandrian campaign (–) but are also characteristic of the subsequent chapters –. The quality of the historical data is generally better than in chapters –, and some of the details narrated suggest that the information comes from eyewitnesses, but the overtly tendentious presentation continues and the defeats and successes of Caesar and his generals are repeatedly attributed to Fortune and the immortal gods.
Cf. the detailed discussion in Gaertner and Hausburg (, –). Cf. Graindor (, ) and see Rambaud (, –, –) for parallels in BG and BC. Cf. e.g. .: re praeclarissime gesta, after the matter had been taken care of in the most brilliant fashion. Cf. especially Caesar’s return to Alexandria at .–, which has a close parallel at BG .– and can be compared to crowd scenes in modern propaganda films. Cf. e.g. .: rebus felicissime celerrimeque confectis, after the matters had been accomplished in a very fortunate and very swift fashion, and see Gärtner and Hausburg (, –). Cf. ., ., ., ., ., ..
The Corpus Caesarianum
Chapters – are also connected by a number of linguistic properties. The clustering of Caesarian expressions that characterizes B. Alex. – stops, and we encounter a number of linguistic “ticks” that pervade the later sections but are completely absent from chapters –, e.g. the use of partim . . . partim partly (instead of pars . . . pars, one part . . . another part in B. Alex. –) or the repetition of certain phrases or key words. Several distinctive phrases recur almost verbatim in the eighth book of the BG, but at the same time, there are also a number of striking differences that clearly separate B. Alex. – from BG . Moreover, despite the recurrent “ticks” that tie chapters – together, the style of these sections is not homogeneous: e.g., an attentive reader will easily note that the rather hypotactic style of chapters – is replaced by a strong preference for short and paratactic sentences in the account of the revolt against Cassius Longinus (–). In the view of the differences in style, narrative technique, and historical accuracy, one surely cannot attribute the Bellum Alexandrinum to a single author. The first twenty-one chapters are not by the same person as the rest of the work, and whoever put together chapters – did not write the whole narrative by himself but made extensive use of accounts written by other Caesarians.
The Composition of the Corpus Caesarianum After our brief survey of the four supplements, it is time to turn to the question of authorship and the composition of the Corpus Caesarianum. When Suetonius wrote his biography of Julius Caesar in the second century , he no longer knew for certain who had written the Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africum, and Bellum Hispaniense (cf. Iul. .). However, he quotes part of the prefatory letter to BG (Epistula ad Balbum), and explicitly attributes these words to Caesar’s friend and follower Aulus Hirtius (Iul. .). This testimony is corroborated by the subscriptiones to BG and , which almost unanimously attribute BG to Hirtius. Hirtius’ authorship has been questioned by Heidtmann (),
Cf. e.g. re(bus) felicissime celerrimeque gesta/-is (., .), disciplina atque armatura (., .), disciplina severitasque (., .) and see Gaertner and Hausburg (, –, –) for further examples. Cf. e.g. B. Alex. . ~ BG .., B. Alex. . ~ BG .., B. Alex. . ~ BG .. and see Nipperdey (, ), Schiller (, ), and Barwick (, –). Cf. Vielhaber (, –), Fischer (, –), Fröhlich (, –), and Gärtner and Hausburg (, –, –, ). The fact that some mss. add the name of the other consul of (Pansa) does not diminish the significance of these testimonies: cf. Andrieu (, –), misrepresented by Canfora (, ).
J. F. GAERTNER
Vogel (), and Canfora ( and , –), but their treatment of the transmission and the relevant ancient texts is fraught with inaccuracies, and there are several arguments that strongly contradict Canfora’s view that the Epistula ad Balbum is a forgery and that most of BG was written by Caesar. A more complex issue is the genesis of the other three supplements. Suetonius’ remark (Iul. .) that these texts could have been written by Oppius or Hirtius is not helpful, and the only piece of solid evidence is a much-debated passage of the Epistula ad Balbum: () Caesaris nostri commentarios rerum gestarum Galliae, non competentibus superioribus atque insequentibus eius scriptis, contexui, novissimumque imperfectum ab rebus gestis Alexandriae confeci usque ad exitum non quidem civilis dissensionis, cuius finem nullum videmus, sed vitae Caesaris. competentibus Bernhardy, Schiller: conparentibus A: conparantibus QBMSL, β () I have continued the accounts of our Caesar on his deeds in Gaul, since the former and the later of his writings did not fit together, and I have also finished the most recent and incomplete account, (extending it) from the deeds in Alexandria down to the end, not admittedly of civil discord, of which we see no end, but of Caesar’s life.
Hirtius’ words can be interpreted in two different ways. If we understand superioribus atque insequentibus eius scriptis as referring to BG – and BC – respectively, then the novissimus imperfectus commentarius must be the third book of the BC and Hirtius is claiming to have written an account of all the events following the execution of Pothinus at BC ..; if, however, we understand it as referring to BG – and BC –, then the novissimus imperfectus commentarius mentioned by Hirtius could be identical with parts of the Bellum Alexandrinum and Hirtius’ continuation of the Caesarian account of the civil war would start at some later point within the Bellum Alexandrinum. Based on the first of these two interpretations, some scholars have attributed the whole Bellum Alexandrinum to Hirtius and have
One serious objection has been raised by Pelling (, ); for a detailed refutation see now Gaertner and Hausburg (, –). Some scholars have tried to determine the authors by means of linguistic analysis or by comparing the contents of these works with some pieces of prosopographical evidence. For the Bellum Africum, cf. Landgraf (, –) (Asinius Pollio); Langhammer (, ), Pötter (, –), Schmid (, –) (Sallust); Koestermann () (L. Munatius Plancus). For the Bellum Hispaniense, cf. Kohl (), Storch (/), Strocchi (). However, the evidence adduced so far is inconclusive.
The Corpus Caesarianum
explained the stylistic diversity of the three Bella by assuming that (a) Hirtius’ treatment of the subsequent events was lost and replaced by the works of two other authors, that (b) Hirtius died before he could finish his account of Caesar’s deeds, or that (c) Hirtius himself incorporated two accounts written by other Caesarians in order to disburden himself. Another group of scholars has opted for the second interpretation of the Epistula ad Balbum and has identified the novissimus imperfectus commentarius with the first chapters of the Bellum Alexandrinum. And a third group has accentuated the un-Hirtian elements in the Bellum Alexandrinum and the considerable differences between the three Bella and has argued that the three Bella are the work of three unknown authors. The phrasing of the Epistula ad Balbum is far too vague to decide which of these hypotheses is correct. However, the heterogeneous character of the Bellum Alexandrinum and the close similarities between B. Alex. – and the Caesarian commentarii favor the view that the beginning of the work goes back to Caesar. Furthermore, the Hirtian phrases in some of the later chapters of the Bellum Alexandrinum suggest that Hirtius did not make empty promises in the Epistula ad Balbum, but played an active role in the continuation of Caesar’s account of the civil war. As has been suggested above, the differences in style and focus between some of the later sections of the Bellum Alexandrinum may result from the fact that its author used a number of further accounts. If this is correct, the method of composition of the Bellum Alexandrinum would not differ much from the overall composition of the Corpus Caesarianum. Just as Hirtius combined the drafts of Caesar and fellow Caesarians when putting together the Bellum Alexandrinum, he may have simply added the longer accounts of the Bellum Africum and Bellum Hispaniense in order to quickly attain his goal of a continuous account of Caesar’s deeds. This reconstruction would explain the rather vague confeci (“I finished,” not “I composed” or
Cf. Klotz (, –, –, –); see also von Hartel (, –), Zingerle (, ), Dahms (, ). Cf. e.g. Nipperdey (, –), Barwick (, –, ), Rüpke (, ). Thus Seel (, –). Cf. Landgraf (, –, –, –), Zingerle (, –), Dahms (, ), Pötter (, –), Simonetti Abbolito (), Gaertner and Heusburg (, ). Cf. Andrieu (, xlii), Giomini (, ), Richter (, –), Patzer (). Cf. also the parallel in nn. and . The fact that the transmitted text ends with the events in Hispalis in late April is no serious counter-argument, because the end of the Bellum Hispaniense (and thus also that of the Corpus Caesarianum) is lost.
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“I wrote”) in the Epistula ad Balbum (see above); it would suit the differences in language, style, and historiographical technique described above; and it has the great advantage that we no longer have to excuse or explain Hirtius’ words by speculating about his premature death or unknown, posthumous redactores. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H For a more complete treatment of the Corpus Caesarianum, see Gaertner and Hausburg (). Since there is currently no satisfactory edition of the pseudoCaesarian works, it is best to use Klotz and Trillitzsch (), Seel (), and Hering () for BG , and Klotz (a) in conjunction with Andrieu (), Bouvet and Richard (/), Pascucci (), and Diouron () for the other three supplements. Richter () offers a useful, but in many ways inaccurate introduction to these texts. The relevant commentaries are Kraner, Dittenberger, and Meusel () for BG ; Schneider (), Wykes () (only chs. –), Giomini (), and Townend () (only ch. –) for the Bellum Alexandrinum; Wölfflin and Miodoński (), Schneider (), and Müller () (only chs. –) for the Bellum Africum; and Klotz (b) and Pascucci () for the Bellum Hispaniense; cf. also the introductions and explanatory notes in Andrieu (), Bouvet and Richard (/), and Diouron (). Further literature is cited in the notes above. There has been much less research on the pseudo-Caesarian works since than in the preceding decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many textual points and questions of language or prose rhythm are still unresolved, especially in the badly transmitted Bellum Hispaniense. With regard to the literary interpretation of the pseudo-Caesarian supplements, more work needs to be done on the narrative technique of BG , the Bellum Africum and the Bellum Hispaniense. Also welcome would be studies that explore how these texts influence the reader’s view of the historical events and whether the rhetorical or manipulative techniques employed in these texts differ from those of the authentic Caesarian works.
Caesar in Livy and Tacitus Christina Shuttleworth Kraus
How does one show that one author has influenced another? One can establish a history of reading practices, to know what was – or could have been – in a given writer’s library, though being on the shelves is no guarantee that a book was read. Sometimes there is explicit evidence, either through external testimonia (Quint. .. tells us that Livy recommended reading Cicero and Demosthenes, and we presume that Livy had done so, too) or internal evidence (Tacitus namechecks Livy and Fabius Rusticus at Agr. ., and Ovid gives a reading list in Tristia ). Or we can sometimes tell what was available to read, and so determine whether what looks like influence – Sallust’s obsession with Thuc. ..–, for example – is tralatician quotation or a product of actual reading. In the case of Sallust and Thucydides, it is likely to be the latter: we know that educated Romans in the s were reading the Athenian historian. But in the absence of explicit testimony, tracking literary influence becomes a matter of recognizing and trying to interpret intertextual links, whether in details of language (quotation, borrowed diction, etc.), of structures narrative and syntactical, or of content. In this chapter I will
For one influential study see Ogilvie () on Lactantius; for unread books see e.g. Bayard () and Wildman (, ), a review of Dearden (). For the Tristia see Gibson (), Ingleheart (, –); of course, there is no guarantee that Ovid had read these works, either. By “tralatician quotation” I mean something quoted by an intermediary, not read in the original. On Sallust and Thucydides see Scanlon (); for a similar study see Fantham () (Menander in the late Republic and early Empire). By intertextuality I understand here the approach outlined by Hinds (), though I am personally inclined toward Edmunds’ position (, ) that “the reader is the locus of intertextuality”; for more, see the wide-ranging introduction by Allen () and the Classics-specific collection of Baraz and van den Berg (), especially their page : “The results of the critical dialogue about intertextuality have included a new-found appreciation of the pervasive and productive character of imitation, acknowledgement that reference both appropriates and undermines a tradition, and acceptance that alluding authors interpret forerunners and offer metacritical assertions about their own texts.” See also Schadee – and Pitcher – in this volume. The eye-opening study of Wills () on figures of repetition has much to offer readers of prose.
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consider some aspects of Caesar’s reception by Livy and by Tacitus. In order to keep the discussion focused, I will concentrate primarily on aspects of more generalized Caesarian influence in Livy, and on more specific, pointed aspects in Tacitus.
Caesar and Livy Caesar taught many historians how to write a battle (and related scenes), combining stylized, conventional narrative with precise and particular detail. One common way of blending the panoramic with the particular is by using a human actor – often not the incident’s “hero” – as a focal point, bringing the wide narrative canvas down to individual action, or to a precise name in an otherwise undifferentiated heap of corpses. The two devices come together at BG ..– in the story of the Aquitanian eques Piso, who has a compressed but detailed aristeia as well as being the only named among seventy-four casualties. Similarly, Livy’s narrative of the defeat at Cannae includes both the wide canvas of the killing fields and individual figures, chief among them the wounded Paullus, who himself summons up the contrast of the many and the one: “let me breathe my last in this massacre of my soldiers” (..). Livy focuses the action at the siege of Ardea via ever-decreasing circles, moving from the war and siege camps to soldiers and military leaders to royal youths to Tarquinius and Collatinus to a casual mention of their wives. The progress is equally one from outside to inside the city, as the story subsequently moves from militia to domi: “In these bivouacs, as happens in a war that is long drawn out rather than bitter, there was relatively free movement (but among the leaders more than the soldiers); and the royal youths occasionally passed the time with banquets and drinking parties. By chance, as they were drinking in the camp of Sextus Tarquinius, where Collatinus the son of
For a brief discussion see Kraus (). Though Caesar often used traditional techniques (cf. n. ), it will be helpful here to focus on how he adapted and passed these on. For the single name cf. also (after Dyrrachium) BC .. “about , by number of the Pompeians fell, as we learned, several of them reenlisted veterans and centurions; in that number was Valerius Flaccus son of Lucius.” Already an element of Greek battle narratives (e.g. Herod. ., identified casualties after Marathon), this is a pervasive feature of Latin battles, from FRHist F. (the unnamed Roman tribune as a focus of action: Kraus (b, –)) to Tac. Agr. . (an identified corpse) “about , of the enemy were slaughtered; of our men, fell, among whom was Aulus Atticus, a prefect of the cohort.” Presumably Livy owes his fondness for senior soldiers, especially centurions, as action figures to his reading of Caesar; for old soldiers/centurions in Livy cf. ., .; on them in Caesar see Welch (), Ash (, –), Batstone and Damon (, –), though Cato’s tribune must have been a formidable model as well (last n.).
Caesar in Livy and Tacitus
Egerius was also dining, the topic of wives happens to come up” (..–). In Caesar’s narratives of his war against Vercingetorix women similarly serve as focal points, inside the walls at Avaricum and Gergovia (BG .., ., .) and between the town and siege walls at Alesia (..–). And as Galen Rowe has shown in some detail, BC contains a number of what one might characterize as “Einzelerzählungen,” the kind of developed, contained narrative episode typically analyzed by Livian scholars. Both within those “episodes” and without, a favorite Caesarian narrative move – again found already in the Greek historians – is the peripeteia, clearly marked e.g. in BG , where all is nearly lost in the winter camps before the sudden advent of Caesar with the troops (..). Livy makes extensive use of this technique, both on the large scale and the small. In both historians the device underscores historical shifts that can be explained sometimes by a kind of inhuman force, be that fortuna or something else, sometimes by human action. While that explanatory force can be left unexplored, often Caesar will use indirect discourse as a way of thinking through historical causation: so e.g. BG . (what to do about Ariovistus and why), BC . (how to deal with Petreius and Afranius). Livy, too, deploys indirect discourse, not as generously as Caesar but in equally historiographical ways: to adumbrate emotion (e.g. ..), delineate character (..), or pose alternatives (..). Like Caesar, Livy uses oratio recta sparingly in the early books: the first extended speech is at ., though there are short exchanges before that. Finally, both Caesar and Livy like brisk, small details: e.g. a tragula with the unseen message sticking to the camp tower at BG .., or a lictor’s knock at Livy ...
Rowe (); see also Witte () (for the origin of the term); for design and structure beyond the boundaries of Livian “episodes” see Luce () (reprinted with further bibliography). For a discussion of this Caesarian “principle of description” see Görler (); for peripeteia in BC see Rowe (); and for the larger narrative arcs and reversals in BG see Nousek (). In Greek historians, metabole tuches is a specialty of Polybius; elsewhere cf. Xen. Hell. . (punishment by the punished); Plut. Ant. with Pelling’s note (on intense danger before sudden deliverance); and for paradox and reversal in Thucydides see Cornford (, Index s.v. “Reversal of fortune”); Connor (, ). Kraus (, (.n.)), Luce (, –). On fors/fortuna in Livy see Davies (, –) with extensive bibliography; for Caesar, see Grillo (, –, esp. n. ). For a survey of the speeches in book see Smith (, –), citing Lambert for the statistic that in books – there are examples of oratio obliqua to of oratio recta; for oratio obliqua as a Livian artistic device Lambert (), Gries (), Oakley (, I.–). Utard () traces a development in its use from Caesar to Livy to Tacitus; for a more in-depth treatment with extensive bibliography see Utard (). On these see Kraus (, ) and (, ad loc.), respectively.
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While all historians, Greek and Roman, avail themselves of different levels of language and style, there is something particularly Caesarian about Livy’s mix of the “annalistic” (~ Caesar’s “stil administratif”) with “basic” narrative (such as battles) and various kinds of technical description (e.g. taking elephants across the Rhone, .– ~ bridging the Rhine, BG .–), reaching all the way up to full pathos. It is tempting, then, to attribute Livy’s famous mix of styles to Caesarian influence – though here we are especially hampered by the loss of earlier Latin texts. In both authors the mix of styles is not random, but helps articulate the narrative or campaign year. Livy’s diction and syntax reflect Caesar’s as well – though one should bear in mind that the later historian did not impose on himself the same restrictions in either area. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if Livy never met a word he didn’t like: from comedy to officialese to lyric or epic diction, his text rustles with words. But there are identifiable Caesarian elements in what we might call Livy’s “core” language, just as there are Sallustian markers: elements that together anchor the Ab Urbe Condita in its historiographical matrix, establishing a sure generic footprint from which Livy can depart at will. Particularly important is the two writers’ organization of periodic structure: “We shall probably never know how much L[ivy] learnt from Caesar in the construction of his periods; but it is a fact that the sentence-structure of no two other Latin historians is so alike” (Oakley (, I.)). Examples include Chausserie-Laprée’s “phrase à relance,” in which a first movement is joined by a conjunction to a second (etc.), sometimes comprising an entire episode, as at BG ..– itaque . . . magnis . . . itineribus confectis, contra omnium opinionem ad Ligerim venit, vadoque per equites invento . . . incolumem exercitum traduxit, frumentumque
Odelman (); see further Krebs in this volume. This hardly needs illustrating in Livy’s case, so (in)famous is he for “psychological” effects (see now Chaplin and Kraus (, )); for Caesar, cf. the panic at Vesontio, BG . or Curio’s defeat by Juba, BC .–, on which see Rowe (, –) and Grillo (, –). It is clear, for instance, that Cato’s Origines included direct and indirect speech, paradoxographical material, “annalistic” notices (though sous rasure: FRHist F), and narrative sections. For the style of Latin historiography see Kraus () with earlier bibliography; for extensive discussion of Livy’s “tessellated” prose see Oakley (, I.–). Not to say that Livy is undiscerning: he shares the Augustan sensitivity to linguistic decorum, as we see particularly well in his adaptation of Quadrigarius’ story of Manlius and the Gaul (..–.): see Oakley (, II.– and notes ad loc.) for discussion and extensive bibliography. There must be many stylistic elements from earlier historians also on display in Livy, but it is impossible to see them owing to the loss of our evidence; one point of access is Manlius’s single combat (last n.); another is the famous story of Flavius the scriba (FRHist F ~ Livy ., cf. Oakley (, III.-), Woodman (, –)). On genre in historia see Kraus () with earlier bibliography.
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in agris. . . nactus . . . iter in Senones facere instituit; cf. Livy ..– or ..– (both analyzed by Chasseurie-Laprée (, )). Related is the effective deployment of short sentences in terse description, also markedly shared by Caesar and Livy, e.g. at Livy ..–: “Refreshed with food the soldiers relaxed and slept, and awakened without noise about the fourth watch they took arms. Picks were divided among the camp-servants to demolish the rampart and fill in the ditches. The battle line was drawn up within the defenses. Selected cohorts were positioned by the gate exits”; cf. e.g. Caes. BC .: “Curio sent Marcius ahead with the ships to Utica. He himself set out to the same place with army and moving forward a journey of two days arrived at the river Bagradas. There he left the legate C. Caninius Rebilus with the legions. He himself went ahead with the cavalry to explore the Castra Cornelia, since this place was regarded as particularly suitable for a camp.” One can think of this stylistic matrix as the “common stock of the Latin historical style”: but pace Syme, who used this argument to discount Livian influence on Tacitus (, ), such language is not invisible but constitutive of historiographical manner and authority. Finally – to anticipate my discussion of Caesar in Tacitus – there are moments of precise intertextual interaction. First, at BG .. the Bituriges praise their city for its beauty: “the Bituriges fall at the feet of all the Gauls, begging that they not be forced to set fire with their own hands to the most beautiful city in practically all of Gaul (pulcherrimam prope totius Galliae urbem), which served as a defense and an ornament to the nation,” a passage picked up significantly by Livy in describing Marcellus’ sight of Syracuse: “As Marcellus, entering the walls, saw from its high places the most beautiful of practically all the cities at that time (urbem omnium ferme illa tempestate pulcherrimam) laid out before his eyes, he is said to have wept partly out of joy at having accomplished such a
“so . . . having completed forced marches, against everyone’s expectation he arrived at the Loire, and finding a ford by means of the cavalry . . . led the army across unharmed, and . . . locating grain in the fields. . . began to march toward the Senones.” Chausserie-Laprée (, –) has statistics; the structure is preferred overwhelmingly by Caesar and Livy. For comparison of selected sentences see Lindemann (, –). Oakley (, I.–) has a long list of Livian examples; Spilman () has a detailed examination of the phenomenon in her analysis of what Chausserie-Laprée would call “episode” sentences (her “cumulative sentence structure”), showing how Livy “resembles Caesar in the variety of his tools and employs the same group of constructions as his major narrative devices” (–). There are other precise areas of similarity as well, too numerous to explore here; one might single out Livy and Caesar’s relative flexibility in retaining the tenses of oratio recta in their indirect subordinate clauses – though the latter is in fact more experimental (Andrewes (, ); Andrewes () on Caesar alone).
