found the field of battle at Cernay not far from Muhlhausen, which,
on the whole, agrees with Napoleon's (Precis, p. 35) placing of
the battle-field in the district of Belfort. This hypothesis, although
not certain, suits the circumstances of the case; for the fact that
Caesar required seven days' march for the short space from Besancon
to that point, is explained by his own remark (i. 41) that he had
taken a circuit of fifty miles to avoid the mountain paths; and
the whole description of the pursuit continued as far as the Rhine, and
evidently not lasting for several days but ending on the very day
of the battle, decides--the authority of tradition being equally
balanced--in favour of the view that the battle was fought five,
not fifty, miles from the Rhine. The proposal of Rustow
(-Einleitung zu Caesars Comm-. p. 117) to transfer the field of
battle to the upper Saar rests on a misunderstanding. The corn
expected from the Sequani, Leuci, Lingones was not to come to
the Roman army in the course of their march against Ariovistus, but to
be delivered at Besancon before their departure, and taken by
the troops along with them; as is clearly apparent from the fact that
Caesar, while pointing his troops to those supplies, comforts them
at the same time with the hope of corn to be brought in on
the route. From Besancon Caesar commanded the region of Langres and
Epinal, and, as may be well conceived, preferred to levy his
requisitions there rather than in the exhausted districts from
which he came.
37. This seems the simplest hypothesis regarding the origin of
these Germanic settlements. That Ariovistus settled those peoples
on the middle Rhine is probable, because they fight in his army
(Caes. i. 51) and do not appear earlier; that Caesar left them in
possession of their settlements is probable, because he in presence
of Ariovistus declared himself ready to tolerate the Germans
already settled in Gaul (Caes. i. 35, 43), and because we find them
afterwards in these abodes. Caesar does not mention the directions
given after the battle concerning these Germanic settlements,
because he keeps silence on principle regarding all the organic
arrangements made by him in Gaul.
38. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite
39. III. II. The Romans Build a Fleet
40. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul
41. V. VII. The Germans on the Lower Rhine
42. The nature of the case as well as Caesar's express statement
proves that the passages of Caesar to Britain were made from ports
of the coast between Calais and Boulogne to the coast of Kent.
A more exact determination of the localities has often been
attempted, but without success. All that is recorded is, that on
the first voyage the infantry embarked at one port, the cavalry at
another distant from the former eight miles in an easterly
direction (iv. 22, 23, 28), and that the second voyage was made
from that one of those two ports which Caesar had found most
convenient, the (otherwise not further mentioned) Portus Itius,
distant from the British coast 30 (so according to the MSS. of
Caesar v. 2) or 40 miles (=320 stadia, according to Strabo iv. 5,
2, who doubtless drew his account from Caesar). From Caesar's
words (iv. 21) that he had chosen "the shortest crossing," we may
doubtless reasonably infer that he crossed not the Channel but
the Straits of Calais, but by no means that he crossed the latter by
the mathematically shortest line. It requires the implicit faith
of local topographers to proceed to the determination of
the locality with such data in hand--data of which the best in itself
becomes almost useless from the variation of the authorities as to
the number; but among the many possibilities most may perhaps be
said in favour of the view that the Itian port (which Strabo l. c.
is probably right in identifying with that from which the infantry
crossed in the first voyage) is to be sought near Ambleteuse to
the west of Cape Gris Nez, and the cavalry-harbour near Ecale (Wissant)
to the east of the same promontory, and that the landing took place
to the east of Dover near Walmer Castle.
43. That Cotta, although not lieutenant-general of Sabinus, but
like him legate, was yet the younger and less esteemed general and
was probably directed in the event of a difference to yield, may be
inferred both from the earlier services of Sabinus and from
the fact that, where the two are named together (iv. 22, 38; v. 24, 26,
52; vi. 32; otherwise in vi. 37) Sabinus regularly takes
precedence, as also from the narrative of the catastrophe itself.
Besides we cannot possibly suppose that Caesar should have placed
over a camp two officers with equal authority, and have made no
arrangement at all for the case of a difference of opinion.
the five cohorts are not counted as part of a legion (comp. vi. 32, 33)
any more than the twelve cohorts at the Rhine bridge (vi. 29, comp.
32, 33), and appear to have consisted of detachments of other
portions of the army, which had been assigned to reinforce this
camp situated nearest to the Germans.
44. V. VII. Subjugation of the Belgae
45. IV. V. War with the Allobroges and Arverni
46. V. VII. Cantonal Constitution
47. This, it is true, was only possible, so long as offensive
weapons chiefly aimed at cutting and stabbing. In the modern mode
of warfare, as Napoleon has excellently explained, this system has
become inapplicable, because with our offensive weapons operating
from a distance the deployed position is more advantageous than
the concentrated. In Caesar's time the reverse was the case.
48. This place has been sought on a rising ground which is still
named Gergoie, a league to the south of the Arvernian capital
Nemetum, the modern Clermont; and both the remains of rude
fortress-walls brought to light in excavations there, and
the tradition of the name which is traced in documents up to the tenth
century, leave no room for doubt as to the correctness of this
determination of the locality. Moreover it accords, as with
the other statements of Caesar, so especially with the fact that he
pretty clearly indicates Gergovia as the chief place of the Arverni
(vii. 4). We shall have accordingly to assume, that the Arvernians
after their defeat were compelled to transfer their settlement from
Gergovia to the neighbouring less strong Nemetum.
49. The question so much discussed of late, whether Alesia is not
rather to be identified with Alaise (25 kilometres to the south of
Besancon, dep. Doubs), has been rightly answered in the negative by
all judicious inquirers.
50. This is usually sought at Capdenac not far from Figeac; Goler
has recently declared himself in favour of Luzech to the west of
Cahors, a site which had been previously suggested.
51. This indeed, as may readily be conceived, is not recorded by
Caesar himself, but an intelligible hint on this subject is given
by Sallust (Hist. i. 9 Kritz), although he too wrote as a partisan
of Caesar. Further proofs are furnished by the coins.
52. Thus we read on a -semis- which a Vergobretus of the Lexovii
(Lisieux, dep. Calvados) caused to be struck, the following
inscription: -Cisiambos Cattos vercobreto; simissos (sic) publicos
Lixovio-. The often scarcely legible writing and the incredibly
wretched stamping of these coins are in excellent harmony with
their stammering Latin.
53. V. VII. Caesar and Ariovistus
54. V. VII. The Helvetii Sent Back to Their Original Abodes
55. V. VII. Beginning of the Struggle
56. IV. V. Taurisci
Notes for Chapter VIII
1. This is the meaning of -cantorum convitio contiones celebrare-
(Cic. pro Sest. 55, 118).