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thing, partly at the ancient glory of the city.” Secondly, Livy’s description of the topography of the Caudine Forks is now generally recognized as being heavily influenced by historiographical (and otherwise literary) convention. Long ago, Klotz noticed that even the way into the locale was allusive, inviting comparison with the roads leading into the Gallic War: duae ad Luceriam ferebant viae, altera praeter oram superi maris, patens apertaque sed quanto tutior tanto fere longior, altera per Furculas Caudinas, brevior; sed ita natus locus est: saltus duo alti angusti silvosique sunt montibus circa perpetuis . . . iuncti (Livy ..) quotes BG .. erant omnino itinera duo … unum per Sequanos, angustum et difficile . . ., mons autem altissimus inpendebat, ut facile perpauci prohibere possent; alterum per provinciam nostram, multo facilius atque expeditius. The echo suggests several things: that Livy’s geography is as textual as it is “real”; that the most appropriate staging for a serious military engagement is Caesarian; that the world of the Bellum Gallicum is as hellish as that of the Samnite trap; and that the explicit exemplarity that Livy deploys in his narrative of Caudium – in which historian and characters alike summon up the ghosts of Camillus and the Gallic sack – has a modern shadow in the recent events in Transalpine Gaul.
Caesar and Tacitus Analysis of Tacitus’ reception of Caesar is typically approached through the Germania or Agricola, the early monographs whose content overlaps with Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Less work has been done on the BC and its influence on Latin political narrative, though scholars have
Livy ..; on the passage see Marincola (). The Caesarian allusion was pointed out by Jaeger (, n.). She is interested in the relationship between Livy’s text and Cicero, so does not develop the significance of the echo. Marcellus’ invocation of Syracuse’s “ancient glory” and the Roman accomplishment also picks up the Bituriges’ “ornament” and “defence,” which attributes were and remained a topos of the praise of fortifications: cf. Men. Rhet. .– (praise a city both for hedone and for opheleia), .– (defenses both anti kosmou and eis asphaleian; the section extends from .–.); Jenkins (, –) (the beauty and strength of Exeter’s arx). Horsfall (), cf. also Horsfall (), Oakley (, III.-), Morello (). Klotz (, –); the various intertexts serve as a basis for textual decisions: Klotz () and (). “Two roads led toward Luceria, one along the shore of the upper sea, accessible and open but about as much longer as it was safer; the other through the Caudine Forks, shorter, but the nature of the place is like this: there are two deep narrow and woody defiles joined with unbroken mountains”; “There were only two routes . . . one through the Sequani, narrow and difficult . . . and a very high mountain towered over so that very few men could easily block the way; the other through our Province, much easier and less encumbered.” On that exemplarity see especially Chaplin (, –).
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shown that it heavily influenced Lucan both in the specifics of the story and in the general question of how to narrate a civil war – and Lucan had a profound influence on Tacitus. Work certainly remains to be done on the Histories and Annales, where Syme’s stress on Tacitus’ elegantia points the way to a fruitful comparison between the two great stylists. Tacitean narrative structures, as well, suggest Caesarian influence. In the interests of space, however, I will confine myself here to the monographs. The Germania opens with a prominent Caesarian quotation: “Germania as a whole [Germania omnis] is separated from [separatur] the Gauls and the Raeti and Pannonians by the Rhine and Danube rivers [fluminibus], from the Sarmati and Dacians by mutual fear or mountains (Germ. .) ~ “Gaul as a whole is divided [Gallia est omnis divisa] into three parts . . . The Garonne river [flumen] divides [dividit] the Gauls from the Aquitanians, the Marne and Seine from the Belgians” (BG ..–). Later Tacitus names Caesar both as auctor (“that the power of the Gauls was once stronger, the highest of authorities, the Deified Julius, has told us,” Germ. .) and actor (“nor did Gaius Marius in Italy, the Deified Julius in Gaul, Drusus and Nero and Germanicus in their own lands strike them without retribution,” .), as source and as imperial precedent – appropriately enough, as it was the Germani who, in the end, offered Caesar his most serious, and ultimately unbeaten, resistance. Once such a link is established between texts, one can move to more subtle readings. So, for example, Tacitus silently corrects Caesar on the gods, transposing his information about Gallic worship of Mercury to the Germans (BG .. Deum maxime Mercurium colunt, . ~ Germ. . Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt), while the rest of his picture of the North adapts, challenges, and corrects Caesar’s (see Krebs (, –)).
See especially Masters () and now Joseph in this volume; on Lucan and Tacitus see e.g. Robbert (), Walker (, , –), Henderson () and (); Joseph (). Syme (, ): Tacitus is “a decisive and wilful writer,” (): his “selective vocabulary,” (): “Tacitus’ unerring sense for words . . . marvellous discrimination.” On Caesar’s elegantia see Krebs – in this volume. More recently, see e.g. Ash (, (Index) “Caesarian language”) for some specific areas of comparison and contrast; Pomeroy () for Tacitus’ allusive treatment of earlier Roman historians. For the difficulties raised by intertextuality in history, see Levene (). See e.g. Devillers (, ) on Tacitus opening the Histories’ narrative with a letter (litterae adferuntur, ..): “One is reminded of the beginning of Caesar’s Bellum Civile (litteris . . . redditis, Caes., Civ. ..). Yet there is a difference: the letter sent by Caesar provokes a debate in the senate, while the one received by Galba occasions a kind of private counsel [sic] (comitia imperii, ..). The expression . . . betrays how power, once accessible to the people, has been relocated and becomes the property of a small circle.” For extended discussion of the echo, see Krebs (, –) and (, –); see also Rives (, ) on the political implications of quoting Caesar at the beginning of the Germania.
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The Germania does not in fact need Caesar at all, since he and his troops made a merely symbolic landing on Germanic territory (BG ..): “after spending eighteen days altogether across the Rhine, deeming that he had accomplished enough to gain both praise and utility, he retired into Gaul and cut down the bridge.” He did, however, land in Britain with hostile intent (and took hostages) – twice. Yet Tacitus’ account of Roman doings in Britannia, embedded in the Life of his fatherin-law Agricola, delays any mention of Caesar until well into the monograph. Since this is a biography, not a commentarius or free-standing ethnography, none should perhaps be expected early on – except that the quotation with which the Agricola opens reaches back via a window reference through Cato’s Origines to Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, neither of which is generically relevant, but both of which declare the necessity of observing a man’s private as well as public self. Tacitus proceeds to give us a reading list for bios, citing by name the biographers Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio (.) and the autobiographers Rutilius Rufus and Aemilius Scaurus (.). This latter pair is presumably chosen at least partly because their works – though not, apparently, in commentarius form – inaugurated the tradition of the (military) memoir. Hence they stand at the head of one stream of Tacitus’ literary inheritance. Their most natural heir, as a writer of military memoirs in Latin, is Caesar himself – the absent presence. Caesar makes his formal entrance to the Agricola as imperial trendsetter in the survey of past governors. Here fanfare and praise-language are followed by a typically Tacitean sting (Agr. .): “The first Roman of all, Divus Julius, entered Britain with an army [primus omnium Romanorum divus Iulius]: although he terrified the inhabitants [terruerit] and gained possession [potitus sit] of the shore-line in a successful battle, he can be seen to have pointed out the country to posterity but not to have handed it over [tradidisse].” Primus omnium and divus set the panegyric stage, while terror and conquest (terruerit, potitus sit) represent the business of empire set in a mini-narrative that could come from Caesar’s own
BG .–, .–. Schadee (, –) is an acute reading of Caesar’s narratives of Britain. Couissin (, –) emphasizes the condescension in Germ. . “how slight a hindrance was the river [Rhine].” Tac. Agr. . “to hand down the deeds and character of famous men, a custom frequent in antiquity” ~ FRHist F “it is right for an account no less of the leisure than of the activity of famous and great men to exist” ~ Xen. Symp. “It seems to me, with reference to great and good men’s deeds, that not only those done with serious intent are worthy of commemoration, but also those done in lighter moments”; cf. Woodman () ad loc. See Riggsby (, ) and the papers in Smith and Powell ().
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pages: but the disappointment around Caesar’s retreat is palpable (Woodman () ad loc.), while the awkward initial igitur is a Sallustian mannerism that pulls us away from conformity with Caesar’s style, as the narrative will separate Agricola from his precursor’s less than lasting conquest. Indeed, though he dismisses divus Julius the conqueror in a sentence, Tacitus does not so neatly dispense with Caesar auctor. His engagement with the Caesarian text – especially in the ethno-geography (–.) – is pervasive, intertextual, and agonistic. Caesar’s entry into the narrative as actor immediately following the ethno-geography is in fact reminiscent of the poetic technique seen, inter alios, in Vergil, who brings on characters from earlier epic just when he is going to contest that epic’s place in literary history. When Tacitus says, then, that Caesar did not “hand down” Britain to posterity, we should understand tradidisse at . meta-literarily, “pass on information” (OLD , cf. Germ. . (quoted above) summus auctorum divus Iulius tradit). That is, neither Caesar actor nor Caesar auctor really knows his ABCs about the competitive business of creating empire. How does this know-nothing sneak into Tacitus’ text? As with Livy, one finds both direct quotations and more general examples of stylistic and structural techniques. The former are frequent – and often corrective – in the description of Britain. Where Caesar calls Britannia triangular, but then must divide one of its sides into two to match the four compass points, Tacitus has one side facing each of the cardinal points, reflecting his belief that south of Caledonia, the shape is that of a bipennis or scutulum: insula natura triquetra, cuius () unum latus est contra Galliam. huius lateris (a) alter angulus, qui est ad Cantium . . . ad orientem solem, (b) inferior ad meridiem spectat. . . . () alterum vergit ad Hispaniam atque occidentem solem. . . .() tertium est contra septentriones; cui parti nulla est obiecta terra, sed eius angulus lateris maxime ad Germaniam spectat. (Caes. BG ..–, extracts)
Spilman (, passim but especially –); she cites many examples of these “episode” sentences, e.g. BG .. (the successive narrative stages are emphasized): hostes re nova perterriti muro turribusque deiecti in foro ac locis patentioribus cuneatim constiterunt (“the enemy, terrified by the new action, thrown down from the wall and towers, formed up in a wedge shape in the forum and relatively open places”). Couissin (, ) calls it “brutale, excessive, ironique et ostentatoire”, apropos of Tacitus’ modification of Caesar on British chariot fighting at Agr. .); cf. (, ) “sur tous les points Tacite contredit César” (on Agricola) and Krebs (, ) (on Germania) “[a]ll references correct Caesar.” Perhaps the best example is Achaemenides (Aen. .–). Couissin (, ): (in Tacitus’ eyes) “Caesar knew neither how to conquer nor how to describe Britain.”
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Britannia, insularum quas Romana notitia complectitur maxima, spatio ac caelo () in orientem Germaniae, () in occidentem Hispaniae obtenditur, () Gallis in meridiem etiam inspicitur; () septentrionalia eius, nullis contra terris, vasto atque aperto mari pulsantur. formam totius Britanniae Livius veterum, Fabius Rusticus recentium eloquentissimi auctores oblongo scutulo vel bipenni adsimulavere (Tac. Agr. .–).
Tacitus’ omission of Caesar here has led scholars to think that he in fact agrees with him about the island’s triangular shape against Livy and Fabius Rusticus; instead, it is clear that silence here means anything but assent, as the detailed corrective allusion shows. He further puts Caesar right on the use of British war chariots (cf. n. ) and is careful to point out – immediately before divus Julius enters the scene – that the pearls which Suetonius tells us Caesar was so avid for, are worthless (Agr. .–, cf. Suet. Iul. with Deutsch () and Couissin (, –)). Corrective allusions continue outside the ethno-geography. So, upon his entry into his proconsulship, like Caesar Agricola campaigns even though the season is past (. quamquam transvecta aestas ~ BG .. neque belli gerendi propter anni tempus facultatem habebat). The similarity in leadership style is marked by an adaptation of typical Caesarian sentence structure, as Tacitus explains Agricola’s decision-making process via a string of subordinate clauses (Agr. . with Lausberg (, and n.)); and when Agricola later successfully invades Anglesey, his troops find a challenge like that met by Caesar on invading Britain (BG ..). But Agricola is manifestly more successful than his imperial precursor: at Anglesey, for example, he has a worse problem than Caesar (Caesar’s difficulty was that his ships drew too much, Agricola’s that he has no ships): but where the shallows cause Caesar the problem, they prove advantageous to Agricola’s tactical genius (Agr. .–). Agricola resembles Caesar in his command persona, as well: omnia scire, non omnia exsequi (“he knew everything, but did not punish everything” Agr. .) recalls the behavior reported at Suet. Iul. delicta neque observabat omnia
“The island is by nature triangular. One side is opposite Gaul; one corner of this side, which is near Kent . . . looks toward the rising sun, the lower [corner] looks toward the south . . . The second side points toward Spain and the setting sun . . . The third is opposite the north, and there is no land near it, but of this side the corner looks particularly toward Germany”; “Britain, the largest of the islands Roman knowledge embraces, in its area and zone extends into the rising [sc. sun] toward Germany; into the setting [sc. sun] towards Spain; in the south it is within sight also of the Gauls; its northerly parts, with no lands opposite them, are constantly battered by a vast and open sea. The shape of the whole of Britain Livius and Fabius Rusticus – the most eloquent of old and recent authors – likened to an elongated little shield or double-axe.” On the shape, see Kraus in Woodman () ad loc.; for disagreement concerning Tacitus’ correction of Caesar see Lausberg (, n.).
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neque pro modo exequebatur (“he neither observed all their offences nor punished them by rule”). Again, the relationship is agonistic. Caesar did not see everything, and failed to punish fully the faults that he did see; while Agricola knows all but omits some punishments: “whereas Caesar’s knowledge is only partial, Agricola’s comprehensive knowledge . . . marks him out as the superior leader” (Woodman ad loc.). As Lausberg observes, however (, ), for this synkrisis to elevate Agricola, the terms of the comparison must be themselves elevated: not “Agricola surpassed Caesar” but “Agricola surpassed even Caesar.” And indeed, we see Tacitus echoing his precursor in homage. When Agricola dies, like Caesar, he has enough glory: ipse quidem, quamquam medio in spatio integrae aetatis ereptus, quantum ad gloriam, longissimum aevum peregit (.). The allusion elevates – though with a hint of rivalry adhering in the Tacitean superlative, which caps the statement attributed to Caesar at Cic. Marcell. satis diu vel naturae vixi vel gloriae. Herbert Nutting thought that the finale of Agricola’s military narrative, the battle at Mons Graupius, was modeled on Caesar’s narrative of Pharsalus; indeed, he believed that Agricola had based his tactics on those of Caesar, conflating life and art. Apart from the general similarity in strategy – which can be paralleled elsewhere – he has a striking specific parallel at Agr. . ora fodere (“strike their faces”): Caesar’s order at Pharsalus was to strike at the faces of the Pompeians. Furthermore, at the battle Agricola addresses his soldiers with a Caesarian flair, calling them commilitones (Agr. ., Suet. Iul. .). Beyond that, however, it is the big pictures of Agricola and the BG which are remarkably similar: a war against northern barbarians, with an inset expedition directed against a neighboring island which threatened too much libertas and possible help to rebels, that lasts for seven seasons and is capped with a big-picture battle and extended speech by a barbarian leader. Given Tacitus’ demonstrable engagement with Caesar’s text on a minute level in the biography, it must
“But although snatched in mid-course from a whole life, when it came to glory, he had completed a very long life” ~ “I have lived long enough either for nature or for glory.” A version of the remark is found at Suet. Iul. . “it did not make as much difference to himself as to the Republic, that he remain alive: for he, at any rate, had garnered abundantly power and glory long since”; Cicero applies the same conceit to himself at Phil. . mihi fere satis est quod vixi vel ad aetatem vel ad gloriam, Fam. .. (to Plancus, ), much to some commentators’ puzzlement (e.g. Shackleton Bailey (, )). Nutting (); on the mutual imitation of life and art in historiography, see Damon (), Chaplin (). See Woodman () ad loc. The story of Caesar’s battle tactics comes from Plutarch via Pollio; see Pelling () ad Caes. ..
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also be the case that the Bellum Gallicum stands behind the Agricola’s military narrative – but the biography subsumes and surpasses that model text, just as its hero subsumes and surpasses its deified author. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H To my knowledge there is no general recent study of Caesar’s stylistic influence on later historiography. There are useful analyses of some elements of influence: so, for example, Spilman () and Chausserie-Laprée () on sentence structure; Aumont () on prose rhythm; Lausberg () on the persona and theme of Caesar and Cato in Tacitus’ Agricola; Klotz (), () on Caesar and Livy (primarily textual); Kraus () on Latin historiographical style; and Utard (), () on indirect discourse. The best place to find analysis of such stylistic influence is in commentaries, e.g. in the notes of Oakley (), Woodman (), Krebs (forthcoming c). Directions for further research: A stylistically sensitive treatment of Caesar as a writer within the wider context of Roman historiography is badly needed.
Similarly, it has been argued by Bartley () that an overall stylistic (and hence historiographical) influence of Xenophon on Caesar is as important as any precise similarity of content; it is also productive to think about differences, as Pitcher shows (– in this volume).
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan Timothy A. Joseph
The historical figure of Julius Caesar has a strong presence in the works of Vergil (– ), who lived through the final, war-torn days of the Republic, and Lucan (– ), who wrote his poem about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey over a century after the dictator’s assassination. Vergil includes references to the slain dictator in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, and Caesar’s character is the dominant, driving force of Lucan’s poem. The presence of Caesar the stylist is also apparent in the writings of these poets: diction, rhetorical strategies, and – on a grand scale in Lucan’s poem – events from Caesar’s Commentarii are adopted, reworked, and refigured. This chapter will concentrate on Vergil’s and Lucan’s engagement with Caesar the literary artist, but we will see that these poets frequently appear to be reacting to both the auctor and the actor. In the case of texts as politically motivated as the Commentarii and a historical figure as towering and transformative as Caesar, literary responses that also grapple with politics and ideology should not be surprising. I will begin with a discussion of Vergil, concentrating on the Aeneid, before moving on to Lucan, who responds to Caesar in similar ways to Vergil, but more pervasively and polemically.
Vergil’s Caesarian Elegantia Like many readers of the Commentarii, Vergil was drawn to Caesar’s choice of words, his elegantia. For example, the poet’s references to I am thankful to Elizabeth Keitel and John Schafer, as well as the volume’s editors Luca Grillo and Christopher Krebs, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Vergil’s late-antique commentator Servius refers to the poet’s reading of Caesar on one occasion. On Aen. . he writes that Vergil has drawn the detail of Venulus being snatched off of his horse by Tarchon (.–) from Caesar’s description of a similar experience during combat in Gaul. Servius states that Caesar related this story in ephemeride sua (“in his commentary”), though no
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esseda, Gallic two-horse chariots, at Georgics . and uri, wild German oxen, at Georgics . and . seem to demonstrate his reading of the BG, in which Caesar may well have introduced these words into Latin. Vergil’s use of place names may also have been colored by his reading of the BG. His inclusion at Eclogues . of the Arar river (modern Saône) as a representative western river may reflect its notoriety as the site of Caesar’s first victory in Gaul, over the Helvetian Tigurini (BG .). It is, however, “above all as the classic exponent of military narrative in recent times that Vergil read Caesar.” This is most apparent in the Aeneid’s battle descriptions, but also perhaps in those passages of the Georgics in which the poet brings military imagery into the farmer’s world. For example, Caesar is the first author to use the verb dirigo of the lining up of armies, at BG .., where he writes of “ordering the battle line to be positioned” (aciemque dirigi iubet) just before combat against an allied Gallic force. After Caesar, the pairing of dirigo and acies becomes common in battle accounts, such as those in the Bellum Alexandrinum (.), Bellum Africum (., ., ., .), and Bellum Hispaniense (.), as well as Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (twelve times). Vergil uses the collocation in a simile comparing well-ordered rows of vines to neatly aligned battle lines, which are described as derectaeque acies (G. .). The inclusion of the expression here gives special contemporary force to the simile’s already striking irruption into Vergil’s georgic world. The poet will employ the phrase once again in Aeneid , in a forceful two-word sentence describing the Latin and Trojan battle lines just before the outbreak of war: derexere acies (Aen. .: “They positioned their battle lines”). And so, right at the outset of his Latin war, a war that he will pack with resonances of the warfare of his time, Vergil brings in the language of the contemporary battlefield. Further examples of military language that Caesar seems to have introduced into literary usage abound in the Aeneid. Horsfall discusses many
such episode appears in the BG (or BC). Sirago (–, ) reads this as a reference to other, lost writings by Caesar, while Horsfall () on . regards Servius’ citation as “fantasy.” On Caesar’s elegantia, cf. Pezzini – and Krebs – in this volume. Caesar uses forms of essedum and essedarius (“essedum-driver”) a total of ten times in books and of the BG, and uri at BG ... Sirago (–, ) and Krebs (b, ) discuss the possibility that Vergil first read these words in the BG. Sirago (–) . Horsfall (, xiv). Much of this military idiom certainly originated in the camp and on the battlefield, but it appears that Caesar introduced such expressions into the literary language. See further the comments by Krebs (, n. ).
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cases of Vergil employing verbs in a military sense that is common in the Commentarii: for example, the poet’s one use at . of dispono for the arrangement of swords, a verb that Caesar had used thirty-eight times for the placement of troops and military equipment; of distineo to mean “to hold off” at ., a usage that Caesar employs nine times; and of praemitto at . and . for the sending forth of cavalry, a usage appearing seven times in the Commentarii. An example of sustained engagement with Caesar’s language of war may be found in Aen. .–, Aeneas’ recollection of the fighting around Priam’s palace. The language and progression of this passage, in which the Trojans attempt to ward off the Greek attackers from the palace, have much in common with Caesar’s description of the Massilians warding off the Caesarians in BC .. Such scenes of siege and defense are common in Latin battle narratives, in prose and poetry, but there are several verbal parallels between these two passages, which, in composite, appear to complement and build upon one another. Caesar describes the besieged Massilians as rolling down rocks (saxa . . . devolvunt, ..) and then igniting and rolling down barrels of pitch (cupas taeda ac pice refertas incendunt easque . . . devolvunt, ..) onto their assailants. At Priam’s palace the desperate Trojans “roll down the gilded beams, the high ornaments of their old ancestors” (auratasque trabes, veterum decora alta parentum, | devolvunt, .–). Devolvo is another verb whose military usage Caesar appears to have brought into literary Latin (its only earlier appearance of any sort is at Catullus ., of bread rolled out of a fire). The argument for a connection between these two particular passages may be strengthened by the fact that Caesar uses devolvo only these two times in BC . and Vergil only here at Aeneid . and at G. . (of the Muses unrolling their spindles). Soon afterwards in Caesar’s account, his men “pull down the lowermost rocks of the enemy’s tower” (infima saxa turris hostium . . . convellunt, ..), while Vergil’s Aeneas recalls how he and his fellow Trojans “pulled down a tower” (turrim . . . | . . . convellimus, .–) from Priam’s palace in self-defense. At BC .. part of the tower falls (concidit), as does the entire tower, with the verb incidit, at Aen. .. Each time the fall brings with it sudden ruin (repentina ruina at BC ..
On dispono see Horsfall () on .; on distineo and praemitto see Horsfall () on . and ., respectively. Harrison () on . similarly compares the “military terminology” of dimittere equos at Aen. . to Caesar’s use of that verb at BC ... As Horsfall () ad loc. notes. See Rossi (, –) on the conventional features of siege narratives, as well as Levithan (), a synoptic study of Roman siege warfare.
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and repente ruinam . . . trahit at Aen. ., the only juxtapositions of repent- and ruina that I have found in the Latin corpus). The verbal similarities in the two passages are many, and in the cases of devolvunt and the collocation of repent- and ruina, very close. Horsfall writes that “the public that devoured Caesar’s account of the siege of Massilia, or their children . . . will clearly have appreciated” the passage in Aeneid . Beyond appreciation, readers may have been struck by the greater sense of Roman self-destructiveness in Vergil’s “pre-staging” of this civil war battle. The combat in BC . takes place amid the civil war between the Caesarian and the Pompeian parties, but here the Caesarian troops are in fact besieging the ethnically Greek Massilian townspeople. The fight in Aeneid is also against Greeks, but in the siege of Priam’s palace Vergil is keen to bring out how it is the Roman forefathers the Trojans, not their Greek opponents, who are destroying the palace. So, whereas the besieged Massilians roll down rocks and barrels in defense (BC ..–), the Trojans roll down their own palace’s golden beams, “the high glories of their old ancestors” (veterum decora alta parentum, Aen. .). And while in the BC the Caesarian soldiers work to uproot the Massilian tower (BC ..), Vergil’s Trojans pull down their own tower – Aeneas’ collective first-person plurals convellimus and impulimus (Aen. .–) underscore the point. With the fall of the tower, each account reaches a climax, but with another difference that seems to point to Vergilian aemulatio, and to greater, grimmer destruction and pandemonium in his telling. After the tower’s collapse in Massilia, the townspeople plead for mercy (BC ..), and “the entire administration of the war stops” (BC ..). After the tower falls in Aeneid , Vergil moves quickly to another scene at the palace; but the expected pause in the action is in fact no pause at all, as “others still rush in, and in the meantime neither rocks nor any sort of weapon ceases” (ast alii subeunt, nec saxa nec ullum | telorum interea cessat genus, Aen. .–).
The closest comparandum that I have found is at Gell. NA .., during a description of the things that alarm even wise men (cum sonus aliquis formidabilis aut caelo aut ex ruina aut repentinus nescio cuius periculi nuntius). Horsfall () ad loc. Cf. just earlier at Aen. .–, where the Trojans unwittingly kill their countrymen disguised in Greek armor. Hardie (, ), in a discussion of the many layers of Roman history that can be uncovered in Aen. , characterizes .– as “an image of the civil war that plagued the late Republic.” Horsfall () on .– also regards the phrase nec ullum telorum . . . genus as “Caesarian idiom” and cites the appearance of the phrase omne genus telorum at BG .. and BC ...
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
Caesarian Rhetoric Refigured Vergil’s appropriation of Caesar’s diction is accompanied by engagement with Caesarian political rhetoric. For example, in numerous passages in the BG and the BC Caesar holds up his concern for personal dignitas, both that of other Romans (Pompey’s at BC .., the tribunes’ at ..) and his own (e.g. BG .., BC ..). The longing to secure dignitas emerges from the pages of the Commentarii, as it does from other texts and media of that time, as a critical motivation in the civil wars. Vergil also brings the issue of personal esteem to the fore, but with a different point of view from Caesar’s. In several passages in the final books of the Aeneid, the poet concentrates on the inverse of dignitas, indignatio, the feeling of lack of worth, and the resentment that comes with it. In book the divine opponents Venus and Juno both dwell on their feelings of indignation, the former for the “unworthy pain” (indigno . . . dolore, .) that her son suffers and later for Juturna’s ability to aid Turnus (.), the latter for all that she has endured (.). But it is the human Turnus whose feelings of indignatio feature most prominently. Although as the poem nears its end he knows that the gods oppose him and that death is certain (.–), Turnus continues to assert his personal dignity, exclaiming that he is “not at all unworthy of his great ancestors” (magnorum haud umquam indignus avorum, .). But when Aeneas’ sword renders him the unmistakable loser in their contest, it is indeed an absence of dignitas that he feels, as the poem’s final line underscores: vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras (.: “And with a groan his life fled, indignant, down to the shadows”). Vergil had used this same line to describe Camilla, Turnus’ Volscian ally, at the moment of her death at the climax of book (.). Both of these great defenders of Italy, then, feel their dignity slighted as they die; and the repetition of the line gives it greater weight, uniting the characters and elevating their indignatio to a collective Italian feeling of loss. In his discussion of dignitas in the Aeneid, J. D. Noonan writes that “the political dimension of Turnus’ loss lay in the original
Textual uncertainty at the important passage BC .. makes it unclear whether Caesar appeals there to his own dignitas or that of the Roman people. On this theme in Caesar’s writing, see Raaflaub ( and , –), Batstone and Damon (, –), Morstein-Marx (), and Krebs – in this volume. See the discussion by Noonan (, –) of “the rising tide of indignatio that readers confront in the last books of the Aeneid” (). Tarrant () on . notes this difference from the verbally parallel deaths of Patroclus and Hector in the Iliad: “in V. both deaths are on the Latin side, showing how the weight of destiny has shifted.”
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audience’s knowledge that quarreling over dignitas had precipitated more than a decade of civil war just before the earliest phase of Vergil’s career.” While drawing a parallel with the military conflicts of his time, Vergil also seems to take the issue of dignitas and, in a manner that is characteristic of his poetry as a whole, emphatically look at it from the perspective not of the victor, the “Caesar” figure, but of the losers Camilla and Turnus. In the final moments of Vergil’s epic, when Aeneas conspicuously disregards his father Anchises’ instruction to “spare the defeated [lit.: those cast under]” (parcere subiectis, .) and goes through with killing the defeated (.) and prostrate (.) Turnus, the reader may also think of Julius Caesar’s very different practice of clemency, or, as he calls it in the Commentarii, lenitas. The many examples in the BG and BC of Caesar sparing the lives of enemies, foreign and Roman alike, offer a strong counterpoint to the conduct of his mythical ancestor here at the end of the Aeneid. A reading in which Caesar emerges as more merciful and morally superior to his Julian forefather seems possible. However, just before the moment in book when Anchises advocates sparing the defeated (.–) comes the one passage in the Aeneid where the character of Julius Caesar unambiguously appears, and here Vergil has Anchises rebuke Caesar for his persistence in war. This is during the “Parade of Heroes” at .–, when Anchises singles out shades dwelling in the Underworld who will be famous Romans after birth. At .– he draws Aeneas’ attention to Caesar and Pompey: illae autem paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, concordes animae nunc et dum nocte premuntur, heu quantum inter se bellum, si lumina vitae attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci descendens, gener adversis instructus Eois ! ne, pueri, ne tanta animis adsuescite bella neu patriae validas in viscera vertite viris; tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, proice tela manu, sanguis meus! — “But those shades that you see shining in equal arms, spirits in concord now and as long as they are kept down by night, alas, how great a war will there be between
Noonan (, ). On which see Grillo (, –); cf. also Raaflaub – in this volume. The identification of Troianus Caesar at Aen. . is uncertain. See the discussions by O’Hara (, –), who argues for deliberate ambiguity, and Dobbin (), who identifies the figure as Julius Caesar.
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
them, if they ever touch the light of life, what great battle lines and slaughter will they put in motion, the father-in-law descending from the Alpine ramparts and the fortress of Monoecus, the son-in-law built up with the opposing forces of the East! Do not, sons, do not accustom your souls to such great wars, and do not turn your mighty strength against the innards of the fatherland; and you first of all, relent, you who take your birth from Olympus, throw those weapons down from your hand, blood of mine!”
And so Anchises foretells the contest between Caesar and Pompey and, in strong and intimate language in .– (note the repetition of ne . . . ne . . . | neu, the affectionate address pueri, and the graphic, personalizing imagery of patriae . . . viscera), orders them not to engage. He then speaks directly to Caesar, with words of even greater intimacy, repeating the emphatic tu and noting their shared descent from Jupiter, a point he accentuates with his final address, sanguis meus. Anchises’ message to his progeny Caesar is that he must “be sparing,” let up – parce (.) – the very same verb that he will use nineteen lines later when describing the Roman duty to “spare the defeated” (.). Servius read line as a reference to Caesar’s practice of clementia towards the Pompeians, a peculiar reading because here Anchises is bidding Caesar to desist in his advance against fellow Romans, an action that he did in fact take. The mythical Julian forefather’s command that Caesar be the first to relent “cannot and will not be heeded. Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, initiating hostilities, ironically answers the patriarch’s tu . . . prior.” This is the Julius Caesar that Vergil chooses to present in his poem, not the merciful Caesar that Servius was looking for. And if we have this passage from Aeneid in mind when we come to Aeneas’ unwillingness to relent at the end of the poem, then it is similarity, not difference, that we notice in the wartime conduct of Aeneas and his descendant Caesar. While offering a picture that contradicts Caesar’s characterization of himself as a figure of restraint, in these lines from Aeneid Vergil also employs “barbarizing” rhetoric in a manner very different from Caesar’s. In the BC Caesar systematically presents Pompey and his Eastern troops as savage, prone to luxury, fundamentally un-Roman, in opposition to the “true Roman” Caesar. At .– Vergil figures Pompey and Caesar as foreign assailants, the former backed by his Eastern forces, the latter descending Italy’s Alpine ramparts – an image that brings to mind that most famous climber of the Alps and foe of Rome, the Carthaginian
Skinner (, ). See also Putnam (, ). See Rossi () and Grillo (, –).
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general Hannibal, whose crossing of the Alps Vergil will reference later in the poem (.–). And so Vergil seems to say that any civil warrior, Caesar not excluded, has fundamental similarities with – and in fact can be hard to distinguish from – a foreign attacker of Rome. In Aen. .– Vergil appears to engage with the political rhetoric of the Commentarii in general, rather than with any particular passage. His narration of Priam’s death in book offers the rare opportunity for us to compare a parallel passage by Caesar, the account of Pompey’s death in BC .. In his commentary on the epitaph for Priam (.–), Servius writes, on ., that Vergil “touches on the history of Pompey when he says ‘immense’ and not ‘great’” (Pompei tangit historiam, cum “ingens” dicit, non “magnus”). A number of other characteristics of Pompey the Great are visible in the Priam of .–: haec finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum sorte tulit Troiam incensam et prolapsa videntem Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum regnatorem Asiae. iacet ingens litore truncus, avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus. This end of the fates of Priam, this death, by chance brought him down, while he watched Troy burning and Pergamum falling – once lording over so many peoples and lands, the ruler of Asia. His huge trunk lies on the shore, his head ripped from its shoulders, a body without a name.
The phrase “the ruler of Asia” brings to mind Pompey’s many conquests and alliances in the East, while the detail that the corpse was lying headless on the shore, a jarring one since Pyrrhus had killed Priam before the altar in his palace, recalls the sight of the dead Pompey on Egypt’s shore. The present tense of iacet lends further immediacy to the scene, and the concluding designation of the body as nameless (sine nomine) begs the question of whether this familiar figure is Priam, Pompey, or both men. If, like Servius and modern readers of this passage, we see Pompey in these lines, we observe a striking contrast with Caesar’s treatment of his great rival’s death at BC ..: Ab his liberaliter ipse appellatus et quadam notitia Septimi productus, quod bello praedonum apud eum ordinem duxerat, naviculam parvulam conscendit cum paucis suis: ibi ab Achilla et Septimio interficitur. Item L. Lentulus comprehenditur ab rege et in custodia necatur.
Reed (, –).
Hinds (, ). On these connections see also Bowie ().
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
Having been addressed by them with kindness, and encouraged by a certain familiarity with Septimius, because he had been an officer with him in the war against the pirates, [Pompey] climbs onto a tiny little boat with a few of his men; there he is killed by Achillas and Septimius. L. Lentulus is also arrested by the king and killed in custody.
The account is spare, a devastating dismissal of Pompey, who, under his rival’s pen, is denied the glory of a literary death-scene. While referring to Pompey’s past greatness by recalling his successes in the war against the pirates in – , Caesar visualizes the reduction of the man known as Magnus by using a double diminutive (naviculam parvulam) to emphasize the smallness the skiff, the setting for his final moments. At the moment of the killing, it is the assassins Achillas and Septimius who are named, not Pompey. And Caesar does not dwell at all on the deed after it is done. He moves immediately on to Lentulus’ death, which, by means of the conjoining adverb item, is practically brought to the same level as Pompey’s. The very next sentence (BC ..) begins with the word Caesar, whose story goes on, untrammeled and seemingly indifferent to Pompey’s exit from it. While Caesar minimizes and speeds past this moment in Roman history, Vergil imbues the death of Priam/Pompey with the maximum amount of grandeur and significance. Before concluding with the weighty and poignant epitaph at .–, he describes in lavish detail Pyrrhus’ pursuit of Priam and the king’s last stand (.–). The deathblow itself, unlike Caesar’s quick and impersonal interficitur, is stretched out over four gory lines (.–). In the epitaph, the repetition with variation of haec finis . . . hic exitus (.) punctuates the importance of this moment, while the reference to the “so many lands and peoples” (.) under his sway highlights the man’s majesty, as does the inclusion of regnator (.), a word Vergil uses elsewhere only of gods (Jupiter at ., ., ., .; Tiberinus at .). The death of Priam, which Vergil makes the climax of Aeneid and “an emblem of the end of the city,” is an epochal, world-changing event. When we look at the regnator Asiae of these lines and also see Pompey, his death – so different from its dramatically diminished telling in Caesar’s BC – also reaches the level of the momentous and transformative. It is not possible to say with certainty whether Vergil had BC .– in mind when he crafted his much more elaborate telling of Priam’s Pompeian last moments. If he did,
See Batstone and Damon (, –). Carter (, ). Bowie (, ). See also Heinze (, –).
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then the passage in Aeneid reads as a dramatic stylistic reversal of the Caesarian passage, a transformation of the rapid deflation of Pompey into an extended and poignant commemoration.
Deforming Caesar Passages fit for stylistic comparison with the Commentarii such as this one from Aeneid are abundant in Lucan’s poem, whose ten books cover the events from January to November , almost precisely the period of time treated by Caesar in the BC. This close correspondence in termini is one of several points brought up by those arguing that the BC was an important model text for Lucan’s poem. For the greater part of the twentieth century the communis opinio held that books – of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, of which we now have only short fourth-century summaries, were Lucan’s principal source, and that Caesar’s Commentarii did not hold an important place on the poet’s bookshelf. But much recent scholarship has read Lucan as writing in direct and hostile response to Caesar. This reading of the poem was forcefully and influentially articulated by Jamie Masters, who read the BC less as a source than as a “point of departure” for Lucan, whose poem stands in “deliberate counterpoise” to Caesar’s BC, and who strives to “oppose and confront Caesar in the domain of history.” This manner of combative response on “deformation” to the BC manifests itself in several ways. Details, characters, and entire episodes that Caesar makes prominent in the BC are repositioned, distorted beyond belief, damningly re-imagined, or omitted altogether, while material that is less flattering to Caesar and thus minimized or nonexistent in his text is developed in grand fashion by Lucan. So, for example, Caesar never mentions the crossing of the Rubicon and arranges events in BC so as to suggest that the consuls fled Rome before he entered Italy. Lucan dramatically opens his narrative with the crossing of this all-important boundary (.–), an act that he in fact describes twice (.– and .–), and that he recalls regularly over the course of the poem, as in
See Pichon (). More recent advocates of this position include Mayer (, –) and Radicke (, –). Masters (, –), amid his discussion at –. Masters builds on the work of Haffter (), Rambaud (), Lintott (), and Bachofen (). See also Fantham (, –) Zissos (), and Joseph (, –). Batstone and Damon (, ). Masters (, –). See also Haffter (, ) on the different starting points.
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
his account of the siege of Corfinium (.–) and at Pharsalia (.–). The willing reception by Italian towns that Caesar makes an important part of the argument of the BC (.–) is absent from Lucan’s poem, replaced by a lengthy description of the silent terror that holds Ariminum (.–). The cast of characters is also radically redrawn: Caesar’s great ideological enemy Cato, marginalized nearly to the point of invisibility in the BC, takes center stage in books and of Lucan’s poem; the Caesarian Curio’s shifty and venal past, suppressed by Caesar, is exposed by Lucan in high style on the occasion of his death (.–); Domitius, acquiescent to Caesar’s clemency and ultimately cowardly in the BC (. and ..), is in Lucan’s telling strong-willed and courageous (.– and .–); Scaeva, a heroic defender of the Caesarians at Dyrrachium in BC ., is blown up ad absurdum by Lucan into one man taking on the entire Pompeian army (.–); and the Caesarian centurion Crastinus, who at BC . (cf. .) boldly leads the charge at Pharsalia, is for that same reason singled out for divine punishment by Lucan (.–). Above in this chapter I contrasted Vergil’s expansive telling of the death of Priam/Pompey in Aeneid with Caesar’s swift literary dismissal of his rival in BC ... In what may be an elaborate development of that Vergilian passage, Lucan commits some ponderous lines (.–) to the planning, execution, and immediate aftermath of Pompey’s murder. The scant details that do appear in Caesar’s account receive rich and redundant treatment in Lucan’s. While Caesar had nodded to Pompey’s past successes by referring to Septimius’ service in the war against the pirates, Lucan uses the opportunity of the man’s death to repeatedly reflect on his past prestige and successes (esp. at .–, .–, .–, and .–). Caesar’s memorable mention of the “tiny little boat” (naviculam parvulam) on which Pompey was killed grows in Lucan’s telling to four references to the smallness of the vessel (., ., ., .). Lucan seems to express some awareness about his own narrative prolongment of Pompey’s death-scene when he states that
Fantham (, ). Batstone (). Rambaud (, ). See Grillo (, –) on how the BC “virtually ignores Cato” (). And see Ahl (, –) on Lucan’s depiction of Cato as the ideological opposite of Caesar. See Johnson (, ) on this “mocking hyperbole,” as well as Zissos (, –). Lounsbury () and Fucecchi (, ) discuss Lucan’s “reversals” of the characters Domitius and Crastinus. On the connections between Vergil’s Priam and Lucan’s Pompey, see Narducci (, –) and Hinds (, –).
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“Fortune hastily (raptim) prepared a tomb for Pompey” (.), but then commits lines to the burial of his trunk by the soldier Cordus (.–). Through this postponement, Pompey lives on, his burial insistently figured as a non-burial. The interment of the corpse at last takes place at the end of book , but then much of book is committed to eulogies of and reflections on Pompey, first by the narrator himself (.–), then by his wife Cornelia (.–), Cato (.–), and the Cilician king Tarcondimotus (.–). Moreover, as the poem stands, its last line and last word also belong to Pompey (Magnum, .). This seemingly ceaseless musing on Pompey and his death in Lucan’s poem stands in stark contrast with Caesar’s rhetorical strategy of minimizing his rival, of “stripping Pompey of his legitimacy and his laurels.” While Caesar does treat the battle of Pharsalia at length (BC .–), this too he seems to strip of its climactic status, making it clear that he “has won a battle but not a war” and that “a lot of work still awaits” him. In addition, just as he never names the Rubicon river (see pp. – above), Caesar never uses the name Pharsalia or Pharsalus. Caesar’s perspective on the significance of the battle and failure to use its name are to be contrasted with the wildly different strategies of Lucan, who keeps the battle ever-present in the reader’s consciousness, crafting all other conflicts in the poem as its prequel, and making the battle the central event and turning point not just of the civil wars but of Roman history itself. The narrator’s spirited reflections during his account of the battle in book make the centrality of Pharsalia clear (see esp. .–, .–, and .–). Furthermore, quite the opposite of leaving the battle site unnamed, Lucan names it frequently and may well have given the poem the title Pharsalia. The key passage for this argument is .–, when, after a reflection on the power of poetry, Lucan says to Caesar: “posterity will read me and you; our Pharsalia will live on” (venturi me teque legent; Pharsalia nostra | vivet). The statement is a polemical one: with the close linking of himself and Caesar in the phrase me teque and then the first-person possessive adjective nostra, Lucan stakes a claim for ownership of the story of Pharsalia, which is being told and will be remembered on his terms, not Caesar’s.