2. V. VI. Clodius
3. IV. V. The Victory and the Parties
4. Cato was not yet in Rome when Cicero spoke on 11th March 698 in
favour of Sestius (Pro Sest. 28, 60) and when the discussion took
place in the senate in consequence of the resolutions of Luca
respecting Caesar's legions (Plut. Caes. 21); it is not till
the discussions at the beginning of 699 that we find him once more
busy, and, as he travelled in winter (Plut. Cato Min. 38), he thus
returned to Rome in the end of 698. He cannot therefore, as has
been mistakenly inferred from Asconius (p. 35, 53), have defended
Milo in Feb. 698.
5. -Me asinum germanum fuisse- (Ad Att. iv. 5, 3).
6. This palinode is the still extant oration on the Provinces to
be assigned to the consuls of 699. It was delivered in the end of
May 698. The pieces contrasting with it are the orations for
Sestius and against Vatinius and that upon the opinion of
the Etruscan soothsayers, dating from the months of March and April,
in which the aristocratic regime is glorified to the best of his
ability and Caesar in particular is treated in a very cavalier
tone. It was but reasonable that Cicero should, as he himself
confesses (Ad Att. iv. 5, 1), be ashamed to transmit even to
intimate friends that attestation of his resumed allegiance.
7. This is not stated by our authorities. But the view that
Caesar levied no soldiers at all from the Latin communities, that
is to say from by far the greater part of his province, is in
itself utterly incredible, and is directly refuted by the fact that
the opposition-party slightingly designates the force levied by
Caesar as "for the most part natives of the Transpadane colonies"
(Caes. B. C. iii. 87); for here the Latin colonies of Strabo
(Ascon. in Pison. p. 3; Sueton. Caes. 8) are evidently meant.
Yet there is no trace of Latin cohorts in Caesar's Gallic army;
on the contrary according to his express statements all the recruits
levied by him in Cisalpine Gaul were added to the legions or
distributed into legions. It is possible that Caesar combined
with the levy the bestowal of the franchise; but more probably he
adhered in this matter to the standpoint of his party, which did
not so much seek to procure for the Transpadanes the Roman
franchise as rather regarded it as already legally belonging to
them (iv. 457). Only thus could the report spread, that Caesar had
introduced of his own authority the Roman municipal constitution
among the Transpadane communities (Cic. Ad Att. v. 3, 2; Ad Fam.
viii. 1, 2). This hypothesis too explains why Hirtius designates
the Transpadane towns as "colonies of Roman burgesses" (B. G. viii.
24), and why Caesar treated the colony of Comum founded by him as
a burgess-colony (Sueton. Caes. 28; Strabo, v. 1, p. 213; Plutarch,
Caes. 29), while the moderate party of the aristocracy conceded to
it only the same rights as to the other Transpadane communities,
viz. Latin rights, and the ultras even declared the civic rights
conferred on the settlers as altogether null, and consequently did
not concede to the Comenses the privileges attached to the holding
of a Latin municipal magistracy (Cic. Ad Att. v. 11, 2; Appian, B.
C. ii. 26). Comp. Hermes, xvi. 30.
8. V. VII. Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans
9. The collection handed down to us is full of references to
the events of 699 and 700 and was doubtless published in the latter
year; the most recent event, which it mentions, is the prosecution
of Vatinius (Aug. 700). The statement of Hieronymus that Catullus
died in 697-698 requires therefore to be altered only by a few
years. From the circumstance that Vatinius "swears falsely by his
consulship," it has been erroneously inferred that the collection
did not appear till after the consulate of Vatinius (707); it
only follows from it that Vatinius, when the collection appeared,
might already reckon on becoming consul in a definite year,
for which he had every reason as early as 700; for his name
certainly stood on the list of candidates agreed on at Luca
(Cicero, Ad. Att. iv. 8 b. 2).
10. The well-known poem of Catullus (numbered as xxix.)
was written in 699 or 700 after Caesar's Britannic expedition
and before the death of Julia:
-Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, Nisi impudicus et vorax
et aleo, Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia Habebat ante et ultima
Britannia-? etc.
Mamurra of Formiae, Caesar's favourite and for a time during
the Gallic wars an officer in his army, had, presumably a short time
before the composition of this poem, returned to the capital and
was in all likelihood then occupied with the building of his much-
talked-of marble palace furnished with lavish magnificence on
the Caelian hill. The Iberian booty mentioned in the poem must have
reference to Caesar's governorship of Further Spain, and Mamurra
must even then, as certainly afterwards in Gaul, have been found at
Caesar's headquarters; the Pontic booty presumably has reference to
the war of Pompeius against Mithradates, especially as according to
the hint of the poet it was not merely Caesar that enriched Mamurra.
More innocent than this virulent invective, which was bitterly felt
by Caesar (Suet. Caes. 73), is another nearly contemporary poem of
the same author (xi.) to which we may here refer, because with its
pathetic introduction to an anything but pathetic commission it
very cleverly quizzes the general staff of the new regents--the
Gabiniuses, Antoniuses, and such like, suddenly advanced from
the lowest haunts to headquarters. Let it be remembered that it was
written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on
the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of
Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation. The poet, as if he too
expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives
to two of his clients their last instructions before departure:
-Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli-, etc.
11. V. VIII. Clodius
12. In this year the January with 29 and the February with 23 days
were followed by the intercalary month with 28, and then by March.
13. -Consul- signifies "colleague" (i. 318), and a consul who is
at the same time proconsul is at once an actual consul and
a consul's substitute.
14. II. III. Military Tribunes with Consular Powers
Notes for Chapter IX
1. iv. 434
2. Tigranes was still living in February 698 (Cic. pro Sest. 27,
59); on the other hand Artavasdes was already reigning before 700
(Justin, xlii. 2, 4; Plut. Crass. 49).
3. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects
4. V. IV. Military Pacification of Syria
5. V. VII. Repulse of the Helvetii, V. VII. Expeditions against
the Maritime Cantons
6. V. VII. Cassivellaunus
7. V. VII. The Carnutes ff.
8. V. II. Renewal of the War
9. V. IV. Difficulty with the Parthians
10. IV. I. War against Aristonicus
11. V. VII. Insurrection
12. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans
13. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System
14. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans
15. V. VIII. The Aristocracy Submits ff.
16. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System
17. V. VIII. The Senate under the Monarchy
18. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers, V. III. Reappearance of Pompeius
19. V. VII. Alpine Peoples
20. V. IX. Dictatorship of Pompeius
21. -Homo ingeniosissime nequam- (Vellei. ii. 48).
22. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall
23. IV. X. The Restoration
24. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War
25. To be distinguished from the consul having the same name of
704; the latter was a cousin, the consul of 705 a brother, of
the Marcus Marcellus who was consul in 703.
26. V. IX. Debates ss to Caesar's Recall ff.
27. II. II. Intercession
Notes for Chapter X
1. V. V. Transpadanes
2. V. V. Transpadanes
3. A centurion of Caesar's tenth legion, taken prisoner, declared
to the commander-in-chief of the enemy that he was ready with ten
of his men to make head against the best cohort of the enemy (500
men; Dell. Afric. 45). "In the ancient mode of fighting," to quote
the opinion of Napoleon I, "a battle consisted simply of duels;
what was only correct in the mouth of that centurion, would be mere
boasting in the mouth of the modern soldier." Vivid proofs of
the soldierly spirit that pervaded Caesar's army are furnished by
the Reports--appended to his Memoirs--respecting the African and
the second Spanish wars, of which the former appears to have had as its
author an officer of the second rank, while the latter is in every
respect a subaltern camp-journal.
4. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall
5. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates
6. V. IV. The New Relations of the Romans in the East, V. IV. Galatia
7. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects
8. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There
9. V. IX. Repulse of the Parthians
10. V. IX. Counter-Arrangements of Caesar
11. V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule
12. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies
and the Jury-System
13. This number was specified by Pompeius himself (Caesar, B.C. i.
6), and it agrees with the statement that he lost in Italy about 60
cohorts or 30,000 men, and took 25,000 over to Greece (Caesar, B.C.
iii. 10).
14. V. VII. With the Bellovaci
15. The decree of the senate was passed on the 7th January; on
the 18th it had been already for several days known in Rome that Caesar
had crossed the boundary (Cic. ad Att. vii. 10; ix. 10, 4);
the messenger needed at the very least three days from Rome to Ravenna.
According to this the setting out of Caesar falls about the 12th
January, which according to the current reduction corresponds to
the Julian 24 Nov. 704.
16. IV. IX. Pompeius
17. IV. XI. Italian Revenues
18. V. VII. Caesar in Spain
19. V. VII. Venetian War ff.
20. III. VI. Scipio Driven Back to the Coast
21. V. X. Caesar Takes the Offensive
22. V. VII. Illyria
23. As according to formal law the "legal deliberative assembly"
undoubtedly, just like the "legal court," could only take place in
the city itself or within the precincts, the assembly representing
the senate in the African army called itself the "three hundred"
(Bell. Afric. 88, 90; Appian, ii. 95), not because it consisted of
300 members, but because this was the ancient normal number of
senators (i. 98). It is very likely that this assembly recruited
its ranks by equites of repute; but, when Plutarch makes the three
hundred to be Italian wholesale dealers (Cato Min. 59, 61), he
has misunderstood his authority (Bell. Afr. 90). Of a similar
kind must have been the arrangement as to the quasi-senate
already in Thessalonica.
24. V. X. Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar
25. V. X. The Pompeian Army
26. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius
27. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed
28. According to the rectified calendar on the 5th Nov. 705.
29. V. X. Result of the Campaign as a Whole
30. The exact determination of the field of battle is difficult.
Appian (ii. 75) expressly places it between (New) Pharsalus (now
Fersala) and the Enipeus. Of the two streams, which alone are of
any importance in the question, and are undoubtedly the Apidanus
and Enipeus of the ancients--the Sofadhitiko and the Fersaliti--the
former has its sources in the mountains of Thaumaci (Dhomoko) and
the Dolopian heights, the latter in mount Othrys, and the Fersaliti
alone flows past Pharsalus; now as the Enipeus according to Strabo
(ix. p. 432) springs from mount Othrys and flows past Pharsalus,
the Fersaliti has been most justly pronounced by Leake (Northern
Greece, iv. 320) to be the Enipeus, and the hypothesis followed by
Goler that the Fersaliti is the Apidanus is untenable. With this
all the other statements of the ancients as to the two rivers
agree. Only we must doubtless assume with Leake, that the river of
Vlokho formed by the union of the Fersaliti and the Sofadhitiko and
going to the Peneius was called by the ancients Apidanus as well as
the Sofadhitiko; which, however, is the more natural, as while
the Sofadhitiko probably has, the Fersaliti has not, constantly water
(Leake, iv. 321). Old Pharsalus, from which the battle takes its
name, must therefore have been situated between Fersala and
the Fersaliti. Accordingly the battle was fought on the left bank of
the Fersaliti, and in such a way that the Pompeians, standing with
their faces towards Pharsalus, leaned their right wing on the river
(Caesar, B. C. iii. 83; Frontinus, Strat. ii. 3, 22). The camp of
the Pompeians, however, cannot have stood here, but only on
the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae, on the right bank of
the Enipeus, partly because they barred the route of Caesar to
Scotussa, partly because their line of retreat evidently went over
the mountains that were to be found above the camp towards Larisa;
if they had, according to Leake's hypothesis (iv. 482), encamped to
the east of Pharsalus on the left bank of the Enipeus, they could
never have got to the northward through this stream, which at this
very point has a deeply cut bed (Leake, iv. 469), and Pompeius must
have fled to Lamia instead of Larisa. Probably therefore
the Pompeians pitched their camp on the right bank of the Fersaliti,
and passed the river both in order to fight and in order, after
the battle, to regain their camp, whence they then moved up the slopes
of Crannon and Scotussa, which culminate above the latter place in
the heights of Cynoscephalae. This was not impossible.
the Enipeus is a narrow slow-flowing rivulet, which Leake found two
feet deep in November, and which in the hot season often lies quite
dry (Leake, i. 448, and iv. 472; comp. Lucan, vi. 373), and
the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further the armies
before the battle lay three miles and a half from each other
(Appian, B. C. ii. 65), so that the Pompeians could make all
preparations and also properly secure the communication with their
camp by bridges. Had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no
doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been
executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly
agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians which was
the most remote from the base of retreat felt this; but the retreat at
least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in
such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions.
Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river,
because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness
for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole
narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of
retreat favourable for these.
31. III. VIII. Battle of Cynoscephalae
32. With this is connected the well-known direction of Caesar to
his soldiers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen.
the infantry--which here in an altogether irregular way acted on
the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with
the sabres--were not to throw their -pila-, but to use them as hand-
spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves
better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp. 69,
71; Caes. 45; Appian, ii. 76, 78; Flor. ii. 12; Oros. vi. 15;
erroneously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to
this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to
run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that
they actually galloped off "holding their hands before their eyes"
(Plutarch), collapses of itself; for it has point only on
the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of
the young nobility of Rome, the "graceful dancers"; and this was
not the case (p. 224). At the most it may be, that the wit of
the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very
irrational but certainly comic turn.
33. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War
34. [I may here state once for all that in this and other
passages, where Dr. Mommsen appears incidentally to express views
of religion or philosophy with which I can scarcely be supposed to
agree, I have not thought it right--as is, I believe, sometimes
done in similar cases--to omit or modify any portion of what he has
written. The reader must judge for himself as to the truth or
value of such assertions as those given in the text.--Tr.]
35. V. IX. Passive Resistance of Caesar
36. V. X. The Armies at Pharsalus
37. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius
38. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed
39. V. IV. Aggregate Results
40. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled
by His Subjects
41. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed
42. The loss of the lighthouse-island must have fallen out, where
there is now a chasm (B. A. 12), for the island was in fact at
first in Caesar's power (B. C. iii. 12; B. A. 8). The mole, must
have been constantly in the power of the enemy, for Caesar held
intercourse with the island only by ships.
43. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs
44. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs
45. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed
46. V. VIII. And in the Courts
47. Much obscurity rests on the shape assumed by the states in
northwestern Africa during this period. After the Jugurthine war
Bocchus king of Mauretania ruled probably from the western sea
to the port of Saldae, in what is now Morocco and Algiers
(IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia); the princes of Tingis
(Tangiers)--probably from the outset different from the Mauretanian
sovereigns--who occur even earlier (Plut. Serf. 9), and to whom it may
be conjectured that Sallust's Leptasta (Hist. ii. 31 Kritz) and Cicero's
Mastanesosus (In Vat. 5, 12) belong, may have been independent
within certain limits or may have held from him as feudatories;
just as Syphax already ruled over many chieftains of tribes
(Appian, Pun. 10), and about this time in the neighbouring Numidia
Cirta was possessed, probably however under Juba's supremacy,
by the prince Massinissa (Appian, B. C. iv. 54). About 672 we find
in Bocchus' stead a king called Bocut or Bogud (iv. 92; Orosius,
v. 21, 14), the son of Bocchus. From 705 the kingdom appears divided
between king Bogud who possesses the western, and king Bocchus
who possesses the eastern half, and to this the later partition
of Mauretania into Bogud's kingdom or the state of Tingis and Bocchus'
kingdom or the state of Iol (Caesarea) refers (Plin. H. N. v. 2, 19;
comp. Bell. Afric. 23).
48. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates
49. V. V. Resumption of the Conspiracy
50. V. X. Reorganization of the Coalition In Africa
51. IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia
52. The inscriptions of the region referred to preserve numerous
traces of this colonization. The name of the Sittii is there
unusually frequent; the African township Milev bears as Roman
the name -colonia Sarnensis-(C. I. L. viii. p. 1094) evidently from
the Nucerian river-god Sarnus (Sueton. Rhet. 4).
Notes for Chapter XI
1. V. X. Insurrection in Alexandria
2. The affair with Laberius, told in the well-known prologue, has
been quoted as an instance of Caesar's tyrannical caprices, but
those who have done so have thoroughly misunderstood the irony of
the situation as well as of the poet; to say nothing of
the -naivete- of lamenting as a martyr the poet who readily
pockets his honorarium.
3. The triumph after the battle of Munda subsequently to be
mentioned probably had reference only to the Lusitanians who served
in great numbers in the conquered army.
4. Any one who desires to compare the old and new hardships of
authors will find opportunity of doing so in the letter of Caecina
(Cicero, Aa. Fam. vi. 7).
5. V. VI. Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar
6. When this was written--in the year 1857--no one could foresee
how soon the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet
recorded in human annals would save the United States from this
fearful trial, and secure the future existence of an absolute
self-governing freedom not to be permanently kept in check by
any local Caesarism.
7. V. IX. Preparation for Attacks on Caesar
8. On the 26th January 710 Caesar is still called dictator IIII
(triumphal table); on the 18th February of this year he was already
-dictator perpetuus- (Cicero, Philip, ii. 34, 87). Comp.
Staatsrecht, ii. 3 716.
9. IV. X. Executions
10. The formulation of that dictatorship appears to have expressly
brought into prominence among other things the "improvement of
morals"; but Caesar did not hold on his own part an office of this
sort (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 705).
11. Caesar bears the designation of -imperator- always without any
number indicative of iteration, and always in the first place after
his name (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 767, note 1).
12. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius
13. During the republican period the name Imperator, which denotes
the victorious general, was laid aside with the end of the campaign;
as a permanent title it first appears in the case of Caesar.
14. That in Caesar's lifetime the -imperium- as well as
the supreme pontificate was rendered by a formal legislative act
hereditary for his agnate descendants--of his own body or through
the medium of adoption--was asserted by Caesar the Younger as his
legal title to rule. As our traditional accounts stand,
the existence of such a law or resolution of the senate must be
decidedly called in question; but doubtless it remains possible
that Caesar intended the issue of such a decree. (Comp,
Staatsrecht, ii. 3 787, 1106.)
15. The widely-spread opinion, which sees in the imperial office
of Imperator nothing but the dignity of general of the empire
tenable for life, is not warranted either by the signification of
the word or by the view taken by the old authorities. -Imperium-
is the power of command, -Imperator- is the possessor of that
power; in these words as in the corresponding Greek terms --kratos--,
--autokrator-- so little is there implied a specific military
reference, that it is on the contrary the very characteristic of
the Roman official power, where it appears purely and completely,
to embrace in it war and process--that is, the military and
the civil power of command--as one inseparable whole. Dio says quite
correctly (liii. 17; comp, xliii. 44; lii. 41) that the name
Imperator was assumed by the emperors "to indicate their full power
instead of the title of king and dictator (--pros deilosin teis
autotelous sphon exousias, anti teis basileos tou te diktatoros
epikleiseos--); for these other older titles disappeared in name,
but in reality the title of Imperator gives the same prerogatives
(--to de dei ergon auton tei tou autokratoros proseigoria
bebaiountai--), for instance the right of levying soldiers,
imposing taxes, declaring war and concluding peace, exercising
the supreme authority over burgess and non-burgess in and out of
the city and punishing any one at any place capitally or otherwise, and
in general of assuming the prerogatives connected in the earliest
times with the supreme imperium." It could not well be said in
plainer terms, that Imperator is nothing at all but a synonym for
rex, just as imperare coincides with regere.
16. When Augustus in constituting the principate resumed
the Caesarian imperium, this was done with the restriction that it
should be limited as to space and in a certain sense also as to
time; the proconsular power of the emperors, which was nothing but
just this imperium, was not to come into application as regards
Rome and Italy (Staatsrecht, ii. 8 854). On this element rests
the essential distinction between the Caesarian imperium and
the Augustan principate, just as on the other hand the real equality of
the two institutions rests on the imperfection with which even in
principle and still more in practice that limit was realized.