Batstone and Damon (, ). Grillo (, –). See Joseph (, –) on the differences between Caesar’s and Lucan’s treatment of the battle of Pharsalia. Masters (, ). See also Bexley (, –) on the centrality of Pharsalia in the poem. For this view see Ahl (, –, the most extensive treatment of the matter of the title), Leigh (, ), and Fratantuono (, ). On Lucan’s displacement of Caesar and the BC with these lines, see Zissos (, –).
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
Lucan’s extraordinarily personal manner of engagement with his text, seen in this assertion in book , is another area of significant departure from Caesar. The reader of the Commentarii is struck at once by Caesar’s unprecedented use of the third person to describe his own exploits, a strategy by which he is able to “turn a predominantly personal narrative into an apparently objective history.” Lucan takes the opposite approach, using the first and second persons and frequent apostrophes to insert himself aggressively into the events of his poem. Whereas Caesar had depersonalized contemporary history, Lucan personalizes events from over a century earlier. For example, in a span of six lines amid the fighting at Pharsalia, the poet addresses Caesar in blame (.), turns quickly to apostrophize his own mind, which he bids to turn away (.–), and then calls on Rome herself, whose role in the conflict he pledges to keep quiet (.) – a promise that, impassioned as he is, Lucan cannot keep in the coming lines. Soon afterwards in book the poet makes explicit why he is responding to the events at Pharsalia with so much subjectivity: “It is more than life and welfare that are dying; we are being overthrown for the entire age of the world” (.–: plus est quam vita salusque | quod perit: in totum mundi prosternimur aevum). The victory of Caesar at Pharsalia meant the victory of Caesarism, for Lucan’s time and for all time. The use of the first person plural here and often in the poem to describe Romans collectively may mark another way that Lucan engages combatively with Caesar. For, while Caesar’s use of the first person singular is rare in the BC, he modifies his army with the first person plural adjective noster times, and thus “broadcasts an image of ‘Caesar’ as the representative of what is truly Roman and Republican.” By continually repositioning “us” as the Roman opponents of Caesar, Lucan appears to reclaim Roman identity from the victor at Pharsalia.
Redefining Caesar In the preceding pages, following the lead of Masters and others, I have considered ways in which Lucan may respond – polemically – to Caesar’s presentation of the civil war. Whether or not we accept the premise that Lucan engages directly with Caesar’s text, when we hold the texts side by side we observe the authors using similar type-scenes and rhetorical
Batstone and Damon (, ). In her study of apostrophe in Lucan’s poem, D’Alessandro Behr (, ) counts of them. See also Bartsch (, –) and Asso () on Lucan’s use of this trope. See also e.g. .–, .–, .–, .–, ., ., and .–. Batstone and Damon (, ).
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strategies for very different, often opposite ends. What is ultimately at stake, of course, is the characterization and the memory of the figure Julius Caesar. Both authors, for example, have a lot to say about the speed for which Caesar was so well known. Caesar himself goes to great lengths to show that his speed, unlike that of his opponents, was always coupled with planning and circumspection. Lucan makes Caesar’s speed the hasty and violent kind, comparing him programmatically and unforgettably with a destructive bolt of lightning (.–; see also .–), a comparison he shares with another paragon of conquering speed, Alexander (.–). And Caesar, as we have noted, presents himself as the defender of the Roman people, at war with the Eastern, barbarian forces of Pompey (pp. above). In book of Lucan’s poem it is Caesar who is the enemy of his own people, crossing into Italy with an army of barbarians (.–). At Pharsalia, Caesar makes himself the ubiquitous general, directing and exhorting his soldiers at locations across the battlefield (.., .., .., ..–). Lucan also stresses Caesar’s ubiquity, as a personal agent of slaughter, finishing kills, like Bellona or Mars, all across the plains of Pharsalia (.–). After the battle Caesar orders his men not to plunder, and they obey (..); Lucan’s Caesar gives a rousing speech encouraging plunder (.–), which his troops also oblige (.–). There are many such correspondences of narrative approach, with biting reversals. The correspondence between the BC and Lucan’s epic that has attracted the most scholarly attention is the parallel in endpoint. Both texts end with Caesar at war with the forces of Ptolemy in Alexandria, Caesar’s at BC ., Lucan’s at .. It is hard to say whether Caesar intended to return to this work – the opening of the Bellum Alexandrinum does so (see Gaertner – in this volume) – and also whether Lucan’s poem was left unfinished (though a growing number of scholars argue for the completeness of the transmitted text). Whatever the case, the texts as we have them, ending at nearly the identical chronological point, also both leave the reader with a sense of Caesar’s limitlessness. Luca Grillo has argued that, in the absence of any neat closure to the BC, Caesar does not have to relinquish power, either military or narrative power. Further, given
See Grillo (, –). And see Leigh (, –) on ancient perceptions of Caesar as a man of speed. See Roche () on .–. See Rambaud (, ), Batinski (), and Roche (, –). And see pp. – above for the presence of this idea at Aen. .–. See Haffter (), Masters (, –), Rossi (), and Tracy (), contra Ahl (, –).
Caesar in Vergil and Lucan
the alternatives of moderation in victory that Caesar offers at the end of BC and the Pompeian recklessness in victory that he shows at the end of BC , when the reader arrives at the end of book , “the very narrative structure advocates that more power be conferred upon Caesar.” Lucan’s poem never leaves any doubt about Caesar’s victory and Caesarism’s lasting hold on power. But for him it is a victory not of moderation but of excess, atrocity, oppression. About twenty lines before the poem’s text ends, Lucan looks ahead to the assassination of Caesar, the day when “his fatherland’s swords” (patrii . . . enses) will enter him (.). This foreshadowing of his death in Rome also notifies the reader that Caesar will survive the perilous entanglement in Egypt that Lucan goes on to narrate in the final lines (.–). The situation described in this closing tableau recalls in several ways the similar near-death experience at and escape from Dyrrachium in book . And so, as in Caesar’s BC but with a very different ideological force, the end of Lucan’s text compells the reader to focus on the Caesar who will live on. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H The commentaries by Horsfall on Aeneid (), Aeneid (), and Aeneid () include many observations on Vergil’s use of Caesarian military language. On Vergil’s depiction of the historical figure Julius Caesar, see Sirago (–), Dobbin (), Wittchow (), Zieske (), and Gale (). Articulate proponents of the BC as an important model text for Lucan are Haffter (), Rambaud (), Lintott (), Masters (), and Zissos (). Bachofen () helpfully juxtaposes parallel passages in the BC and Lucan’s poem. The scholarship cited here provides starting-points for much further work. Vergil’s use of Caesarian military language and of comparable battle scenes raises a number of questions about the conventional distinctions between genres, and about any narrowly drawn registers of diction in Latin literature. Systematic research, building upon the observations by Horsfall in his commentaries, could contribute significantly to continuing discussions about genre in Latin literature. The compendium by Bachofen () and the claims made by Masters () and others point to the BC as a key model – or anti-model – for Lucan’s poem, but there is no thorough study of how the poet engages with Caesar’s commentarius across his epic. To consider the matters addressed here from the point of reception, if we are open to the possibilities of these poets – the one soon after Caesar’s assassination, the other a century later – reading closely and responding to the commentarii, what does this tell us about the status of Caesar’s writing at Rome? What can we learn about the commentarii and their place in Latin literary culture from Vergil’s and Lucan’s works of poetry?
Grillo (, ).
Masters (, –).
Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars with and beyond Caesar James Thorne
To speak of the unmediated contemporary testimony we have for the Gallic and civil wars, we could very roughly say that Caesar’s own commentaries contain about per cent of it, and per cent of the remaining hundredth comes from snippets of Cicero. But the historians and biographers of antiquity had access to the copious accounts left by other participants, which, as I will argue, they often preferred to that of Caesar, and of which we therefore have something, albeit in mediated form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these rather frayed vestiges which turn up literally in fragments – as in Appian’s Gallic Wars – or framed within histories (e.g. Appian’s Civil Wars) and lives with “moralizing” messages (e.g. those of Plutarch), have often been held by moderns in low regard, compared to the stout certainties which Caesar can offer one – if one wants. In the first part of this chapter I consider to what extent historiographers and biographers in antiquity used Caesar’s writings as opposed to alternative sources. In the second part I turn to the historiography of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the routes that various authors navigated around Caesar, and between Caesar and the alternative evidence. These routes do not just tell us about the relative thoroughness and clear sight of modern writers, but often underline their political and philosophical outlook. And taken together, they provide a series of snapshots in the development of the discipline of ancient history.
Antiquity How were Caesar’s Commentarii used by ancient historians and biographers? To answer this question we may start with the BC, since the situation
Where these authors differed from Caesar, this was taken to prove their inaccuracy: e.g. Collins, in his dissertation reviewed for the Goethe University, Frankfurt-am-Main by Matthias Gelzer and Erwin Wolff: “The final conclusion must be that the entire secondary tradition covering events in Gaul – contains nothing but Caesar and smoke” (, ); see also Rice Holmes (, vol., ).
Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars
is less complicated. To put it simply, Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, and Orosius use Caesar hardly at all for the events of and . We cannot logically exclude the possibility that any of them read him, but they certainly do not appear to follow his account, coinciding only so far as certain major events would be common to any account. Furthermore, where they differ from Caesar, the earliest three tend to agree with each other, suggesting that they all follow a common tradition, which has been argued to be that of Asinius Pollio’s History (i.e. the work itself, or another work heavily dependent on it). It seems that the later two, Dio and Orosius, were more dependent on Livy, who used both Pollio and Caesar. I will first discuss the episodes in which the divergence between the Pollio tradition and Caesar (or a Caesar tradition) appears most strongly; I will then discuss ways in which the influence of Caesar is perhaps apparent in the later sources. The first significant divergence between the civil war narratives comes almost straight away, in the sequence of events which saw Caesar move from Ravenna to Ariminum. Caesar (BC .) makes no mention of the crossing of the Rubicon, which he naturally would wish not to emphasize as it was at this point his invasion of Italy, in legal terms, began. Plutarch, Appian, and Suetonius all have it in some detail, with Plutarch, significantly, naming Pollio as present. Cassius Dio . alludes to the Rubicon (“Caesar left his province”), and Orosius .. also mentions the river by name, and quotes Livy. Another divergence – and here the later writers clearly contradict Caesar – concerns the tribune Metellus, who, on Caesar’s first period back in Rome in , sought to deny him access to the state treasury. According to Caesar’s own story (BC ..–), he obeyed the tribune’s vetoes. But as all later accounts (except Suetonius) would have it, Caesar took the funds he wanted by force. Furthermore, it is well known that Caesar does not mention the mutinies of his troops during the civil war. Suetonius and Appian carry information on these, as does Dio, though of the three he
Kornemann (, –). Pelling (, –), which shows that Appian probably knew Pollio directly, and not just through Plutarch. Rondholz (, -) argues that the differences in Suetonius’ version come from a misinterpretation of Pollio or Plutarch, and not from using Livy as a source (as Bicknell and Nielsen (, –) have argued; and in that case more likely Pollio: as Pelling (a, ) notes “there is no sign that either [Plutarch or Suetonius] knew the other’s work.” Dio Cass.: Pelling (, ); Orosius .. actually quotes Livy. Plut. Caes. , App. B Civ. . both have Caesar threaten Metellus with death. Dio Cass. .. and Oros. .. do not have this particular detail. Suet. Iul. –; App. B Civ. .; Dio Cass. ..
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tells the story least against Caesar, and rather against the soldiers, reflecting that strand of senatorial historiography also exemplified by Tacitus which was never reticent in expressing its contempt for the army rank and file. Against all this influence of a non-Caesarian source or sources, what is there in these authors that points to their use of Caesar or a Caesarian tradition? The traces are slight. Plutarch’s confusion (Caes. ) about whether Ariminum was or was not in Caesar’s province may be due to the deliberate vagueness on this point by Caesar. Suetonius, who files and catalogues his information thematically rather than weaving an extended narrative (his normal method), gives a short synopsis of the war against Pompey, campaign by campaign (Iul. –); it preserves the order of Caesar’s BC, omitting the campaigns in which he was not in command; the only extraneous material is a prophecy attributed to Caesar, but this is inserted at just the point where the break between BC and would have come, strengthening the impression that Suetonius had the BC, or a précis of it, before him as he wrote these two chapters. The prophecy itself, “that [Caesar] was going [to Spain] to face an army without a general, and would return to face a general without an army,” was made, Suetonius says, “to his staff” (inter suos), so perhaps again goes back to Pollio. Moving on, or rather going back, to the Gallic war, the three earlier sources show again a marked resemblance to a common, non-Caesarian tradition, whereas the BG of Caesar here stands very clearly behind Dio’s and Orosius’ accounts. One distinctive episode in the non-Caesarian tradition is the defeat of the Tigurini by Labienus, rather than Caesar, which both Plutarch and Appian have. Another is the idea, again in Plutarch and Appian, that at the outbreak of the uprising in Belgium in winter – Caesar had already started traveling back to Italy, while Caesar’s own account implies he had not. Still another non-Caesarian episode, which Plutarch and Appian carry, is Cato’s proposal that Caesar be handed over to the enemy, to expiate the pollution which he alleged Caesar had brought on Rome by treacherous dealing with the Usipetes and Tencteri; Suetonius, too, mentions the proposal, but, in more compressed form, does not link it with Cato or those particular peoples. Plutarch and
So, according to the Annals, in the mutinies of , there were both “better” soldiers (meliores) and “extremely poor” ones (deterrimi) in Pannonia (..), and also “best of the rank and file” (optimus manipularium), the only ones who stayed obedient (..). But the German legionaries fell short of even this none-too-illustrious evaluation: there were the “mass of recently conscripted city slaves” (vernacula multitudo, nuper acto in urbe dilectu), and “the rest, whose simple minds [the “city slaves”] contaminated” (implere ceterorum rudes animos). BC. ..: “Ariminum . . . proficiscitur” (“he set out for Ariminum”) is as much detail as we get. Wallace-Hadrill (, –). Plut. Caes. and App. Gall. epit. . Cf. Caes. BG .. Plut. Caes. : “far back to Italy”; App. Gall. frag. . Plut. Caes. , Suet. Iul. , App. Gall. epit. .
Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars
Appian were well aware that this episode was hotly contested, since they take the relatively unusual step of referring to their (competing) authorities, Caesar himself on the one hand, and the contemporary annalist Tanusius Geminus on the other. Appian does not actually name Tanusius, but his handling of the episode is so similar to Plutarch’s that they probably share a source. Both were most likely passing on the tradition of Pollio, rather than reading Caesar or Tanusius directly. It is worth noting that Plutarch’s only other reference to Caesar’s commentaries is also shared by Appian, again pointing to the intermediation of at least one other writer, most likely Pollio once more. Pollio’s theme was the civil war, but he chose to take as his starting point the breakdown of senatorial government in ; this in turn meant that some mention of the Gallic war was inevitable. Appian, in B Civ. mentions events in Gaul only a little, but there is evidence in other writers that Pollio went into greater depth. Most obviously, Strabo rebukes Pollio for his errors on the course and distributaries of the Rhine. Seemingly Pollio himself had sought to correct others on this matter, including Caesar (i.e. BG .), and this would be an instance along with the fragment at Suet. Iul. (see below), where he sought to assert his independence from the Caesarian tradition. It also points to a degree of detail on the Gallic war. Also suggestive is the way in which Suetonius’ snippets on the Gallic war tend to interweave events in Gaul with those in Rome and Italy, as if drawn from a source that was narrating the war within its broader context. On the other hand, Dio’s debt to Caesar is clear, from the way he frequently closely paraphrases or even translates him. There is an old discussion as to whether Dio used another source, or only Caesar. In but two of many opinions, Walser thought Dio also had the Pollio tradition via Livy; whereas a more recent contribution argues compellingly that Dio used at least one other source, but cautiously does not try to identify it. I would note that the omission of such details as Plutarch and Appian took from Pollio (Labienus’ defeat of the Tigurini, Cato’s proposal to hand Caesar to the Germans) seems to speak against the idea that Dio’s other source was Pollio himself. The Gallic war passages of books and follow Caesar without major contradiction, save that at .– Dio inserts his
Pelling (, ). Hor. Carm. ... Strabo, ... E.g. Iul. and . Bibliography in McDougall (, ). Walser (, ) McDougall (): the arguments from “anti-Caesarian material” (–) are the least convincing since much of this could easily be attributed to Dio’s creative method of history writing; however the analysis of how Dio appears to ‘‘blend’’ his other sources with Caesar (–) is more persuasive.
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own much longer speech to the army at Vesontio to replace the little piece of oratio obliqua Caesar gives to himself at BG .. Notably Dio relates the slaughter of the Usipetes and Tencteri without mentioning the unwelcome consequences we find in the earlier writers. Only in book do we find any real, though still minor, differences: there is some ambiguity about whether Caesar had left for Italy when the uprising began in winter –; the details of Commius the Atrebatan’s dealings with the Romans (.) differ a little from what we find in Hirtius, BG . and –. The mention of Caesar’s cipher and the elaborate description of Vercingetorix’s surrender are merely splashes of color inserted into the Caesarian tradition. Finally, we come to Orosius, independent of Caesar for the civil war (carrying e.g. the Rubicon and Caesar’s raid on the state treasury), but the closest of all to Caesar for the Gallic war. Attempts to synthesize Caesar’s account with any other information are very rare, and can be unsuccessful, e.g. “seven legions were awarded by the lex Vatinia for a period of five years” (..; in fact it was three). On the whole the echoes of Caesar’s text are close and frequent, e.g. Caes. BG ..: hac victoria sublatus Ambiorix Oros. ..: Ambiorix hac victoria elatus Or compare BG .., with Orosius .., or BG ..–, from which Orosius ..–, or some intermediate source, has extracted a detail from Caesar, and then added flourishes. Such an intermediate source might be Livy, but an important detail in Orosius’ text makes it almost certain that he worked directly from Caesar: he claims, as he embarks, that he was epitomizing “Suetonius Tranquillus, who has most fully recounted (plenissime explicuit) this history.” If Orosius worked from the “fullest history” of the Gallic war available, that points to Caesar (Livy dealt with the Gallic war in only portions of books –), but what about “Suetonius Tranquillus”? This is not so difficult to explain: a number of BG manuscripts, including one of the earliest we have, Amsterdam , of the ninth century, attribute BG to Suetonius. The confusion probably arose from the practice of presenting excerpts from Suetonius’ life of Caesar alongside the BG (though we only have examples of this from the fifteenth century), and a similar process seems to have happened within the BC manuscript tradition. It would seem this confusion had already arisen by the early fifth century, when Orosius was
Dio Cass. .. and .. The idea that he had left is found in Plut. Caes. and App. Gall. frag. , but Caes. BG .. and . give the impression he had not. Cipher: .., cf. Suet. Iul. ; Vercingetorix: .. Gelzer (, ). Brown (, , , , ). Brown (, –, , –). Brown (, , , , , ).
Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars
writing, and an unintended consequence of Caesar’s third-person narration was to make plausible an attribution of the BG to Suetonius. In summary, ancient authors, especially the earlier ones, if they had the choice, generally preferred to use other sources than Caesar, although more strongly for the BC than the BG. In this connection it is worth reconsidering the reviews of the commentaries selected by Suetonius (the actual Suetonius) at Iul. . Cicero in the Brutus and Hirtius in the introduction to BG both praise Caesar chiefly for his style, whereas Pollio is quoted damning him for his accuracy. The three do not therefore bluntly contradict each other.
The Modern Period Caesar has been read and commented upon without cease since he wrote; even the list of sovereigns and princes who have done so is a long one. Here I must confine myself to just a few authors working in the nineteenth century and after. These are () Napoleon I with his singular Précis; () Theodor Mommsen, who narrated the Gallic and civil wars in the third volume of his Römische Geschichte (); () Napoleon III whose Histoire de Jules César treated mainly the Gallic, but also partly the civil war; and ( and ) two near contemporaries, Thomas Rice Holmes and Camille Jullian. Rice Holmes dealt with the Gallic war first in his Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul (), and then again within the larger narrative of his Roman Republic and the Founder of Empire; in the meantime the third volume of Jullian’s Histoire de la Gaule, entitled La Conquête Romaine et les Premières Invasions Germaniques () had appeared. Napoleon I dictated his Précis de Guerres de César at the very end of his life, on St Helena; it was published posthumously in , by his valet and friend, Marchand. Napoleon had had before him the “good elementary works” on Roman history by Rolland and Crevier, which presumably supplied the few non-Caesarian details, e.g. the obituary of Pompey, and since in youth he had studied French rather than Latin, he relied on D’Anville’s translation of Caesar. These difficulties, in combination with his interests, determined the nature of the work.
Cf. Grillo (, –). Napoleon III (, v–vii). Napoleon I (); cf. Schadee – in this volume. References here are to the seventh edition, Mommsen (). Napoleon III (-). References here are to the second edition, Rice Holmes (). Rice Holmes (). References here are to the second edition, Jullian (). Poignault (, ). Napoleon I (, ). Poignault (, ). Desjardins (, –) publishes the marginal notes Napoleon made on his copy of Bourguignon D’Anville ().
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On the whole each chapter deals with the events of one year, giving a summary narrative, followed by the emperor’s “observations.” Ethnography is nearly ignored, although the more shocking conjugal customs of dwellers in Kent are included, perhaps thanks to a certain Anglophobia. Gallic politics seem to have been of little interest: it is suggested that Gaul was entirely made up of aristocratic republics, despite the kings who are mentioned, and whose struggle against the aristocrats was of some interest to Caesar and many modern historians. Purely military details are to the fore, and Napoleon, whose strategic practice was based on the concentration of overwhelming force, to which administration and logistics were centrally important, bemoans Caesar’s failure ever to give his own army’s strength, or accurately to locate his battlefields. Seeking to compensate, Napoleon several times gives the date or season he has inferred for a particular action. Notwithstanding these particular emphases, the narrative does not contradict Caesar, and indeed, at the end of certain chapters, Napoleon’s language can become noticeably close to the lapidary phrases of the original. For example, see Table .. The first “observation,” that Caesar reached Geneva from Rome in eight days, whereas in the early nineteenth century it would take just Table . Synopsis of Caesar and Napoleon I Final sentence of Caesar book BG ..: pauloque habuit post id factum Caesar Galliam quietiorem BG ..: una aestate duobus maximis bellis confectis
I.e.
Napoleon I
“and after this was done, Caesar enjoyed a little more peace in Gaul” “with two very great wars concluded in a single summer”
“ce qui remit un peu de tranquillité dans les Gaules” “Ainsi, dans cette première campagne, il livra deux grand batailles contre les Helvétiens et le Suèves d’Arioviste. . .”
Napoleon I (, ). Napoleon I (, ). BG .. Fustel de Coulanges (, –), cited in Rice Holmes’ discussion “Were the philoRoman and anti-Roman parties in Gaul identical with the republicans and adventurers respectively” (, –). Cf. Napoleon III’s list of the kings Caesar mentions (, n. ), and Jullian (, and ). Napoleon I (, ). E.g. Napoleon I (, ), Helvetii beaten in May, and (, ), Ariovistus in September. Napoleon I (, ). Napoleon I (, –). It is worth noting that Napoleon thought the Civil War was not written by Caesar, but by a “mediocre” author, given to “ineptitude” ().
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four days, sounds a recurring theme: the differences between ancient and modern warfare. It is often heard again, including in the argument that in no way could a modern force hold out in the circumstances that Q. Cicero did in in winter –, and in the longest example of all, the discussion of the Rhine bridge, deemed an unspectacular achievement for a modern army. In the few places where Napoleon challenges Caesar’s account, e.g. the number of defenders at Alesia, he does so on the grounds of military plausibility, a method which Delbrück would later develop much more thoroughly, but on the whole he lets the enormous enemy armies which Caesar claims go by unchallenged. Mommsen narrated the Gallic and civil wars within the context of the larger account of the collapse of the Republic that in turn was just part of the larger Roman History. His approach was largely to follow Caesar, supplementing his account with material from the most important ancient sources, e.g. Strabo on Crassus in the Scilly Isles in . He also relocates certain material into correct chronological order: for example, Caesar mentions the initial wanderings of the Usipetes and Tencteri as background which he discovered in , but since they happened before Caesar’s arrival, this is where Mommsen places them, as part of the background to the Gallic war. Mommsen, it must be said, was greatly influenced by Hegel’s view of Caesar as executor, for his era, of the progressive steps demanded by the unfolding of History. It is hard to say whether this intensely positive evaluation made it difficult for Mommsen to read Caesar skeptically. While he follows his testimony fairly uncritically, and on the whole omits alternative traditions (cf. Table .), nonetheless he judges Caesar to have behaved unscrupulously on occasion, e.g. against the Usipetes and Tencteri, and he notes Caesar‘s disingenuous maneuvering for the moral
Napoleon I (, ). Napoleon I (, –). Napoleon was first commissioned into a technical branch of the army – the artillery – and this longest of all the “observations” shows that he maintained his appetite for engineering questions to the end. Napoleon I (, –). Delbrück (, –); original German edition, Berlin (). Mommsen (, , ). Caes. BG ... This bringing in by Caesar (the narrator) of information at the point it was discovered by Caesar (the character) is part of what Riggsby (, –) has called the “write-asyou-go” illusion, where the commentaries mimic real internal documents, thus giving an impression not strictly of truth, but of greater “authentic subjectivity.” Mommsen (, , ). Pöschl (, ). Mommsen (, , ): “however little [his conduct] can be excused.”
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high ground before the outbreak of the civil war. The hybrid of reliable witness and devious actor which this implies is something of a puzzle. In terms of detailed content, Mommsen is only occasionally very close to paraphrase of the BC; Caesar’s unconstitutional crossing of the Rubicon is mentioned, but his violent dealings with the tribune Metellus are passed over; the image of the tribunes flying “dressed as slaves,” not mentioned by Caesar, is adopted from Plutarch and Appian, and although it may there have been a narrative trope, its historicity cannot easily be dismissed, since although “Cicero says unequivocally that Antony and Cassius were not violently expelled,” this does not mean they did not flee: successful flight may have been what saved them from violence, so that slippery Cicero’s “nulla vi expulsi” would have to be read as a true but misleading statement, and Mommsen was perhaps sensitive to this. Within a few years of Mommsen‘s account came Napoleon III’s Histoire de Jules César ( vols., Paris and ). The case of the uncle – the Table . Comparison of marker episodes in selected modern authors The Usipetes and Tencteri begin to migrate (BC) Napoleon I Mommsen Napoleon III Rice Holmes Rice Holmes Jullian
As background in narrative of BC In its proper chronological place As background in narrative of BC As background in narrative of BC As background in narrative of BC As background in narrative of BC
Labienus defeats the Tigurini in
Caesar on way to Italy at outbreak of uprising in -
No
No
Ambiguous: Tigurini defeated “by the Romans” No
No No
No
No
No
No
Tradition mentioned, but not preferred
Tradition not preferred, some attempt to reconcile with Caes. BG
Mommsen (, , ). E.g. BC ..– with Mommsen (, ), “Trotz der Furcht vor den zahlreich in die Haupstadt geströmten Soldaten des Pompeius.” Mommsen (, ); Plut. Caes. ; App. B Civ. .. Carter (, ), citing Cic. Fam. .. and ... Napoleon I (, ). Mommsen (, ). Napoleon III (, ). Rice Holmes (, ). Rice Holmes (, ii, –). Jullian (, ). Jullian (, n. ). Jullian (, ).
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eagle chained on St Helena, dying, and dictating the Preçis to Marchand in the same small hours of the night in which he had formerly dictated orders to corps and divisions – may have been one of tragedy, but that of the nephew was not in every way a farce. A governing monarch in an increasingly democratic epoch (the Histoire was published in the two years before Das Kapital), the younger Napoleon was heavily invested in the history of Great Men, and this particular literary work, of which the first volume was initially published in nine languages, was no less a monument to himself than it was to Caesar. In this respect it paralleled the statue he erected of Vercingetorix at Alesia, with his own facial features. There could hardly be a clearer illustration than the simultaneous glorification of two such enemies of which side Napoleon took in the Gallic war: that of the Great Man. Despite these unscholarly intentions, the resources which the French head of state could command, e.g. the researchers he employed within the Commission de la Topographie de la Gaule, made this an important work. It is notable for the contribution which archaeology and topography were now able to make, with sites such as Alesia, Gergovia, and Bibracte being definitively identified, and plausible battlefield locations suggested, complete with detailed maps drawn by Colonel Stoffel. Such identifications led to frequent textual corrections: for example, convinced that the Puy d’Issolu was Caesar’s Uxellodunum, Napoleon read passuum trecentorum for pedum trecentorum at BG .., since it fitted the topography better. This shows the new possibilities which were then arising in the study of antiquity, regardless of whether every specific application was valid. On the other hand, despite all of this valuable work, the final sophistication of the narrative leaves much to be desired: it is often straight Caesar, presented without quotation marks, e.g. “Dans la Gaule, non seulement chaque État, chaque tribu (pagus), mais encore chaque famille étaient divisés en deux partis (factiones). . .,” or “Exalté par cette victoire, Ambiorix . . .”
Poignault (, ); Chandler (, ). Napoleon III (, front matter). The second volume was initially published in twelve languages, Napoleon III (, front matter). See, e.g. Dietler (, ). The “Great Man” theory of history, in which events are decisively governed by the actions of a few individuals of exceptional intellect, charisma, or other characteristics, flourished in the works of Thomas Carlyle (–). Herbert Spencer (–) criticized this idea sternly. See, e.g. Carneiro (, –). Dietler (), passim. On Stoffel see Rice Holmes (, xxv–xxvii) Poignault (, –) for this and other examples. Napoleon III (, ), cf. BG ... Napoleon III (, ), cf. BG ... As we saw, Orosius too followed this phrase very closely.
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Rice Holmes and Jullian were near contemporaries (born in and respectively, they both died in ). They had in common their interest in locating the scenes of the events described by Caesar. This work, initiated in earnest by Napoleon III’s commission, had been a preoccupation of Caesar scholars for some decades, as the footnotes and appendices of these two authors show. This, however, may be the only real resemblance. For while Rice Holmes follows Caesar very closely, Jullian is far more independent of the commentaries in practice, despite formally supporting their credibility. Rice Holmes largely paraphrases the BG in his Part , “Narrative” ( pages) and one section of his Part , “Questions of Roman and Gallo-Roman History” ( pages of smaller type) defends at length Caesar’s veracity; the bibliography here reveals to what extent it was under attack. Here he shows no awareness of Pollio, while, for him, Plutarch’s Lives “abound with monstrous blunders.” Like Mommsen, he cannot avoid mention of the charges against Caesar in the case of the Usipetes and Tencteri, but he too omits the claim that Labienus defeated the Tigurini, and Caesar’s possible absence in –; indeed the reasoning he gives for Caesar’s ignorance of the siege of Cicero’s camp is rather stretched (“so close was the sympathy between the peasants and the insurgents that Caesar had not heard a rumor;” strange when in Gaul Caesar has told us there were “factions not only in every state, and in every district, but almost in every household,” BG ..). In Rice Holmes published The Roman Republic and the Founder of Empire, which recapitulated his narrative of the Gallic war (it fills the middle of three volumes) within an account of the fall of the Republic, starting to narrate in detail from . Here he had both need and
In Jullian (), a three-page footnote on the location of Caesar’s close operations against Ariovistus ( n. ), a two page footnote on the location of the oppidum Atuatucorum ( n. ), and numerous similar instances. Jullian aligned himself with those who think that Pollio’s barb at Suet. Iul. was aimed primarily at the BC, and that the latter work needed more correction and supplement from other sources than the BG (, n. ). For the Gallic war he “almost always” trusted Caesar on the grounds that he: () never “fundamentally contradicted other authors;” () was never seen “to conceal a danger, a miscalculation, or a defeat;” () “always did justice to his lieutenants;” () “did justice to his opponents, both individuals and peoples;” () “gave his source when reporting large numbers of enemy troops.” Unfortunately, what objective standard the second, third, and fourth criteria could be measured against he does not state. Meanwhile, he did think Caesar could be reproached for failing to explain political motives, and for lacking precision regarding routes and battlefield locations. For Pollio’s criticism of Caesar, see also Grillo (, and –). Rice Holmes (, –). Rice Holmes (, ). Rice Holmes (, ). Rice Holmes (, vol. , ). An outline of earlier times is given.
Narrating the Gallic and Civil Wars
opportunity to use sources other than Caesar; so, for example, on the clash with Metellus in he uses Plutarch, Florus, Appian, Dio, Cicero, and Pliny the Elder to elaborate the details which Caesar does not mention at BC ..–. But one would be disappointed if one hoped that a quarter of a century had warmed Rice Holmes to the possibilities of the nonCaesarian tradition: certainly Pollio had been brought to his attention, but he was unrepentant. On Plutarch and Appian’s use of Pollio he says, “we have no guarantee of his accuracy except that he censured the alleged inaccuracies of Caesar.” This is to overlook the important fact to which I drew attention in Section , that ancient authors who had the choice, especially the earlier ones, generally used Pollio rather than Caesar, and this must count for something. Let us compare Jullian. He considered not only the whole of the Gallic War, but also the siege of his native Marseille in , and so concerned himself with both sets of commentaries. His work shows a better understanding of the source tradition than that of Rice Holmes: for example, he made use of Kornemann on Pollio. He takes account of every conceivable literary source: for one example, Jordanes’ Getica on the situation in Dacia on the eve of the Gallic war; for another, he does note the tradition of Labienus’ victory over the Tigurini, though he does not support it, and regarding Caesar’s whereabouts when the uprising began in winter –, he aims at an interpretation that can accommodate all the sources. In both cases, Rice Holmes ignored the alternative traditions. Because, like Mommsen, Jullian was narrating the Gallic war within a larger story, he too tends to arrange the data chronologically. At the level of detail at which he was working, this immediately demands the making of causal links which Caesar does not offer us (or seeks to avoid): for example, he narrates Ariovistus’ inroads during the s before he turns to the conspiracy of Orgetorix and the expedition of the Helvetii in , and so has to explain the latter in the context of the former. Furthermore, Jullian is thorough in making inferences even when the inconsistencies of Caesar’s account do not cry out, and he is very ready to ascribe to Caesar different motives, judgments, and misapprehensions than Caesar himself describes in the commentaries; for example, rather
Rice Holmes (, vol. , ). Jullian (, ). Jullian (, n. ). Jullian (, n. ). Jullian (, ) E.g. the wintering legions in – were imposed on the Sequani because “they were formerly leaders of the anti-Aeduan party,” Jullian (, ).
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scathingly under “Erreurs et Rêves de César,” and when he describes the “extremely delicate” situation with Ariovistus: Caesar had caused him to be hailed Friend of the Roman People, and so was “partly responsible for the victories of the Suebi and Ariovistus’ ambition.” Such areas are not of interest to Rice Holmes. To weigh these modern narrators of Caesar’s wars against each other, then, Jullian emerges as the most impressive, although he only very slightly considered the civil war. We can easily imagine that Mommsen’s genius might have surpassed Jullian’s achievement, had he had the same relatively restricted focus, although as we saw he had some strong feelings about Caesar that now seem all too subjective. Rice Holmes, while hugely industrious in the collection of certain data, unfortunately rather belligerently closed his mind to some other important and obvious evidence. Jullian has never been translated into English, and is thus under-exploited in the Anglo-Saxon world: Rice Holmes’ Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul made it into the bibliography s.v. “Gallic Wars” in the second edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (), but not into the third edition (). Rice Holmes’ account, now to be seen as of primarily historiographical interest, had to be retired, and yet no replacement on a similar scale could be offered as a guide to the Gallic War.
Conclusion Close examination of the earliest ancient writers we have on Caesar’s wars (Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian) shows that they were inclined to follow an alternative tradition (in all likelihood Asinius Pollio) rather than that of Caesar himself. The lost part of Livy seems to have navigated between Pollio and Caesar, and went on to inform Dio’s account. Orosius names Livy as a source, but strikingly recalls Caesar’s wording. In other words, it is only with the passage of time, and the falling away of alternative sources, that Caesar’s writings came to assume the authority they often now have. The modern writers made Caesar’s military achievements the subject of their art; but we can also see that they used the Gallic and civil wars as an enormous canvas upon which to paint their own personalities and
Jullian (, , cf. –), the “Fautes et Mécomptes de César” at Gergovia; , “ces formules habiles et mesongères”; or , “the submission of Armorica . . . had been a huge illusion.” Jullian (, ). OCD gives Rambaud () and King (), neither of which are full-scale narratives of the Gallic war.
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preoccupations, using the palette which historical technique at its various stages of development had handed to them. F U R T H E R R E A D I N G A N D RE S E A R C H Several of the essays in Griffin () come at similar topics to those handled here from different angles. The essays referred to in Chevallier () are succinct and informative. The actual works of Mommsen (translated into English soon after publication), Rice Holmes and Jullian (the latter in French only) are relatively widely available, and while hard copy of the two Napoleon’s works are more the province of special libraries, Napoleon III’s, at least, has been digitized and can be freely read online. In this chapter, we have been able only to glance at a few of the more significant corners of the various tableaux they have presented. Much more could be said about them. And even then, we would have considered no work after : Matthias Gelzer and Christian Meyer could certainly be investigated along the same lines as here. But perhaps the greatest gap in the literature implied by the present discussion is our want of a modern narrative of Caesar’s wars on the scale of Rice Holmes’ or Jullian’s, but which takes the hint from Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian and treats the commentaries with great skepticism.
http://archive.org/details/histoiredejulescnapoiala. Accessed March , .
Writing War with Caesar: The Commentarii’s Afterlife in Military Memoirs Hester Schadee*
The reception of Julius Caesar as statesman, “founder” of the Empire, and victim of tyrannicide has recently received much interest. After a long period of relative neglect, Caesar’s Commentarii have also benefitted from a surge in scholarship. However, the reception of Caesar as writer, and of the Commentarii as literary model, is still largely untrodden territory. This chapter makes inroads into this field by mapping the afterlife of the Commentarii and their author in military memoirs from the Renaissance to the First World War. Why did military memoirs – by which I mean (semi-)contemporary histories of primarily military exploits written by participants or close observers – so frequently allude to Caesar’s works? One reason was Caesar’s historical standing as one-time leader of the Roman Empire; another his military reputation – in large part dependent on his Commentarii – as one of the greatest generals of all time. Furthermore, Caesar’s writings were the sole survivors of a type of Roman historiography called commentarii: first-hand aide-mémoires preliminary to full-blown histories. Thus, a recreation of that genre was likely to evoke Caesar’s example. In addition, there was the remarkable fact that the Commentarii are autobiographical, and as such an exceptional model for any captain keen to write his own account, thereby almost automatically comparing himself to Caesar-the-commander. Finally, the Commentarii contained a wealth of details on the art of war, as well as geography *
A text, however short, covering five centuries is rarely written alone. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the generous advice of my friends and colleagues Jan Machielsen (Martin Delrio), Adam Gitner (Earl of Montrose), Jérémie Barthas (Napoleon), and Kate McLoughlin (war writing as genre). E.g. Wyke (), Wyke (), Griffin (), Moreno Hernández (), Wyke (), Raaflaub (forthcoming). The selection of these texts is representative rather than exhaustive. Caesar’s influence on other genres, and his evaluation as historiographer, will not be considered. Cf. Nousek – and Chassignet – in this volume.
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and ethnography: these could be paraphrased or paralleled with the force of ancient authority. Yet there were also potential limitations to the usefulness of Caesar’s Commentarii. One pertains to the man’s ambiguous political legacy: the dictator who founded the Empire also destroyed the Roman Republic, and could equally be viewed as a visionary populist, an enlightened despot, or a treacherous tyrant. Others concern the literary characteristics of Caesar’s writings vis-à-vis the interests and requirements of later memoirists. The interplay of all these factors drives the story told below.
Imitation: Latin Commentarii in Renaissance Italy Although Caesar’s Commentarii were never lost, languishing in the medieval monasteries of northern Europe they were rarely read, and Caesar’s authorship was forgotten. Even Francesco Petrarch, who based much of his Life of Caesar on the Commentarii, and shrewdly inferred an eyewitness author, attributed them to a certain Julius Celsus. The Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati first identified Caesar as author in the late fourteenth century, and in the humanist Pier Candido Decembrio still found the authorship worth arguing when dedicating the first vernacular translation of the Gallic War to the duke of Milan. The early Italian Renaissance, therefore, is when the afterlife of Caesar’s texts begins. The revival of the commentarius follows a slightly different path, owing to the broad meaning of the Latin word, which may include any list of notes or comments. The model of Caesar, and title commentarius, came together when the Venetian statesman and humanist Francesco Barbaro offered an account of his military exploits to the historian Flavio Biondo, to be incorporated into the latter’s Histories. The title of this short Latin work, composed in by Barbaro’s secretary Evangelista Manelmi, was Brief Commentary on Certain Actions during the Gallic War. The fact that this text, explicitly presented as a preliminary to a “proper” history, cast the defense of the Lombard town of Brescia, located in Roman Gallia Cisalpina, as a “Gallic War,” bespeaks awareness of Caesar’s original. However, the text itself does not have an especially Caesarian “feel” to it. Here one should pause to ponder what it means to imitate Caesar. Strictly speaking, Caesar’s first imitators were Aulus Hirtius and the anonymous authors of the three minor Wars. Their approximations of Caesar were so successful that they were sometimes mistaken for the real
Brown (), Schadee ().
Ianziti (, –).
Manelmi ().