17. II. I. Collegiate Arrangements
18. On this question there may be difference of opinion, whereas
the hypothesis that it was Caesar's intention to rule the Romans as
Imperator, the non-Romans as Rex, must be simply dismissed. It is
based solely on the story that in the sitting of the senate in
which Caesar was assassinated a Sibylline utterance was brought
forward by one of the priests in charge of the oracles, Lucius
Cotta, to the effect that the Parthians could only be vanquished by
a "king," and in consequence of this the resolution was adopted to
commit to Caesar regal power over the Roman provinces. This story
was certainly in circulation immediately after Caesar's death. But
not only does it nowhere find any sort of even indirect
confirmation, but it is even expressly pronounced false by
the contemporary Cicero (De Div. ii. 54, 119) and reported by the later
historians, especially by Suetonius (79) and Dio (xliv. 15) merely
as a rumour which they are far from wishing to guarantee; and it is
under such circumstances no better accredited by the fact of
Plutarch (Caes. 60, 64; Brut. 10) and Appian (B. C. ii. 110)
repeating it after their wont, the former by way of anecdote,
the latter by way of causal explanation. But the story is not merely
unattested; it is also intrinsically impossible. Even leaving out
of account that Caesar had too much intellect and too much
political tact to decide important questions of state after
the oligarchic fashion by a stroke of the oracle-machinery, he could
never think of thus formally and legally splitting up the state
which he wished to reduce to a level.
19. II. III. Union of the Plebeians
20. II. I. The New Community
21. IV. X. Abolition of the Censorial Supervision of the Senate
22. According to the probable calculation formerly assumed (iv.
113), this would yield an average aggregate number of from 1000
to 1200 senators.
23. This certainly had reference merely to the elections for
the years 711 and 712 (Staatsrecht, ii. a 730); but the arrangement was
doubtless meant to become permanent.
24. I. V. The Senate as State-Council, II. I. Senate
25. V. X. Pacification of Alexandria
26. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies
and the Jury-System
27. I. V. The King
28. Hence accordingly the cautious turns of expression on
the mention of these magistracies in Caesar's laws; -cum censor aliusve
quis magistratus Romae populi censum aget (L. Jul. mun. l. 144);
praetor isve quei Romae iure deicundo praerit (L. Rubr. often);
quaestor urbanus queive aerario praerit- (L. Jul. mun. l. 37 et al.).
29. V. III. New Arrangement as to Jurymen
30. V. VIII. And in the Courts
31. -Plura enim multo-, says Cicero in his treatise De Oratore
(ii. 42, 178), primarily with reference to criminal trials,
-homines iudicant odio aut amore aut cupiditate aut iracundia aut
dolore aut laetitia aut spe aut timore aut errore aut aliqua
permotione mentis, quam veritate aut praescripto aut iuris norma
aliqua aut iudicii formula aut legibus-. On this accordingly are
founded the further instructions which he gives for advocates
entering, on their profession.
32. V. VIII. And in the Courts
33. V. VII. Macedonia ff.
34. V. VII. The Gallic Plan of War
35. V. III. Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius
36. With the nomination of a part of the military tribunes by
the burgesses (III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia) Caesar--
in this also a democrat--did not meddle.
37. V. VII. The New Dacian Kingdom
38. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform
39. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform
40. V. V. Total Defeat of the Democratic Party
41. Varro attests the discontinuance of the Sicilian -decumae-
in a treatise published after Cicero's death (De R. R. 2 praef.)
where he names--as the corn--provinces whence Rome derives her
subsistence--only Africa and Sardinia, no longer Sicily.
The -Latinitas-, which Sicily obtained, must thus doubtless have
included this immunity (comp. Staatsrecht, iii. 684).
42. V. X. Field of Caesar's Power
43. III. XI. Italian Subjects
44. V. VIII. Clodius
45. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements
46. In Sicily, the country of production, the -modius- was sold
within a few years at two and at twenty sesterces; from this we may
guess what must have been the fluctuations of price in Rome, which
subsisted on transmarine corn and was the seat of speculators.
47. IV. XII. The Finances and Public Buildings
48. It is a fact not without interest that a political writer of
later date but much judgment, the author of the letters addressed
in the name of Sallust to Caesar, advises the latter to transfer
the corn-distribution of the capital to the several -municipia-.
There is good sense in the admonition; as indeed similar ideas
obviously prevailed in the noble municipal provision for
orphans under Trajan.
49. V. XI. The State-Hierarchy
50. III. XII. The Management of the Land and Its Capital
51. The following exposition in Cicero's treatise De officiis
(i. 42) is characteristic: -Iam de artificiis et quaestibus, qui
liberales habendi, qui sordidi sint, kaec fere accepimus. Primum
improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut
portitorum, ut feneratorum. Illiberales autem et sordidi quaestus
mercenariorum omnium, quorum operae, nonaries emuntur. Est autem
in illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. Sordidi etiam
putandi, qui mercantur a mercatoribus quod statim vendant, nihil
enim proficiant, nisi admodum mentiantur. Nec vero est quidquam
turpius vanitate. Opificesque omnes in sordida arte versantur; nec
enim quidquam ingenuum habere potest officina. Minimeque artes eae
probandae, quae ministrae sunt voluptatum,
"Cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores,"
ut ait Terentius. Adde huc, si placet, unguentarios, saltatores,
totumque ludum talarium. Quibus autem artibus aut prudentia maior
inest, aut non mediocris utilitas quaeritur, ut medicina, ut
architectura, ut doctrina rerum honestarum, eae sunt iis, quorum
ordini conveniunt, honestae. Mercatura autem, si tenuis est,
sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans,
multaque sine vanitate impertiens, non est admodum vituperanda;
atque etiam, si satiata quaestu, vel contenta potius; ut saepe ex
alto in portum, ex ipso portu in agros se possessionesque
contulerit, videtur optimo iure posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum,
ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil
uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius-. According to
this the respectable man must, in strictness, be a landowner;
the trade of a merchant becomes him only so far as it is a means to
this ultimate end; science as a profession is suitable only for
the Greeks and for Romans not belonging to the ruling classes, who by
this means may purchase at all events a certain toleration of their
personal presence in genteel circles. It is a thoroughly developed
aristocracy of planters, with a strong infusion of mercantile
speculation and a slight shading of general culture.
52. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration
53. We have still (Macrobius, Hi, 13) the bill of fare of
the banquet which Mucius Lentulus Niger gave before 691 on entering on
his pontificate, and of which the pontifices--Caesar included--the
Vestal Virgins, and some other priests and ladies nearly related to
them partook. Before the dinner proper came sea-hedgehogs; fresh
oysters as many as the guests wished; large mussels; sphondyli;
fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel
pasties; black and white sea-acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides;
sea-nettles; becaficoes; roe-ribs; boar's-ribs; fowls dressed with
flour; becaficoes; purple shell-fish of two sorts. The dinner
itself consisted of sow's udder; boar's-head; fish-pasties; boar-
pasties; ducks; boiled teals; hares; roasted fowls; starch-pastry;
Pontic pastry.
These are the college-banquets regarding which Varro (De R. R. iii.
2, 16) says that they forced up the prices of all delicacies.
Varro in one of his satires enumerates the following as the most
notable foreign delicacies: peacocks from Samos; grouse from
Phrygia; cranes from Melos; kids from Ambracia; tunny fishes from
Chalcedon; muraenas from the Straits of Gades; bleak-fishes
(? -aselli-) from Pessinus; oysters and scallops from Tarentum;
sturgeons (?) from Rhodes; -scarus--fishes (?) from Cilicia; nuts
from Thasos; dates from Egypt; acorns from Spain.
54. IV. VII. Economic Crisis, IV. IX. Death of Cinna
55. III. X. Greek National Party
56. IV. XI. Capitalist Oligarchy
57. III. XIII. Luxury
58. IV. XII. Practical Use Made of Religion
59. III. XIII. Cato's Family Life, iv. 186 f.
60. IV. I. Achaean War
61. IV. XII. Mixture of Peoples
62. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law
63. V. XI. Dolabella
64. This is not stated by our authorities, but it necessarily
follows from the permission to deduct the interest paid by cash or
assignation (-si quid usurae nomine numeratum aut perscriptum
fuisset-; Sueton. Caes. 42), as paid contrary to law, from the capital.
65. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes
66. V. V. Preparations of the Anarchists in Etruria
67. IV. VII. Economic Crisis
68. The Egyptian royal laws (Diodorus, i. 79) and likewise
the legislation of Solon (Plutarch, Sol. 13, 15) forbade bonds in which
the loss of the personal liberty of the debtor was made the penalty
of non-payment; and at least the latter imposed on the debtor in
the event of bankruptcy no more than the cession of his whole assets.
69. I. XI. Manumission
70. II. III. Continued Distress
71. At least the latter rule occurs in the old Egyptian royal laws
(Diodorus, i. 79). On the other hand the Solonian legislation
knows no restrictions on interest, but on the contrary expressly
allows interest to be fixed of any amount at pleasure.
72. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law
73. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law
74. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus, IV. II. The Domain Question Viewed
in Itself, IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration
75. IV. XII. Carneades at Rome, V. III. Continued Subsistence
of the Sullan Constitution
76. IV. X. The Roman Municipal System
77. Of both laws considerable fragments still exist.
78. V. XI. Diminution of the Proletariate
79. V. VII. Gaul Subdued
80. As according to Caesar's ordinance annually sixteen
propraetors and two proconsuls divided the governorships among
them, and the latter remained two years in office (p. 344), we
might conclude that he intended to bring the number of provinces in
all up to twenty. Certainty is, however, the less attainable as to
this, seeing that Caesar perhaps designedly instituted fewer
offices than candidatures.
81. This is the so-called "free embassy" (-libera legatio-), namely
an embassy without any proper public commission entrusted to it.
82. V. II. Piracy
83. V. XI. In The Administration of the Capital
84. V. XI. Foreign Mercenaries
85. V. IX. In the Governorships
86. V. XI. Financial Reforms of Caesar
87. V. I. Organizations of Sertorius
88. V. XI. Robberies and Damage by War
89. V. XI. The Roman Capitalists in the Provinces
90. V. I. Transpadanes, V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule
91. Narbo was called the colony of the Decimani, Baeterrae of
the Septimani, Forum Julii of the Octavani, Arelate of the Sextani,
Arausio of the Secundani. The ninth legion is wanting, because it
had disgraced its number by the mutiny of Placentia (p. 246). That
the colonists of these colonies belonged to the legions from which
they took their names, is not stated and is not credible;
the veterans themselves were, at least the great majority of them,
settled in Italy (p. 358). Cicero's complaint, that Caesar "had
confiscated whole provinces and districts at a blow" (De Off. ii.
7, 27; comp. Philipp. xiii. 15, 31, 32) relates beyond doubt, as
its close connection with the censure of the triumph over
the Massiliots proves, to the confiscations of land made on account of
these colonies in the Narbonese province and primarily to
the losses of territory imposed on Massilia.
92. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts
93. V. XI. Other Magistracies and Attributions
94. We are not expressly informed from whom the Latin rights of
the non-colonized townships of this region and especially of
Nemausus proceeded. But as Caesar himself (B. C. i. 35) virtually
states that Nemausus up to 705 was a Massiliot village; as
according to Livy's account (Dio, xli. 25; Flor. ii. 13; Oros. vi.
15) this very portion of territory was taken from the Massiliots by
Caesar; and lastly as even on pre-Augustan coins and then in Strabo
the town appears as a community of Latin rights, Caesar alone can
have been the author of this bestowal of Latinity. As to Ruscino
(Roussillon near Perpignan) and other communities in Narbonese Gaul
which early attained a Latin urban constitution, we can only
conjecture that they received it contemporarily with Nemausus.
95. V. VII. Indulgence toward Existing Arrangements
96. II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League
97. V. X. The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death
98. That no community of full burgesses had more than limited
jurisdiction, is certain. But the fact, which is distinctly
apparent from the Caesarian municipal ordinance for Cisalpine Gaul,
is a surprising one--that the processes lying beyond municipal
competency from this province went not before its governor, but
before the Roman praetor; for in other cases the governor is in his
province quite as much representative of the praetor who
administers justice between burgesses as of the praetor who
administers justice between burgess and non-burgess, and is
thoroughly competent to determine all processes. Beyond doubt this
is a remnant of the arrangement before Sulla, under which in
the whole continental territory as far as the Alps the urban
magistrates alone were competent, and thus all the processes there,
where they exceeded municipal competency, necessarily came before
the praetors in Rome. In Narbo again, Gades, Carthage, Corinth,
the processes in such a case went certainly to the governor
concerned; as indeed even from practical considerations
the carrying of a suit to Rome could not well be thought of.