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thing. Such copy-cat continuations, clearly, cannot be lumped together with compositions that are different in subject matter, narrative aims and techniques, and style or even language, yet allude to Caesar’s Commentarii in isolated instances. In between these two extremes one finds not so much a grey area of greater or lesser similarity, but rather distinct types of imitation, with varying means and ends. Some of these different forms of literary imitation are highlighted in the present section. Manelmi’s Brief Commentary (commentariolum) is similar in imitative manner to Giacomo Curlo’s Civil and Gallic War (). This doublyCaesarian title refers to the civil war fought that year in Genoa between factions backed by, respectively, the king of France and the duke of Milan. Curlo’s commentariolum – as he, too, calls it in the prologue – was commissioned as source for a larger history, just like Manelmi’s. Perhaps this preliminary nature discouraged literary aspirations: in any case, neither Curlo nor Manelmi continued the Caesarian thread in the depictions of their protagonists, Latin style, or narrative techniques, although Manelmi conforms to Caesarian precedent by referring to himself in the third person. The Italian Commentaries on the Life and Deeds of the Illustrious Federico (–) by Pierantonio Paltroni, a courtier of Federico da Montefeltro, were also designed as aide-mémoires for other authors seeking to glorify Federico’s life. The Commentaries on the Life and Deeds of Federico (s–) of the humanist Francesco Filelfo are among their Latin offspring. Just like Caesar, Paltroni and Filelfo apply the third person to themselves in the narrative, whilst employing the first person for authorial comments. In addition, their protagonist partakes in a number of Caesarian characteristics: Federico is skilled in the arts of war including military engineering, operates with great speed, and displays exemplary clemency; he is also heard exhorting his troops, who are singularly loyal to their commander. These features are more pronounced in Paltroni’s account, which focuses predominantly on military matters. It is hard to tell, however, whether Federico’s figure is constructed in direct imitation of Caesar, or rather in the mold of the ideal Renaissance capitano, an archetype influenced by Caesar as well as other classical and chivalric sources. And in both cases, the fact that a biography covers a longer timeframe than a campaign, and must include non-martial materials (for instance Federico’s illegitimate birth and amorous proclivities), distances these commentaries from those of Caesar.
Curlo ().
Paltroni (), Filelfo ().
Cf. Raaflaub – in this volume.
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Such questions of genre were on the mind of the humanist Bartolomeo Facio when he described his history of King Alfonso I of Naples as “not a life, but an account of deeds,” thus justifying its exclusively military focus. The title Books on the Deeds of King Alfonso makes no reference to Caesar’s writings, yet the structure of this ten-book narrative echoes the Gallic and Civil Wars: the first seven build up to Alfonso’s capture of Naples, which was a victory over the “Gallic” pretender René of Anjou, while the remaining three describe his involvement in subsequent Italian wars. A comparable account of the career of the duke of Milan by his chancery official Giovanni Simonetta carries the title Commentaries on the Deeds of Francesco Sforza (s). Both Facio’s Alfonso and Simonetta’s Sforza display the same Caesar-like qualities as the ideal capitano Federico. But more important for the Caesarian effect of these histories is the extent to which Facio and Simonetta absorbed Caesar the author’s narrative techniques. Caesar wrote what has been called a “justifying narrative,” in which the story itself, rather than any overt authorial comment, advances the writer’s point of view. Indeed, even the famous Caesarian third person may be viewed as a means of keeping the author’s voice out of the text. Furthermore, Caesar-the-author involves the reader in the general’s decisions by presenting the calculations on which these were based, often in indirect speech. In this way he shows, rather than tells, that his actions were right or in any case reasonable, while simultaneously providing the story with causality. Facio and Simonetta let the narrative speak in similar ways. They abstain from the sycophantic praise characteristic of so many humanists’ engagements with their lords. Instead, setting forth the supposedly unadorned thought processes of Alfonso and Sforza, they portray their employers as smart, decisive and fair-minded, whilst also suggesting their own impartiality. In addition, the prose of both Facio and Simonetta shares a certain directness and speed with their Roman model, even if neither limits himself to the vocabulary and syntax employed by Caesar. Simonetta, moreover, increased the Caesarian impression of his work by including “vignettes” highly reminiscent of Caesar in strategic places. For instance, two books end with Sforza preparing for winter – Caesar’s conclusion to all books of the Gallic Wars except the fifth – and
Facio (, xviii–xix). The first seven books, moreover, circulated together in , before the ten-book text was completed in , Facio (, xix). Simonetta (). The term “récit justificatif” derives from Rambaud () and is applied to Simonetta’s text in Ianziti (, –).
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another four commence or conclude with references to the pacified condition of the land – as do three books of the Gallic Wars. These similarities were not lost on contemporary readers. About Facio, pope Pius II commented that “he followed Caesar in his manner of speaking,” while the Florentine chancellor Bartolomeo Scala wrote to Simonetta that “because of the similarity of the events, the commander, and the style, I felt I was reading the books of Caesar.” Nevertheless, the fifteenth-century work closest to Caesar’s was written not for one of the condottieri-princes of the day, but by the Venetian statesman and humanist Francesco Contarini concerning his own diplomatic deployment in Siena. As such, his Commentaries on Actions in Tuscany (–) are the first that are autobiographical, like Caesar’s. Employing a justifying narrative akin to Facio’s and Simonetta’s, Contarini manages to draw a Caesarian self-portrait in which he appears quick, competent, and fully in control, notwithstanding the fact that he never partook in combat, and was a second-tier player on the political stage. His stylistic choices are consistently Caesarian: he employs the third person for himself, keeps orations short, and, crucially, presents them in indirect speech. Uniquely of the authors surveyed in this section, he also uses the historic present favored by Caesar. The third and last book of his Commentarii concludes with a Caesarian vignette when, on his return home, Contarini is met by the Venetian Senate, a public recognition that recalls the senatorial thanksgivings voted to Caesar in conclusion of several Gallic campaigns (BG ., ., .). It is a reminder that Caesar, before he became dictator, operated at the pleasure of the Republic, and in that guise could be a potential model for public servants – indeed, the non-military Contarini may have adhered closely to Caesar’s model precisely to transcend the limitations of his diplomatic mission. The best-known of the fifteenth-century Commentarii are those of pope Pius II describing his lengthy preparations for a campaign against the Turks. In contrast to Contarini, the pope was in fact a world-rank politician, and moreover the leader of one of the heirs of ancient Rome, namely the Church. In this context, the title of his autobiographical Commentaries on Memorable Matters (–) constitutes a hard-to-miss allusion. Furthermore, Pius wrote about himself in the third person, while his authorial interjections, in accordance with papal practice, are all
Simonetta, winter (, , ), pacified lands (, , , ); cf. BG ., ., ., .. O’Brien (, , Pius), Ianziti (, , Scala). Contarini (). Pius (), Pius (–).
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in the first plural. In certain regards, moreover, he composed a justifying narrative: the audience, for instance, is privy to his deliberations, which demonstrate his fairness and foresight. Yet other aspects of his text stand in strong contrast to Caesar’s studied impartiality. Pius frequently passes explicit authorial judgments, abundantly praises himself, and peppers his account with maxims and exclamations driving home the moral of his anecdotes. The pope also includes witticisms and other materials that lower the tone in a way Caesar would not have permitted. Furthermore, many chapters consist almost exclusively of, sometimes paired, orations, the majority of which are rendered in direct speech. In lexicon and construction, too, Pius’ Latin often follows Cicero, Virgil and Livy more than Caesar. This eclecticism is by choice: when he introduces a Caesarian vignette – for instance his ethnography of Scotland molded after Caesar’s Britannic excursus – he is entirely capable of closely imitating his source in content, order, and style, of which he showed himself a connoisseur in his appraisal of Facio’s history. Thus Pius appropriated the Caesarian prototype, suggestive of the powers of Rome poised against barbarian enemies, as and when it suited him, while also exploiting other significant intertexts. Caesar’s Commentarii, then, offered various possibilities to fifteenthcentury statesmen and humanists. At the very least, they provided a coveted veneer of antiquity, and legitimated eyewitness histories devoted primarily to war. Furthermore, Caesar’s narrative strategies could teach techniques for constructing partisan accounts masquerading as factual reports. Finally, imitation of the Commentarii suggested different Caesarian identities for Renaissance kings and capitani, civil servants, and the leader of Christian Rome.
Paratext: Vernacular Memoirs of the Sixteenth Century In the sixteenth century, Caesar’s literary afterlife moved from the Latin to the vernacular, from imitation of the text to comments on the text, and from the most exalted circles to the more middling man. There are, of course, exceptions to this trend. When Charles V, Spanish king and Holy Roman emperor, dictated his Memoirs to his secretary Guillaume van Male in , contemporary Italian commentators noted that Charles did what “the first Caesar did,” and wrote “in French, just like Julius Caesar in his Latin;” one even asserted that Charles designed his “Commentaries . . . in
Van Heck ().
Pius (, vol. , –); cf. BG .–.
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imitation of Caesar.” Nevertheless, the text itself reads more like a diary proceeding annually; and when Van Male translated Charles’ French into Latin, he professed to emulate the styles of Caesar as well as Livy, Suetonius, and Tacitus. But comparisons of this type were not limited to the Spanish sovereign. When the noble but impoverished adventurer Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán distributed manuscripts of his Spanish Life and Acts of Don Alonso in , he prefaced them with a letter from an admirer, who stated that “The present work was composed by a knight, in imitation of that of Caesar,” and concluded “If you are curious to learn, know that ‘I saw what I wrote, and wrote what I saw.’” Similarly, in the preface to the autobiographical Commentary of Colonel Francisco Verdugo on the War in Frisia (), a friend of Verdugo’s professed to “deem them no less than anything written by Caesar.” And Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in his True History of the Conquest of New Spain (s–), claimed that, fighting in Mexico with Hernán Cortés, he saw more battles than Caesar. Since Caesar wrote his own account even though others reported the same events, Bernal, who witnessed so much that was previously unrecorded, professed an even stronger obligation to memorialise these battles, lands and cities for his readers. Precisely these foreign lands and peoples might make choice subjects for geographies or ethnographies modelled after Caesar’s, but Bernal and other chroniclers of the conquest of the Americas did not seize this chance. A literary ground for this omission may be found in Caesar’s sparse style and authoritative expositions: arguably, neither was appropriate to evoke the myriad perplexing wonders of the New World. Yet the social and political position of these authors surely is no less significant. In contrast to the Italian Commentaries of the Quattrocento, which to varying degrees did mimic the style and structures of Caesar’s prose, Caesar’s afterlife in sixteenth-century Spanish writings, as evident from the above examples, is largely relegated to the paratext: prefaces, dedications, and comments about the text. Their composers were men of arms, not letters, and many may not have had direct knowledge of Caesar’s Latin original, relying on translations instead. Nor were they autonomous rulers or commanders:
Morel-Fatio (, –, ). Enríquez de Guzmán (, ). Verdugo (, i). Díaz del Castillo (, , ), discussed in Lupher (, , –). Bernal’s presence during these events is in fact disputed. E.g. Cortés () and the accounts in Vázquez Chamorro (). Into French, Bossuat (); into Spanish, Clark (, ); into English, Webb (, –).
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rather they served at the pleasure of their sovereign, whom they wished to impress with their achievements and loyalty. In this context, there was less scope for identifying with Caesar as general than as reporter of his own campaigns. Somewhat ironically, then, his example justified a simple commander putting pen to paper: the eyewitness authority shared with Caesar meant he could claim equal value in expounding the art of war and documenting the alleged truth, while both professed ambitions overrode the acknowledged literary imperfections of his texts. The same patterns hold true for memoirs in other vernaculars. The Gascon captain Blaise de Monluc wrote his Commentaries in the s, reflecting back on his fifty years of service. Although he may well have read Caesar’s Commentarii – he once refers to them as evidence for the Roman’s style of commanding – the text itself does not bespeak a familiarity that could not have been gleaned from other sources. Nonetheless, Monluc hails Caesar as his guide in writing, and claims that the lack of polish of his Commentaries befits a Gascon soldier, while their eyewitness-truth makes them instructive for his fellow commanders (ibid., –). This is echoed by the author of the dedication letter, who prefers Monluc over armchair historians since unlike them he imparts military instruction. He agrees that Monluc’s writings may be unpolished, but adds that they shine with the beauty of truth, nakedly presented. While this metaphor recalls Cicero’s assessment of the Commentarii, in fact Monluc’s quotidian patois, which preserves the ellipsis and redundancy of spoken language, has little in common with the sleek simplicity of Caesar’s prose. The Elizabethans likewise urged the imitation of Caesar not just as general, but as a military pedagogue. The publisher of Roger Williams’ Actions of the Lowe Countries (printed posthumously in ), which detail his service during the Dutch revolt against Habsburg rule, hoped this text would “incite other men of Armes to imitate in like sort their great Master, Julius Caesar, who wrote exact Commentaries . . . of such militarie actions as happened under his command.” A later captain in the same war, Francis Vere, who was the dedicatee of Clement Edmondes’ Observations upon the Five first Bookes of Caesar’s Commentaries setting Fourth the Practice of the Art Military (), called Caesar’s writings “breviaries for soldiers,” and composed his own Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere shortly after (written c. , printed ). The prefatory poem to Vere’s
Monluc (, ). Ibid., –, discussed in Knecht (). Cic. Brut. ; discussed in Kraus (a, –). Williams (, ), Harari (, ). Webb (, –, –), Taunton (, , ).
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Commentaries concludes thus: “What performed, doth tell / None e’er but fought and wrote so well ! / why may not then his book this title carry / The Second Part of ’ Commentary?” Nevertheless, Vere’s text is no closer to Caesar’s than the other memoirs discussed in this section. Paradoxically, their authors’ emphasis on Caesarian autopsy sets these texts apart from their avowed prototype. Caesar’s Gallic and Civil Wars, as has been noted, stand out for the remarkable absence of Caesar-the-author from his autobiographical account, while at the same time, the reader is privy to the thought processes of Caesar-the-protagonist. The reverse is true for sixteenth-century vernacular memoirs. Personal experience is their organising principle: what their authors claim to have done, seen, or heard unifies these sprawling stories. But the focus is outwards, towards reporting memorable facts and events, and the protagonist’s thoughts are rarely revealed. Thus, despite obvious similarities in authorship and subject matter, the differences between these memoirs and Caesar’s Commentarii are profound. They are more fruitfully categorized as instances of a genre of military historiography often entitled “commentary” than as specifically Caesarian imitations.
Caesarian Territories: Spanish Geographies of Northern Europe There are, however, exceptions to this pattern of paratextual allusion in sixteenth-century memoirs. If the Spanish were not interested in Caesarian ethnographies of the New World, they produced several geographies of their northern territories in the Old World based on Caesar’s model. This is odd only until one considers that this practice equated the rebellious inhabitants of the Low Countries and Germany with their barbarian ancestors, while portraying Habsburg imperialism as a civilising force. This political dimension is presumably also why the Dutch, German, and English commanders involved in these struggles refrained from describing their lands in Caesarian terms. In his preface to the reader, Bernardino de Mendoza trots out a by now familiar explanation for writing his Commentaries on the Wars in the Low Countries from to (). It is hard, he claims, to understand war without long years of experience, yet one may learn from reading, as Caesar’s Commentarii confirm, since they set forth not only the facts of the battles, but also the ways in which they were fought, their sites, and the
Vere (, ).
Harari (, –, –).
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arrangement of the troops. Wanting to benefit his readers in like manner, Bernardino commences his account with a description of the Low Countries. This geography invokes Caesar’s famous opening lines of the Gallic Wars, and proceeds to demarcate the area by its river borders, as Caesar did: “Belgian Gaul (as Caesar describes in his Commentarii) is bounded by the banks of . . .” Bernardino takes this “ancient Gaul” as basis for explaining the current situation (half is owned by the French king and other dignitaries, the other by “our king”), and gives the area’s name in the language of its inhabitants as well as in Latin, and – one up from Caesar – his own Spanish (ibid., r; cf. BG .). He locates the various provinces by reference to rivers, cardinal directions, and the ocean, but also, with greater mathematical precision, by grades of longitude, reminiscent of Caesar’s occasional use of the Roman mile in addition to his relative definitions. Echoing Caesar’s measurement of the length of the night in Britannia, Bernardino asserts that the difference between night and day in the Low Countries is about an hour (ibid., v, cf. BG .). Further on, he provides inventories per duchy or county which follow a similar format. Reaching the province of Hainault, Bernardino notes that it comprises large parts of the territory of the ancient Nervians, as discussed by Caesar (ibid., r, cf. BG .). Moreover, the inhabitants of the Low Countries share characteristics with their ancestors: the latter-day Gauls are storytellers and credulous lovers of gossip (ibid., r–v, cf. BG ., .). These ethnographical and geographical observations allow Bernardino to suggest continuity between past and present and so legitimise the Habsburg cause. Martin Delrio, the later Jesuit scholar, employed a similar strategy in his Latin account, composed in –, of Don Juan of Austria’s governorship of the Low Countries. Calling his work Commentaries on the Belgian Troubles, he presumably modified the Caesarian title to “troubles” (tumultus) so as not to raise the Dutch revolt to the level of a war (bellum). Delrio’s Latin style is not specifically Caesarian, but the narrative strategies of his justification of Don Juan’s rule may well be indebted to Caesar’s example. His presentation of the area certainly is, as he opens with a brief geography of “Belgian Gaul”, which he delineates by rivers,
Mendoça (, xix–xxi). Mendoza is discussed in Mendoza () and, along with Delrio and others, in Rodríguez Pérez (, –, –, –). Ibid., r, cf. BG .. Similarly, the second Venetian edition of Luis de Avila y Zúñiga’s Comentario de la Guerra de Alemaña () includes a preface which opens with the Caesarian statement that “Germany, a very large province, is today divided in two parts by a river,” see discussion in Moreno Hernández (forthcoming). Cf. Cic. Phil. ., Quint. Inst. ...
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neighboring territories, and the Ocean. Echoing the second sentence of the Gallic Wars, he asserts that the inhabitants differ much in manners, laws, and customs, as well as speech; opposing the Gallic and Germanic peoples, the passage also evokes Caesar’s most extensive ethnography (ibid., vol. , , cf. BG ., .–). Finally, he divides the people into clerics, nobles, and plebs, mirroring Caesar’s druids, nobles, and plebs (ibid., vol. , , cf. BG .). In what follows Delrio makes the Caesarian parallels explicit. Revolts in Belgian lands, he maintains, have always been repressed by force, as the historians, and most of all Caesar, attest (ibid., vol. , ). The terms of government offered to current officials are also similar to what Caesar reported about the ancient Belgians (ibid., vol. , ). It is therefore not unfitting that Don Juan himself purportedly invoked Caesar’s famous words at the crossing of the Rubicon: “the die is cast” (ibid., vol. , ). Yet if Delrio, like Bernardino, saw the current Low Countries as in some ways continuous with Caesar’s northern Gaul, he did not assume resemblances uncritically. He explains, for instance, that he renders place names in their modern rather than ancient form, since the newer names are not only more certain, but also better befit the current situation (ibid., vol. , ). There is, indeed, a radical disjunction between the Caesarian past and the Habsburg present. From Delrio’s perspective, the story of the Dutch revolt was one of good versus evil, loyalty versus treason, and, especially, Catholicism versus heresy. Caesar rarely deals in such moral categories, and, what is more, as a pagan Roman, did not fight divinely sanctioned wars like the Catholic king of Spain. Delrio never saw his text in print, but it was translated into Spanish by his brother (published ), and sent to Rome in the s as source for Famiano Strada’s On the Belgian War. Befitting the move from commentary to history, this latter text does not evoke Caesar, but is instead influenced by Sallust, Livy, and especially Tacitus.
Caesarian Moments: The Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries With the waning of the Renaissance cult of exemplarity and imitation, Caesar’s fortunes declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Political and philosophical factors contributed: in England, resentment of
Delrio (, vol. , –). Avila y Zúñiga uses this difference to exalt Charles V as a Christian Caesar, see Moreno Hernández (forthcoming). Edelmayer and Echevarría Bacigalupe (). Strada (, iv) refers to Polybius’ requirements for history as genre.
The Commentarii’s Afterlife in Military Memoirs
Stuart absolutism may have militated against associations with Caesar, while the Hanoverian political elites, whose power was concentrated in parliament and aristocracy, looked to the Roman Republic rather than the Empire for inspiration. The English colonists in America imported these pro-Republican sentiments into the New World, and in the antimonarchical fervor of the War of Independence, Caesar became associated with Britain and King George III. In France, the figure of Caesar remained popular among Enlightenment philosophers, but as a benevolent and reasonable despot favorably compared to unfettered Bourbon monarchy, rather than an absolute ruler or general. The present section examines two exceptional outliers: the first, a little-read but highly Caesarian Commentary concerning the British civil war, the other, the writings of Napoleon Bonaparte. At the onset of his dramatic career, James Graham, Earl of Montrose, envisaged a life in imitation of the ancient generals, Alexander the Great as well as Caesar. A student at St Andrews, he inscribed the flyleaf of his copy of the Gallic Wars thus: “If Cesar’s paragon I cannot be / Yet shall I soar in thoughts as high as he.” While he initially shared the grievances of the Scottish Covenanters against King Charles I, Montrose changed sides when their opposition turned violent, and proceeded to lead the king’s army against them. Of these campaigns, his chaplain George Wishart gave a Latin account in a Commentary (), dedicated to King Charles and advertised as the written reflection of an “Alexander, Caesar, Scipio.” When the royal cause was lost, and Montrose tried in absentia, Wishart’s Commentary was brought as evidence against him. He was later hanged with the Commentary tied around his neck (ibid., /). Montrose’s chaplain was a master of the justifying narrative, and in this regard his Commentary is closer to Caesar’s than any other. Beginning with a succinct sketch of the situation, he moves quickly to the present unrest, casting the covenanters in the role of the conspiring Helvetians encountered by Caesar in his first season in Gaul (ibid., –/-, cf. BG .). The reader is granted an internal perspective on Montrose’s reasoning, while, at the same time, Wishart’s judgment is absorbed in the narrative, and praise for Montrose voiced by his enemies, so that it seems factual rather than flattery. Montrose’s subterfuge – he pretends to adhere to the
Norbrook (, esp. –), Biskup (, -), Wyke (, –). Biskup (, –). Wedgwood (, ). Wishart, English (, ), Latin (–). Ibid., e.g. “Montrose perceived . . . resolved . . . determined” (/); “Their specious pretexts were . . .” (/); “Montrose was almost the only man they dreaded” (/).