99. It is difficult to see why the bestowal of the Roman franchise
on a province collectively, and the continuance of a provincial
administration for it, should be usually conceived as contrasts
excluding each other. Besides, Cisalpine Gaul notoriously obtained
the -civitas- by the Roscian decree of the people of the 11th March
705, while it remained a province as long as Caesar lived and was
only united with Italy after his death (Dio, xlviii. 12);
the governors also can be pointed out down to 711. The very fact that
the Caesarian municipal ordinance never designates the country as
Italy, but as Cisalpine Gaul, ought to have led to the right view.
100. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War
101. The continued subsistence of the municipal census-authorities
speaks for the view, that the local holding of the census had
already been established for Italy in consequence of the Social war
(Staatsrecht, ii. 8 368); but probably the carrying out of this
system was Caesar's work.
102. II. VII. Intermediate Fuctionaries, III. III. Autonomy
103. III. XI. Supervision of the Senate Over the Provinces
and Their Governors
104. I. XI. Character of the Roman Law
105. IV. XIII. Philology
106. I. XI. Clients and Foreigners
107. V. XI. Usury Laws
108. V. V. Transpadanes
109. I. XIV. Italian Measures ff.
110. III. XII. Coins and Moneys
111. Weights recently brought to light at Pompeii suggest
the hypothesis that at the commencement of the imperial period
alongside of the Roman pound the Attic mina (presumably in
the ratio of 3: 4) passed current as a second imperial weight
(Hermes, xvi. 311).
112. The gold pieces, which Sulla (iv. 179) and contemporarily
Pompeius caused to be struck, both in small quantity, do not
invalidate this proposition; for they probably came to be taken
solely by weight just like the golden Phillippei which were in
circulation even down to Caesar's time. They are certainly
remarkable, because they anticipate the Caesarian imperial gold
just as Sulla's regency anticipated the new monarchy.
113. IV. XI. Token-Money
114. It appears, namely, that in earlier times the claims of
the state-creditors payable in silver could not be paid against their
will in gold according to its legal ratio to silver; whereas it
admits of no doubt, that from Caesar's time the gold piece had to
be taken as a valid tender for 100 silver sesterces. This was just
at that time the more important, as in consequence of the great
quantities of gold put into circulation by Caesar it stood for
a time in the currency of trade 25 per cent below the legal ratio.
115. There is probably no inscription of the Imperial period,
which specifies sums of money otherwise than in Roman coin.
116. Thus the Attic -drachma-, although sensibly heavier than
the -denarius-, was yet reckoned equal to it; the -tetradrachmon- of
Antioch, weighing on an average 15 grammes of silver, was made
equal to 3 Roman -denarii-, which only weigh about 12 grammes;
the -cistophorus- of Asia Minor was according to the value of silver
above 3, according to the legal tariff =2 1/2 -denarii-; the Rhodian
half -drachma- according to the value of silver=3/4, according to
the legal tariff = 5/8 of a -denarius-, and so on.
117. III. III. Illyrian Piracy
118. The identity of this edict drawn up perhaps by Marcus Flavius
(Macrob. Sat. i. 14, 2) and the alleged treatise of Caesar, De
Stellis, is shown by the joke of Cicero (Plutarch, Caes. 59) that
now the Lyre rises according to edict.
We may add that it was known even before Caesar that the solar year
of 365 days 6 hours, which was the basis of the Egyptian calendar,
and which he made the basis of his, was somewhat too long.
the most exact calculation of the tropical year which the ancient world
was acquainted with, that of Hipparchus, put it at 365 d. 5 h. 52'
12"; the true length is 365 d. 5 h. 48' 48".
119. Caesar stayed in Rome in April and Dec. 705, on each occasion
for a few days; from Sept. to Dec. 707; some four months in the autumn
of the year of fifteen months 708, and from Oct. 709 to March 710.
Notes for Chapter XII
1. V. VIII. Clodius
2. III. XIV. Cato's Encyclopedia
3. These form, as is well known, the so-called seven liberal arts,
which, with this distinction between the three branches of
discipline earlier naturalized in Italy and the four subsequently
received, maintained their position throughout the middle ages.
4. IV. XII. Latin Instruction
5. Thus Varro (De R. R. i. 2) says: -ab aeditimo, ut dicere
didicimus a patribus nostris; ut corrigimur ab recenlibus
urbanis, ab aedituo-.
6. The dedication of the poetical description of the earth which
passes under the name of Scymnus is remarkable in reference to
those relations. After the poet has declared his purpose of
preparing in the favourite Menandrian measure a sketch of geography
intelligible for scholars and easy to be learned by heart, he
dedicates--as Apollodorus dedicated his similar historical
compendium to Attalus Philadelphus king of Pergamus
--athanaton aponemonta dexan Attalo
teis pragmateias epigraphein eileiphoti-- --
his manual to Nicomedes III king (663?-679) of Bithynia:
--ego d' akouon, dioti ton non basileon
monos basilikein chreistoteita prosphereis
peiran epethumeis autos ep' emautou labein
kai paragenesthai kai ti basileus est' idein,
dio tei prothesei sumboulon exelexamein
... ton Apollena ton Didumei...
ou dei schedon malista kai pepeismenos
pros sein kata logon eika (koinein gar schedon
tois philomathousin anadedeichas) estian--.
7. IV. XIII. Historical Composition
8. V. XII. Greek Instruction
9. Cicero testifies that the mime in his time had taken the place
of the Atellana (Ad Fam. ix. 16); with this accords the fact, that
the -mimi- and -mimae- first appear about the Sullan epoch (Ad Her.
i. 14, 24; ii. 13, 19; Atta Fr. 1 Ribbeck; Plin. H. N. vii. 43,
158; Plutarch, Sull. 2, 36). The designation -mimus-, however, is
sometimes inaccurately applied to the comedian generally. Thus
the -mimus- who appeared at the festival of Apollo in 542-543 (Festus
under -salva res est-; comp. Cicero, De Orat. ii. 59, 242) was
evidently nothing but an actor of the -palliata-, for there was at
this period no room in the development of the Roman theatre for
real mimes in the later sense.
With the mimus of the classical Greek period--prose dialogues,
in which -genre- pictures, particularly of a rural kind, were
presented--the Roman mimus had no especial relation.
10. With the possession of this sum, which constituted
the qualification for the first voting-class and subjected
the inheritance to the Voconian law, the boundary line was crossed
which separated the men of slender means (-tenuiores-) from
respectable people. Therefore the poor client of Catullus
(xxiii. 26) beseeches the gods to help him to this fortune.
11. In the "Descensus ad Inferos" of Laberius all sorts of people
come forward, who have seen wonders and signs; to one there
appeared a husband with two wives, whereupon a neighbour is of
opinion that this is still worse than the vision, recently seen by
a soothsayer in a dream, of six aediles. Caesar forsooth desired--
according to the talk of the time--to introduce polygamy in Rome
(Suetonius, Caes. 82) and he nominated in reality six aediles
instead of four. One sees from this that aberius understood
how to exercise the fool's privilege and Caesar how to permit
the fool's freedom.