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covenant – is presented as part of his craft as commander (ibid., /). His other skills include speed, sound judgment, and decisiveness. Although Wishart’s Latin is not restricted by Caesarian precedent, his prose shares Caesar’s urgency and precision. He often renders dialogue in indirect speech, and uses these exchanges to impart facts and motivations. Finally, Wishart uses Montrose as mouthpiece for his own Commentary, having the Earl remark on the scaffold that he deems his knighthood “less honour and glory than this cord and these books” (ibid., /). There may not be a career so like Caesar’s – and presented to resemble Caesar’s – as that of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican commander who rose to First Consul of the French Republic before crowning himself emperor, and campaigned in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East. Although Napoleon’s political image was inspired by the ghost of Rome in general, militarily he identified with none more than Caesar. Banished to St Helena, he dictated his comments on the campaigns of several historical generals, among whom his treatment of Caesar was the most extensive, and closely based on the Commentaries. Alert to the differences between the ancient and modern military, Napoleon corrected what he saw as Caesar’s errors, and suggested alternative approaches befitting the current state of affairs. In the field, too, Napoleon was aware of following in the footsteps of the ancients, exhorting his troops in Egypt that: “The first town we shall enter was built by Alexander. Everywhere we shall see great reminders of our past, worthy of our emulation.” Perhaps inspired by their general, some of Napoleon’s soldiers did indeed view the expedition through the lens of antiquity, envisaging for instance Egyptian women as so many Cleopatras (ibid., ). However, they did not see themselves as Caesars. Their reports of Napoleon’s campaigns share some of the features of sixteenth-century memoirs that separate them from Caesar’s Commentaries, while adding others: emphasising autopsy, these authors focus on their personal experience of the campaign, which they moreover present as human rather than heroic. Exceptional among this literature are Napoleon’s own Commentaries, first published under the telling title Memoirs in Aid of the History
Ibid., e.g. between Hamilton and Montrose: –/–. Hemmerle (): , Nicolet (, –); cf. Thorne – in this volume. Napoleon I (), Napoleon I (, xvii). Wintjes (, –). Moiret (, –). Besides Moiret e.g. Barrès (), Abbeel (), and, on the British side, Walsh ().
The Commentarii’s Afterlife in Military Memoirs
of France. While Napoleon reports his words in direct speech, he follows Caesarian precedent in referring to himself as “Napoleon.” Stylistically, his French is a match for Caesar’s lean Latin. The most remarkable parallel, however, is the geography that precedes Napoleon’s Italian campaign. Italy, Napoleon tells us, is bounded by the Alps and the sea, and it is divided in three parts (ibid., ). Although he provides precise latitudinal measurements, he also gives Italy’s geometrical shape, and defines her borders relative to the three seas. He concludes this introduction to his Description of Italy by relating the composition of Roman Italy, noting that Milan, Cremona, and Mantua were founded by Gauls from Autun and the Loire, respectively (ibid., –). Thus redressing the ancestral debt France owed Rome, Napoleon’s ethnography of Italy is a similarly resounding reversal of Caesar’s description of Gaul.
Epilogue “WHY should I not write it? I know that the experience in it is very local, limited, incoherent; that it is almost useless, in the sense that no one will read it who is not already aware . . . by reason of having gone the same journey. No one? Some, I am sure; but not many. Neither will they understand – that will not be all my fault.” Thus Edmund Blunden on his decision to write down his experience of the First World War in Undertones of War (). Blunden’s vision of war writing is the opposite of Monluc’s or Bernardino’s: it cannot grasp the totality of war, nor can it be grasped by the inexperienced. Reflecting changes either in the nature of combat or in soldiers’ self-perceptions and expectations, the defining tropes of modern military literature are inadequacy, shock, and fragmentation, to the extent that Caesar’s logical, detached, and omniscient expositions seemingly disqualify him as an author of war. When Blunden, therefore, entitles a chapter “Caesar went into winter quarters,” referring to the German Emperor Wilhelm II, the effect is both horribly ironic and – since the same chapter recalls soldiers’ songs reminiscent of England – wistfully nostalgic for the shared drills of the public school classroom. Blunden called an earlier attempt at trench memoirs De Bello Germanico (On the German War, ): heading a vernacular text, this title is a clear reference to Caesar. In fact, as its publisher notes: “The title
The title Commentaires was assigned by the editor, Napoleon I (, i, iv). Blunden (, vii). Harari (, –, –), McLoughlin (, ). Blunden (, ch. ).
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shows how recently the Author had read his Caesar; indeed, he carried a volume of ‘De Bello Gallico’ with him as a soldier.” Add changes in school curricula and the army’s demography to the developments noted above, and it would seem that Caesar’s afterlife in military memoirs ends here. F U R T H E R RE A D I N G A N D R E S E A R C H An excellent introduction to war writing across the centuries is McLoughlin (). For Caesarian echoes in military literature see, for the fifteenth century, Ianziti (), O’Brien (), and Schadee (); for the sixteenth, Lupher (), Harari (), and Rodríguez Pérez (). For the reception of Caesar’s person that forms the background to his literary longevity the best starting point is the last two parts of Griffin (). For a brief survey of both aspects, see Schadee (forthcoming). While this chapter examines the afterlife of Caesar’s Commentarii in military memoirs, their influence on other historical or literary genres remains almost entirely unstudied. It is clear, however, that much of the work’s later appeal resided in the ethnographies. Their appropriation by early modern antiquarians, chorographers and travel writers – if these constituencies can be separated – merits further attention. The Commentarii were also an enduring resource for students of the Roman military. One would like to know more about how military strategists – both in theory and in practice – relied on, or reinterpreted Caesar’s text. Research into these fields should be supplemented with an investigation of contemporary appraisals of Caesar’s qualities as historiographer and stylist.
Blunden (, ii).
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Index Rerum
adventus, , Alesia, , , , , , , alliteration, , , Anabasis, , , analogia, , , , . See also De Analogia anaphora, , annales as historical writings, , , –, Annales by Tacitus, annales maximi, anomalia, , , Anticato by Caesar, , –, – Anticato by Hirtius, antithesis, , Apulia, Aquitania, , archaic, , , , –, , , Ariminum, , , – aristeia, , , , Asianism, assonance, asterification, Asterix, Atticism, , , – Atuatuca, , – auctoritas as linguistic criterion, – as virtue of a general, in the BG, augur Caesar as, Cicero as, autobiography, , –, , Avaricum, , , , , Bagradas, barbari Germani, Pompeians, –, versus nostri, , ,
BC. See also Commentarii and geography, , , and Greek historiography, , and Lucan, , and religion, and Roman historiography, , and Vergil, Caesar’s self-portrayal, irony, – literary approaches, literary art, , narrative tecnique, publication, reliability, , reproducing literary devices of the BG, , rhetoric of otherness, self-representation, speeches, , , style, – tendentiousness, third person narrative, Bellum Africum, , , –, Bellum Alexandrinum, , –, , Bellum Hispaniense, , –, bellum iustum, beneficium, – BG. See also Commentarii and geography, , and Greek historiography, and letters to the senate, , and religion, and Roman historiography, book , Caesar’s self-poratrayal, , , characterization of the Gauls, known by heart, literary approaches, , literary art, , , , , Livy and Tacitus, publication, , , , recurrent themes,
Index Rerum speeches, style, tendentiousness, Bibracte, , Britain and Cicero’s epic, Caesar’s expedition, , –, , , –, communications with Rome, description of, , , , caerimonia, , camp Roman versus barbarian, – Campania, Campus Martius, Cato by Cicero, , –, Cato by Fabius Gallus, celeritas, , , – Césarité, – chiasm, Cilicia, , , Cinga, river, , Cisalpine. See Gallia Cisalpina Civil Wars. See BC clausula, , , , clemency advertised by Caesar, , , and Cicero, and Vergil, as political strategy, , Caesar’s plea for the Catilinarians, Caesar’s stated policy, , , in the BC, , , , in the Corpus Caesarianum, on coins, refused by Cato, clementia. See clemency Clementia Caesaris, , . See also clemency Clio’s Cosmetics, commenta, Commentarii by Caesar administrative style, , , , , –, , , and historia, , , , , , and historiographical turn, and military reports, , , , composition, , , , genre, , –, , , interpolations, interpretations of, literary influence, literary models, , –, , , literary quality, new approaches,
propaganda, , – reception, relation to notes and reports, reliability, stylistic evolution, , , third person narrative, , , , , , –, , , transmission, comparatio, confutatio, consilium, , , consuetudo, , , , –, –, continentia, , contio audience of Caesar, , by Caesar, , , , , , senate not mentioned in, to soldiers, – Contra Ser. Galbam, Corfinium, , , , –, Corpus Caesarianum, , , – Danube, De Analogia – and accessible Latin, , and Caesar’s politics, , and Cicero, , , and Epicurean theories, and Latin standardization, , , , and lexical selection, , , and the Commentarii, and their rhetorical background, , composition, , , fragments and grammatical background, De Bello Civili. See BC De Bello Gallico. See BG Delphi, Dicta Collectanea by Caesar, , dignitas – and Cicero, , and Vergil, Caesar’s primary concern, , direct speech. See oratio recta and speeches divinization, Dyrrachium, , , , , Egypt and geographical space, and the Bellum Alexandrinum, – in the civil war, , , ekphrasis, elegantia, , , , , –, , , emotionality, –, enarratio,
Index Rerum
engineering, , enumeratio, epigrams by Augustus, , epigrams by Caesar, , , , Epistula ad Balbum, , – ethnography of Gaul – and geography, and religion, as mirror of self, as rhetorical construct, –, ethnography of Germania – and religion, as rhetorical construct, evidentia, , , , , exordium, , – exornatio, felicitas, –, ferocia, fides, –, flamen dialis. See religious offices flamen Martialis, focalization, , , , . See also narratology external, internal, fortitudo, , , fortuna, , , , , , , Forum of Augustus, Forum of Caesar, Forum Romanum, funerary oration, , Gallia – allotted to Caesar, Comata, communications with Rome, conquered by Caesar, , , , , , , contrasted to Germania, , correspondence from, – created by Caesar, described by Caesar, , –, , , – described by Napoleon, mirror of Rome, on coins, – propaganda from, , , reduced to uniformity, , –, , Gallia Cisalpina, , , , , Gallia Comata, , . See also Gallia omnis Gallia omnis, , , Gallia Transalpina, , Gallic Wars. See BG
Gaul. See Gallia Geneva, , genus grande, genus tenue, , Gergovia, , , , Germania created by Caesar, , described by Caesar, , not integrated by Caesar, Germania by Tacitus, – Hercynian forest, , historiae. See also Commentarii and historiography as genre as historical writings, –, Histories by Tacitus, historiographical turn, historiography and autobiography, and Caesar’s style, and commentarii, , –, , , –, , –, , and oratory, , and speeches, ans politics, as genre, , –, , Caesar’s reduction of, Caesar’s and Cicero’s different views, Caesar’s education, different from the BG, discussed by Cicero, –, exemplary, , gods in, Greek -, , , , Hellenistic, political relevance, reception of Caesar, , Roman –, , , , speeches in, –, honos, humanitas, , hyperbaton, , , , hypomnēma , . See also Commentarii hypotaxis, Ides of March, , Ilerda, , , imagines, indirect speech. See oratio obliqua and speeches innocentia, interpretatio Romana, inventio, , , irony, –, , ,
Index Rerum
isocolon, Italy audience of Caesar, in the BC, , , in the BG, letters by Caesar to, Iter, , , , , , – iteratio, ,
Olympian view, , , , On the Stars by Caesar, oratio obliqua, , –, –, oratio recta, , –, , –, Origines by Cato, , , , , , ornatus, , , otherness. See rhetoric of
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare,
parallelism, parataxis, , , , . See also BG and BC style Pergamum, peripeteia, periphrasis, peroratio, Pharsalus absent in the BC, and Tacitus’ Agricola, and Venus, Caesar’s narrative, , –, –, , Caesar’s speech, Pompey’s camp, , , pirates, , , , , pleonasm, , poeticism, , Pontifex Maximus and the calendar, Caesar as, –, Roman emperors, populus Romanus, –, , –, , praeteritio, primus inventor, , Pro Rhodiensibus, propaganda, – and Cicero’s support for Caesar, and the Corpus Caesarianum, , and the linguistic debate, and the reliability of the Commentarii, , , as self-justification, definition, – from Gaul, recurrent themes, proportio, providentia, provocatio ad populum, pudicitia, Punic Wars First, Second, , , – Punica fides. See also fides Pylos, –, –
labor, , Latinitas, , , –, , – Laudes Herculis, laus, lenitas, , letters by Caesar – to friends, to the senate, lex Vatinia, , liberalitas, libertas, –, , , Limon by Cicero, – loanwords, lucidity of style, –, Massilia, , –, matara, Mauretania, metaphor, , metus Gallicus, , , Meuse, military reports. See Commentarii by Caesar and military reports mise-en-abîme, misericordia, modestia, , mundus inversus, murus Gallicus, mutiny avoided, , –, stopped, unmentioned, narratio, , . See also BG, BC, and Commentarii narratology. See also BG, BC, and Commentarii narratology –, , , – natura, neologism, , , , nostri, , –, , . See also barbari October horse, Oedipus by Caesar,
Index Rerum
Quaestiones Caesarianae, , Quirites, , ratio, , , , , rationality, Roman, Ravenna, , , recapitulatio, religion. See also BG and religion religion – and Caesar, in the BC, of the Gauls, . See also ethnography of the Germani. See Germani, ethnography religious offices held by Caesar, . See also Pontifex Maximus and augur res gestae as genre, , , by Augustus, by Sempronius Asellius, by Sulla, , Pompey’s, rhetoric and politics, , , , and speeches in the Commentarii, Caesar and Cicero on, , , Caesar’s excellence, , , in letters, manuals of, , of otherness, , , , – of stringency, , Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, rhetorical question, –, Rhine ancient geography, border, , , , , bridge and crossing, , –, , , , Caesar’s description, Rhone, Romanness, – Rome Caesar’s “presence” while in Gaul, –, in the BC, , in the BG, mirror for Gaul, sack of, –, Rubicon crossing, , , , not mentioned by Caesar, , , , Saepta Iulia, salutatio,
Sambre, sanctitas, sapientia, scientia, –, sermo castrensis, servitus, – si vis pacem para bellum, sic semper tyrannis, Sicilia by Augustus, Sicily, , –, , Sicoris, river, , siege works, soldurii, , space - differences between the BG and the BC, geographical, , in the BC, in the BG, strategic, , tactical, –, Spain and the Bellum Hispaniense, Caesar’s praetorship, in the Civil War, , , , , – speeches in the BC, , – in the BG, , , , , – in the Commentarii, , , –, in the Corpus Caesarianum, , orations by Caesar, , – Sphacteria, , – stasis, superbia, supplicatio, , and the senate, secured by Cicero, unprecedented length, , , tabula dealbata, tabulae triumphales, temeritas, , temperantia, textual criticism, , , –, , , third person. See Commentarii by Caesar, third person narrative Topica, – Transalpine. See Gallia Transalpina triumph, , , , , triumvirate, ,
Index Rerum urbanitas, urbs, veni, vidi, vici, vergobretus, , virtus Caesar’s use of, not associated with Caesar, – of the Gauls, , ,
Roman, , vituperatio, vividness. See evidentia wit, , zero-focalization, σαφήνεια. See lucidity of style
Index Locorum
Anal. fr. Garcea, – Anal. fr. Garcea, – Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, , Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, Anticato fr. Tschiedel, Anticato fr. Tschiedel, Anticato fr. Tschiedel, BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ., , , , BC .., BC .., , BC .., BC ., BC .., BC .., , BC .., BC .–, BC .–, BC .., BC ., BC .., BC .–, BC .., , , BC ., BC .., , BC ., BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ..–, BC .., BC .., BC ..–,
Acilius fr. Cornell, Aemilius Scaurus. See Scaurus Afranius, Andronicus Odys. fr. , Antias. See Velerius Antias Antipater. See Coelius Antipater Appian B Civ. , Celt. fr. ., Aulus Gellius. See Gellius Bellum Africum. See Corpus Caesarianum Bellum Alexandrinum. See Corpus Caesarianum Bellum Hispaniense. See Corpus Caesarianum Bibaculus fr. Cornell, Caesar Anal. fr. – Garcea, Anal. fr. – Garcea, Anal. fr. A Garcea, , , Anal. fr. A–C Garcea, Anal. fr. B Garcea, , Anal. fr. C Garcea, , Anal. fr. Garcea, , Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, , Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. – Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, – Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. B Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, , Anal. fr. Garcea, Anal. fr. Garcea, , ,
Index Locorum BC .–, BC .., BC ., BC ., BC ., BC ., BC ., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC ., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC ..–, BC ., BC .., , BC .., BC .., BC. .., BC ., BC ., , BC ..–, BC ., BC ., BC .., BC .–, BC .., BC ..–, BC .–, BC ., BC ., BC .–, BC ., , BC .–, BC ., BC .., BC .–, BC ..–, BC ..–, BC ..–, BC .., BC ..–, BC ., BC ., , BC ., BC ., , BC ., BC .., BC .., BC .–, BC ., BC ., BC ., BC ..,
BC .., BC .., BC ..–, BC .., BC .., BC .–, BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC .., BC .–, BC ., BC .., BC .–, BC ., BC ., BC .–, BC .–, BC ., BC ., , BC .., BC .–, BC .., BC .., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC ..–, BC .–, BC .., BC ..–, BC .., BC ..–, BC .., BC .., , , BC ., BC .., BC .., BC ., BC .., BG ., , , , – BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG ., , BG .., –, BG .., BG .–, BG ., BG ..,
Caesar (cont.) BG .., BG .., , BG .., , BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG ., , –, BG .., BG .., BG .., , BG ., , , , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., BG ., , BG ., –, BG ..–, BG .., , BG ..–, BG ..–, BG ., BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .,
Index Locorum BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., , BG .–, BG ., BG .., BG .., BG ., , , BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., , BG ., , BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ..–., BG .–, BG .., BG .,
Index Locorum BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., , BG .–, BG ., BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .–, BG ., BG .., BG .–, BG .–, BG ., – BG .., BG ., BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG ., , , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., , BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., BG .–, , , BG .–, BG ., BG .., BG .–, BG .–,
BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .., , BG .., BG .–, BG .., , BG .., – BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG ..-, BG ., BG ., , BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .–, BG .–, BG ., BG .–, BG ., BG ., BG .., , BG ..–, BG ., , BG .–, BG .–, BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG ., BG ..–,
Caesar (cont.) BG .., BG ., BG .., , BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., , BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG ., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG ., BG .., BG ..–, BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG .., – BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG ..–, BG ., BG ..–, BG ..–,
Index Locorum BG ..–, BG ..–, BG .., BG ., BG .., BG .., BG ., BG ., , , , BG .., BG . See Hirtius Carm. fr. , Callisthenes FGrHist F, Calpurnius Piso fr. Cornell, Cassiodorus De Orth. .., Cassius Dio .., ..–, .–, .., .., .., .., .., .., .., ., ., .., Cato (Elder) fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. - Cornell, fr. – Cornell, Catullus , ., Cicero Att. ., Att. .., Att. ., Att. ..–, Att. .., Att. .., Att. ., Att. .A, Att. .B, , Att. .,
Index Locorum Att. .A, Att. .., Att. .., Att. .., Att. .., Att. ., Att. .., Att. .., Att. , Att. .., Att. .., , Att. .A, Att. .A–D, Att. .C, , Att. .A–D, Att. ., Att. .–, Att. .A, – Att. .C, Att. ., Att. .., , Att. .A., Att. .A., Att. .A–C, Att. .B., Att. .C, , Att. .C., Att. .., Att. .A, Att. .A., , Att. .A, Att. ., Att. ..–, Att. ..–, Att. ., , Att. .., Brut. , Brut. , Brut. , Brut. , Brut. , , Brut. –, Brut. , , Brut. , –, Brut. , Brut. , , Brut. , –, , , , , , , Brut. , Brut. , Caecin. .–, Caecin. , Caecin. –, Caecin. ,
Caecin. , Cat. ., Cat. ., Cat. .–, De Or. .–, De Or. .–, De Or. .–, De Or. ., De Or. ., De Or. .–, De Or. ., Dom. , Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. ., , – Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. ., Fam. ..–, Fam. .., Fam. .., Fam. ., Fam. .., Fam. .., Leg. ., Leg. .–, Leg. Man. ., Marcell. , Marcell. , , Marcell. , Mur. –, Mur. , Off. ., Off. ., Opt. Gen. , Orat. , , Orat. , Orat. , Orat. –, Orat. , Orat. –, Orat. –, Orat. , Orat. , , Part. Or. , Part. Or. , Phil. ., Phil. ., Planc. ,
Index Locorum
Cicero (cont.) Prov. Cons. , , Prov. Cons. , Prov. Cons. , Prov. Cons. , Prov. Cons. , Prov. Cons. –, Prov. Cons. , Qfr. .()., Qfr. .., Qfr. .()., Qfr. .., Qfr. .., Qfr. .()., Qfr. .., Qfr. .()., Qfr. .., Rab. Post. , Sest. , Top. , Vat. , Vat. , Ver. ., CIL .., ., Claudius Quadrigarius. See Quadrigarius Coelius Antipater fr. Cornell, Corpus Caesarianum Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum .–, Bellum Africum .–., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum , Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum .–, Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum , Bellum Africum .–, Bellum Africum ., Bellum Africum .–, Bellum Alexandrinum –, , Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum –,
Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum , Bellum Alexandrinum .–, Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum ., Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Alexandrinum –, , Bellum Alexandrinum ., Bellum Alexandrinum –, Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense –, Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense .–., Bellum Hispaniense .–, Bellum Hispaniense .–, Bellum Hispaniense ., , , Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense –, Bellum Hispaniense .–, Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Bellum Hispaniense ., Digest .., Diogenes Laertius ., Ennius Trag. fr. , Epistula ad Balbum. See Hirtius BG praef. Frontinus Strat. ., Fronto Parth. , Gellius .., , , , , .., , , .., .., .., ..–, ,
Index Locorum Herodotus .–, .., ., ..–, .., .., Hirtius BG praef., BG praef. , , BG praef. –, BG praef. , BG praef. , BG ., BG ., BG ..–, BG .., BG .., BG .., BG .–, BG .., BG ..–, , Horace Ars , Ep. .., Sat. ., ILLRP , ILS , Isidore of Seville Etym. ., Etym. .., Etym. .., , Livius Andronicus. See Andronicus Livy .., ..–, ., ..–, .., .., .., ..–, .–, .., ..–, .., Per. ., Lucan ., .–, .–,
.–, .–, .–, .–, ., .–, ., , .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, ., .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, Lucilius – Marx, Lucretius .–, ., Macrobius Sat. .., Sat. .., Sat. .., Martial ., , Orosius .., ..-, .., .., Ovid Tristia ,
Papyri Hercolanenses , Piso. See Calpurnius Piso Plautus Mostell. , Pers. –, Pers. –, Poen. , Pliny (Elder) HN .–, Pliny (Younger) Ep. .., Ep. .., Plutarch Alex. ., Caes. ., Caes. , Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. , Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. ., Caes. .–, Caes. , , Caes. ., Cat. Min. ., Cat. Min. .–, Cat. Min. ., Cat. Min. ., Cat. Min. ., Cic. ., Comp. Nic et Crass. , Luc. ., Mar. ., Pomp. ., Pomp. ., Pomp. ., Polybius .., .., .–, ., .., ., .., .., .., .., .a, .b, ,
Index Locorum Publilius Syrus Sent. , Quadrigarius fr. Cornell, fr. Chassignet, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, Quintilian .., .., .., .., .., , , , , .., .., Rhet. Her. .., ., , RRC , ., ., ., ., .–, , ., .a–b, .a–b, .–, .–, ., ., ., .–, , Sallust Cat. .–, Cat. .., Cat. ., Cat. , Cat. ., Cat. –, Cat. , Iug. –, Iug. ., Iug. ., Iug. ., Iug. .,
Index Locorum Scaurus fr. Cornell, Servius Ad Aen. ., Ad Aen. ., Ad Aen. ., Sisenna fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, Suetonius Aug. ., Aug. .–, Aug. ., Gram. , Iul. , , Iul. ., , , Iul. ., Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. ., , Iul. ., Iul. ., Iul. –, Iul. –, Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. –, Iul. .–, Iul. –, Iul. , , , Iul. .–, Iul. ., , Iul. ., , Iul. ., , , , Iul. ., , , , Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. , Iul. ., Iul. ., Iul. .,
Iul. ., Iul. ., Iul. , Vita Terenti , Sulla fr. Cornell, Syrus. See Publilius Syrus Tacitus Agricola ., Agricola ., Agricola ., Agricola ., Agricola .–, Agricola –., Agricola .–, Agricola ., Agricola ., Agricola .-, Agricola ., Agricola , Agricola ., Agricola ., Agricola ., Ann. .., Ann. .., Dial. ., , Dial. ., Dial. ., Germ. ., Germ. ., Germ. ., , Germ. ., Terence Haut. , Phorm. –, Thucydides ., , .., .–, .–, .., .., .., .–, .., .., ., .–, .., .., ..–, .., ..–, ..,
Thucydides (cont.) ..–, .., .–, .., .–, Valerius Antias fr. – Cornell, fr. Cornell, fr. Cornell, Valerius Maximus .., , .., Valgius Rufus fr. – Courtney, Varro Ling. ., Ling. ., Ling. ., Velleius Paterculus ..–., .., Vergil Aen. .–, Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. .–, Aen. .–,
Index Locorum Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. .–, , Aen. .–, , Aen. ., – Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. .–, Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Aen. ., Buc. ., G. ., G. ., G. ., G. ., G. ., Xenophon Anabasis .., Anabasis .., Anabasis .., Anabasis ..–, Anabasis .., Symp. ,
Index Personarum
Achillas, Adams, James, Adcock, F. E., Aedui characteristics, , , defection, , Roman allies, –, , , , Aeneas, – Afranius, , , , Agricola, – Alexander historians of, , model of Caesar, , other imitators, , – Alfonso I of Naples, Allobroges, , Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán, Ambiorix after Aduatuca, , , and Aduatuca, , , , , characterization of, , in other sources, , , Ammianus, , Anchises, – Ancus Marcius, Antonius, M. (orator), – Antonius, M. (triumvir) and the civil war, , enemy of Augustus, , , lieutenant of Caesar, loyalist of Caesar, , , , – Antonius, M. Gnipho (tutor of Caesar), , , , Apollo, Appian and Caesar’s speeches, and the civil war, –, , and the Gallic war, , , – Aquila, Pontius, Aquitani, , ,
Ariovistus characterization of, , –, –, , interaction with Caesar, –, , , , poem by Varro, revolt of, , , war against, , , , , Aristotle, , Arulenus Rusticus, Arverni, Asconius, Asianists, Athenians, , , Atta, T. Quinctius, Atticists, – Atticus, , , , , –, , Augustus as writer, , , ban on Caesar’s juvenile writings, , , propaganda, , , , , successor of Caesar, , , – Aurelia, Bacchus, Bacon, Francis, Balbus, L. Cornelius correspondence with Cicero, – loyalist of Caesar, , , preface to BG , recipient of letters by Caesar, , , Balventius, T., Barbaro, Francesco, Barthes, Roland, – Barwick, Karl, Batstone, William, , Beckmann, Franz, Belgae, , , campaign against, – characteristics, , –, Bellona,
Index Personarum
Bellovaci, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Bernardino de Mendoza, –, Bibaculus, M. Furius, –, , Bibulus, M. Calpurnius, , Biondo, Flavio, Bituriges, Blunden, Edmund, Boii, Britanni, Britons, , Brutus, L. Iunius (consul in ), Brutus, M. Iunius (conspirator), –, Caecilius Statius, Caelius, M. Rufus, , , – Caesar, C. Julius and geography, –, , , and Greek historians, , , – and intertextuality, –, , , , , and invective, –, , – and Latin morphology, , – and Latin orthography, , – and Latin syntax, , and Livy, and narratology, , – and previous Roman historians, – and propaganda, , –, , , , and religion, –, and Tacitus, and the calendar, –, , and wit, – as general and politician, , –, as historical source, –, as letter writer, , , , , – as orator, , , , , , –, as poet, , – Atticism, , characterization in the corpus Caesarianum, , , divinization, education, , , , , genre of the Commentarii, , , –, , –, linguistic interests, –, on his enemies, , – prose rhythm, , , , reception, , , – rhetoric of otherness, –, , self-representation, –, –, speeches in the Commentarii, , , , , –, ,
word choice, , –, , , – writing style, , , –, , – Caesarians casualties, characterization, , in Africa, – in battles, , , writers, , , Calgacus, Callisthenes, Calpurnia, Calvus, C. Licinius, , –, –, Camilla, Camillus, Cassius Dio on the civil war, on the Gallic war, , Cassius, Longinus G. (conspirator), Cassius, Longinus L. (tr. pl.) , Cassius, Longinus Q., , , Cato, M. Porcius (Elder) and Gaul, Origines by, , , , , , speeches by, , , – Cato, M. Porcius (Uticensis) and the Anticato, , characterization of, , , –, in Lucan, – opponent of Caesar, , , –, , – speech by, –, Catullus, , , –, , Catulus, Q. Lutatius, , , , , – Catulus, Q. Lutatius (Capitolinus), , Celsus, J. Constantinus, , Ceres, Champion, Craige, Charles I, Charles V, Cicero, M. Tullius as historical source, , , , , , , , , , as orator, , , , as poet, , , –, author of Cato, , – correspondence with Caelius, , correspondence with Caesar, , –, , – critical of Caesar, , on Caesar as orator, , , , , , on Caesar as politician and general, , , , , , , , ,
Index Personarum on Caesar’s style, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , on his own consulship, , , , on humor, , on Latin language and intellectuals, , –, –, , –, , , , on Roman religion and calendar, , on writing history, –, –, , , , –, opposes Caesar, praised by Caesar, praises Pompey, – style of, –, –, , , , , , –, , supports Caesar, , , , , , , works on rhetoric, Cicero, Q. Tullius as poet, lieutenant of Caesar, , , , , , , , Cimbri, , , , Cingetorix, , Cinna, G. Helvius (neoteric poet), Cinna, L. Cornelius (Caesar’s brother-in-law), Cinna, L. Cornelius (Caesar’s father-in-law), Cleopatra, Clodius, P. Pulcher, , Collatinus, Collins, John, , , Coluccio. See Salutati Commius, , Contarini, Francesco, Corbeill, Antony, Cordus (Pompeian soldier), Cordus, Cremutius, Cornelia (Caesar’s wife), , , , Cornificius, Q., Cortés, Hernán, Cotta, L. Aurunculeius, , , , –, –, , Crassus, L. Licinius (orator), Crassus, M. Licinius alliance with Caesar and Pompey, –, , as general, , Crassus, P. Licinius, Crastinus, –, , Critognatus, , – Croesus, Curio, Scribonius campaign in Africa, , , – characterization of, speech by, –
Curlo, Giacomo, Cyrus the Great, Dacians, Damon, Cynthia, , Decembrio, Pier Candido, Decius the Samnite, Delrio, Martin, Diana, Diodorus, , , Diogenes Laertius, Dionysius, , , , Dioscuri, Diviciacus ally of Caesar, , characterization of, speech by, , , –, Dolabella, Cn. Cornelius, –, – Dolabella, P. Cornelius, Domitius, Cn. Calvinus, , , Domitius, L. Ahenobarbus, , , , , druids, , , Drusus, Livius, , Drusus, Nero Claudius, Dumnorix, , –, , Eburones, , Eden, P. T., , Edmondes, Clement, Ennius, , , , , equestrians, Eteocles, Euripides, Facio, Bartolomeo, Fannius, Favonius, M., Federico da Montefeltro, Fides, Filelfo, Francesco, Flavius, M. (scriba), –, Flodoard, Florus, L. Annaeus, Fraenkel, Eduard, Frontinus, S. Iulius, Fronto, M. Cornelius, , , , , Fulvia, Galba, Servius Sulpicius (emperor), Galba, Servius Sulpicius (enemy of Cato the Elder), Galba, Servius Sulpicius (lieutenant of Caesar), Gallus, Cornelius, ,
Index Personarum
Gallus, F., , Garcea, Alessandro, , , Gauls and clemency, and Germans, – assimilation, characterization of, cruelty, , enemies of Caesar, , , , , , ethnography, , , fickle, , , , military engineering, , mislead, , , otherness, , –, stereotypes, , –, treachery, , , virtue, , , Gellius, Aulus fragments by Caesar in, , , , , on Caesar’s speeches, – on Latin language, , , on memoirs, Gelzer, Matthias, , , , George III, Gerhard, Yves, Germanicus, Germans characterization of, , , , , –, created by Caesar, , –, , ethnography, , , , , , , hand Caesar over to, , , war against, –, Gibbon, Edward, Görler, Woldemar, Gracchus, G. Sempronius, Gracchus, Ti. Sempronius, Graham, James Earl of Montrose, Gray, Vivienne, Grillo, Luca, , , , , , Guillaume van Male, Hall, Lindsay, , Hannibal, , Hector, , Helvetii characterization of, , , , , , defeated by Caesar, , , , , revolt, , –, , threat to Rome, , Hercules, , Herder, Johann Gottfried, Herennius Senecio,
Hering, Wolfgang, Herodian, xi, Herodotus model for Caesar, , , , – speeches in, , , Hirtius, Aulus and the corpus Caesarianum, – author of Anticato, , author of BG , , , , , , , , , loyalist of Caesar, , on Caesar’s Commentarii, , , , , , , , , Homer, , Honos, Horace, Q. Flaccus, –, – Hortensius, Q. Hortalus, , , Hyart, Charles, – Isidore, , Juan of Austria, Juba, , , Jugurtha, Julia, aunt of Caesar, , , , , , –, , Julia, daughter of Caesar, Julii, , Jullian, Camille, , –, Juno, , Juno Moneta, Jupiter, , , , Juturna, Kelsey, F. W., Klotz, Alfred, , Kraus, C. S., Krebs, C. B., , –, , Laberius, D., Labienus, T. defeats the Tigurini, , –, – enemy of Caesar in BC, lieutenant of Caesar, Latovici, Lentulus, L. Cornelius Crus, , , , Lepidus, M. Aemilius (cos. ), , Leuci, Licinius, Porcius, Ligarius, Q., Lingones, Livy and writing history, , as historical source, , , , , , –,
Index Personarum influenced by Caesar, , , , –, style, – Lucan, , , , , , , , – Lucanius, Q., Lucceius, L. and Cicero’s request, , , , , and writing history, , – Luce, T. J., Lucilius, , Lucretius, , – Maecenas, Magius, Manelmi, Evangelista, – Marcellus, M. Claudius, , Marchand, , Marcius, L., Marcius, Rufus, Mardonius, Marius, G. as general, , , , , , uncle of Caesar, , , , , , Mars, , , Massilians, , – Matius, C., , , Maximus, Q. Fabius Cunctator, , Memmius, C., , Menander, , , Mercury, , , Metellus, L. Caecilius, , , Minerva, Mithridates, Molo of Rhodes, , Mommsen, Theodor, , , –, – Monluc, Blaise de, Montaigne, Michel de, Montrose. See Graham Morini, Morrison, James, Napoleon I (Bonaparte), , , , , – Napoleon III, , , , Nepos, Cornelius, , , , Nero, Cladius Caesar, Nervii, –, –, Nicomedes, , Nipperdey, Carl, –, Octavian, , (see also Augustus) Odelman, Eva, , , Oppermann, Hans, –, Oppius, G. correspondence with Cicero, –
loyalist of Caesar, , , recepient of letters by Caesar, , , Orgetorix characterization of, –, revolt by, , , Orosius, –, , , Ovid, P. Naso, , , Paetus, Paltroni, Pierantonio, Pannonians, Pascucci, Giovanni, Patroclus, , Paullus, L. Aemilius, –, Pedius, Q., Pelling, Christopher, , , –, Penates, Pericles, Petrarch, Francesco, Petreius, Philistus, Philodemus, Pictor, Fabius, , , , Pietas, Piso (Aquitanus), , Piso, L. Calpurnius Caesoninus (Caesar’s fatherin-law), Piso, L. Calpurnius Frugi (historian), , Pius II Piccolomini, pope, Plautius, Aulus (tr. pl. ), Plautus, T. Maccius, , , , Pliny, C. Caecilius Secundus (younger), Pliny, C. Secundus (elder), , –, Plutarch on Caesar and Cato, , – on Caesar’s clemency and witticism, , on Caesar’s speeches, , –, on Caesar’s writings and personality, –, , –, on the civil war, , –, , on the Gallic war, , , –, , , Pollio, Asinius and the Bellum Africum, as tragediographer, critical of Caesar’s accuracy, , , , , , , , on the civil war, , –, – on the Gallic war, , , , Polybius different from Caesar, , , , model of Caesar, , , , –, , , speeches in,
Index Personarum
Pomeroy, A., Pompeians, as barbarians, characterization of, , clemency toward, cruelty and luxury, , plunder and greed, , – soldiers, , , , Pompeius Macer, Pompeius Trogus, , Pompeius, S. Festus (grammarian), Pompey alliance with Caesar and Crassus, –, –, , , and Cicero, –, and the civil war, , –, , , , , as general, , , , , –, , –, as politician, , , , characterization of, , , , , –, , , , , , , competition with Caesar, , , , death, –, , enemy of Caesar, , , , , , Pontius. See Aquila Popillia, Posidonius, , –, , , , Pothinus, Priam, –, –, Priscian, , Protadius, Ptolemy of Cyprus, Ptolemy XIII, Pullo, Pyrrhus, – Quadrigarius and the Bellum Hispaniense, model of Caesar, , , , speeches in, Quintilian on Caesar as orator, , , , –, on Caesar’s style, , on De Analogia, on Latin language, , – Rabirius, C., Raeti, Rambaud, Michel, –, , , , , , , , , , Rasmussen, Detlef, Rauraci, ,
Rebilus, C. Caninius, , Remi, , , René of Anjou, Rice Holmes, Thomas, , – Riggsby, Andrew, , Romans ambushed, –, – and Latin, and religion, , and the calendar, audience of the Commentarii, , , , , , , before Caesar, , characterization in the BG, characterization in the Commentarii, , , contemporary elite, , lieutenants, military engineering, seen by Gauls, , , , –, soldiers in the BG, versus barbarians, , , , , versus Britons, , , , versus Gauls, , versus Germani, , Rufus, C. Valgius, Rufus, Mugnatius, Rufus, P. Rutilius, , , , –, Rufus, P. Sulpicius, Rufus, Servius Sulpicius, , Rusticus, Fabius, , Sabinus, Titurius, , , , , –, Sallust, C. Crispus and military manuals, and writing history, , –, influenced by Caesar, on Caesar, , , speeches, , , , style, , , , , Salutati, Coluccio, Sarmati, Saserna, L. Hostilius, Saturninus, L. Appuleius, Scaeva, Scala, Bartolomeo, Scaurus, M. Aemilius, , , , Schiesaro, Alessandro, Scillus, Scipio, P. Cornelius Africanus, Scipio, Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Nasica, , , Scipios, Scythians,
Index Personarum Seel, Otto, , Sempronius Asellio, , senators, , – enemies of Caesar, , , , supporters of Caesar, , , Senones, Septimius, , Sequani, , , , , Sertorius, Q., , Servius, Maurus Honoratus (commentator of Vergil), , , , – Sforza, Francesco, Shakespeare, , Simonetta, Giovanni, Sisenna, L. Cornelius, –, , , , Sol, Solon, Sophocles, Stoffel (Colonel), Strabo (the geographer), , , , , Strabo, Julius Caesar, , , – Strada, Famiano, Suebi, , Suetonius, G. Tranquillus, , and the civil war, on Caesar and witticism, , –, on Caesar’s poetry, – on Caesar’s speeches, , –, – on Caesar’s writings and personality, , , –, , , , , , –, on the civil war, , , , on the Gallic war, –, Sulla, L. Cornelius as bad example, as dictator, , , , , , as general, , as writer, , , , , – Syme, Ronald, , , Symmachus, Syrus, Publilius, Tacitus and writing history, , as historical source, –, , critical of Caesar’s poetry, , influenced by Caesar, , , , , – praises Caesar’s speeches, , , , Tanusius Geminus, Tarcondimotus, Tarquinius, L. (Superbus), Tarquinius, Sextus,
Tencteri, , , –, Terence, , , , , –, Teutons, , , , Theophanes of Mytilene, Thucydides and writing history, , model for Caesar, , –, , speeches, –, , – Ticida, Tigurini, , , –, , – Timaeus, Torquatus, Manlius, Trebatius, C., , Trebonius, C., Treveri, , Tulingi, Turnus, – Usipetes, , , –, Valerius Antias, – Valerius Flaccus, Valerius Maximus, , Varro, C. Terentius, – Varro, M. Terentius (Reatinus), , , , on Latin language, –, , public library, Varro, P. Terentius (Atacinus), , Varus, P. Attius, , Vatinius, P., , Velleius Paterculus, , Veneti, , , Venus, ancestor of Caesar, , , Generatrix, , , on coins, , Victrix, , Vercingetorix characterization, , , , , , leader of Gallic revolt, , , , speech, , , surrender, , Verdugo, Francisco, Vere, Francis, Vergil influenced by Caesar, , , –, –, mentions of Caesar, – references to Caesar, Verus, Lucius,
Vettius, L., Vibullius Rufus, – Victoria, Vitruvius, , Volcacius Sedigitus, , – Vorenus, Walser, Gerald, Wilhelm II, Williams, Roger,
Index Personarum Winterbottom, Michael, Wiseman, T. P., , , , Wishart, George, Woodman, A. J., , Xenophon and Tacitus, model of Caesar, – speeches in, – third person narrative, , , ,
Cambridge Companions to. . .
Authors Edward Albee edited by Stephen J. Bottoms Margaret Atwood edited by Coral Ann Howells W. H. Auden edited by Stan Smith Jane Austen edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (second edition) Beckett edited by John Pilling Bede edited by Scott DeGregorio Aphra Behn edited by Derek Hughes and Janet Todd Walter Benjamin edited by David S. Ferris William Blake edited by Morris Eaves Boccaccio edited by Guyda Armstrong, Rhiannon Daniels, and Stephen J. Milner Jorge Luis Borges edited by Edwin Williamson Brecht edited by Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (second edition) The Brontës edited by Heather Glen Bunyan edited by Anne Dunan-Page Frances Burney edited by Peter Sabor Byron edited by Drummond Bone Albert Camus edited by Edward J. Hughes Willa Cather edited by Marilee Lindemann Cervantes edited by Anthony J. Cascardi Chaucer edited by Piero Boitani and Jill Mann (second edition) Chekhov edited by Vera Gottlieb and Paul Allain Kate Chopin edited by Janet Beer Caryl Churchill edited by Elaine Aston and Elin Diamond Cicero edited by Catherine Steel Coleridge edited by Lucy Newlyn Wilkie Collins edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor
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