12. V. VIII. Attempts of the Regents to Check It
13. V. XI. The Poor
14. IV. XIII. Dramatic Arrangements
15. He obtained from the state for every day on which he acted
1000 -denarii- (40 pounds) and besides this the pay for his
company. In later years he declined the honorarium for himself.
16. Such an individual apparent exception as Panchaea the land of
incense (ii. 417) is to be explained from the circumstance that
this had passed from the romance of the Travels of Euhemerus
already perhaps into the poetry of Ennius, at any rate into
the poems of Lucius Manlius (iv. 242; Plin. H. N. x. a, 4) and thence
was well known to the public for which Lucretius wrote.
17. III. XIV. Moral Effect of Tragedy
18. This naively appears in the descriptions of war, in which
the seastorms that destroy armies, and the hosts of elephants that
trample down those who are on their own side--pictures, that is,
from the Punic wars--appear as if they belong to the immediate
present. Comp. ii. 41; v. 1226, 1303, 1339.
19. "No doubt," says Cicero (Tusc. iii. 19, 45) in reference to
Ennius, "the glorious poet is despised by our reciters of
Euphorion." "I have safely arrived," he writes to Atticus (vii. 2
init.), "as a most favourable north wind blew for us across from
Epirus. This spondaic line you may, if you choose, sell to one of
the new-fashioned poets as your own" (-ita belle nobis flavit ab
Epiro lenissumus Onchesmites. Hunc- --spondeiazonta-- -si cui voles
--ton neoteron-- pro tuo vendito-).
20. V. VIII. Literature of the Opposition
21. "For me when a boy," he somewhere says, "there sufficed
a single rough coat and a single under-garment, shoes without
stockings, a horse without a saddle; I had no daily warm bath, and
but seldom a river-bath." On account of his personal valour he
obtained in the Piratic war, where he commanded a division of
the fleet, the naval crown.
22. V. X. The Pompeians in Spain
23. There is hardly anything more childish than Varro's scheme of
all the philosophies, which in the first place summarily declares
all systems that do not propose the happiness of man as their
ultimate aim to be nonexistent, and then reckons the number of
philosophies conceivable under this supposition as two hundred and
eighty-eight. The vigorous man was unfortunately too much a scholar
to confess that he neither could nor would be a philosopher,
and accordingly as such throughout life he performed a blind dance-
not altogether becoming--between the Stoa, Pythagoreanism, and Diogenism.
24. On one occasion he writes, "-Quintiforis Clodii foria ac
poemata ejus gargaridians dices; O fortuna, O fors fortuna-!" And
elsewhere, "-Cum Quintipor Clodius tot comoedias sine ulla fecerit
Musa, ego unum libellum non 'edolem' ut ait Ennius?-" This not
otherwise known Clodius must have been in all probability
a wretched imitator of Terence, as those words sarcastically laid
at his door "O fortuna, O fors fortuna!" are found occurring
in a Terentian comedy.
The following description of himself by a poet in Varro's
--Onos Louras--,
-Pacuvi discipulus dicor, porro is fuit Enni,
Ennius Musarum; Pompilius clueor-
might aptly parody the introduction of Lucretius (p. 474), to whom
Varro as a declared enemy of the Epicurean system cannot have been
well disposed, and whom he never quotes.
25. He himself once aptly says, that he had no special fondness
for antiquated words, but frequently used them, and that he was
very fond of poetical words, but did not use them.
26. The following description is taken from the -Marcipor-
("Slave of Marcus"):--
-Repente noctis circiter meridie
Cum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus
Caeli chorean astricen ostenderet,
Nubes aquali, frigido velo leves
Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant,
Aquam vomentes inferam mortalibus.
Ventique frigido se ab axe eruperant,
Phrenetici septentrionum filii,
Secum ferentes tegulas, ramos, syrus.
At nos caduci, naufragi, ut ciconiae
Quarum bipennis fulminis plumas vapor
Perussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus-.
In the --'Anthropopolis-- we find the lines:
-Non fit thesauris, non auro pectu' solutum;
Non demunt animis curas ac relligiones
Persarum montes, non atria diviti' Crassi-.
But the poet was successful also in a lighter vein. In the -Est
Modus Matulae- there stood the following elegant commendation of
wine:--
-Vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit.
Hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt,
Hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium.
Hoc continet coagulum convivia-.
And in the --Kosmotonounei-- the wanderer returning home thus
concludes his address to the sailors:
-Delis habenas animae leni,
Dum nos ventus flamine sudo
Suavem ad patriam perducit-.
27. The sketches of Varro have so uncommon historical
and even poetical significance, and are yet, in consequence of
the fragmentary shape in which information regarding them has reached
us, known to so few and so irksome to study, that we may be allowed
to give in this place a resume of some of them with the few
restorations indispensable for making them readable.
The satire Manius (Early Up!) describes the management of a rural
household. "Manius summons his people to rise with the sun, and in
person conducts them to the scene of their work. The youths make
their own bed, which labour renders soft to them, and supply
themselves with water-jar and lamp. Their drink is the clear fresh
spring, their fare bread, and onions as relish. Everything
prospers in house and field. The house is no work of art; but
an architect might learn symmetry from it. Care is taken of
the field, that it shall not be left disorderly and waste, or go to
ruin through slovenliness and neglect; in return the grateful Ceres
wards off damage from the produce, that the high-piled sheaves may
gladden the heart of the husbandman. Here hospitality still holds
good; every one who has but imbibed mother's milk is welcome.
the bread-pantry and wine-vat and the store of sausages on the rafters,
lock and key are at the service of the traveller, and piles of food
are set before him; contented sits the sated guest, looking neither
before nor behind, dozing by the hearth in the kitchen.
the warmest double-wool sheepskin is spread as a couch for him.
"Here people still as good burgesses obey the righteous law, which
neither out of envy injures the innocent, nor out of favour pardons
the guilty. Here they speak no evil against their neighbours.
Here they trespass not with their feet on the sacred hearth, but
honour the gods with devotion and with sacrifices, throw for
the house-spirit his little bit of flesh into his appointed little
dish, and when the master of the household dies, accompany the bier
with the same prayer with which those of his father and of his
grandfather were borne forth."
In another satire there appears a "Teacher of the Old"
(--Gerontodidaskalos--), of whom the degenerate age seems to stand
more urgently in need than of the teacher of youth, and he explains
how "once everything in Rome was chaste and pious," and now all
things are so entirely changed. "Do my eyes deceive me, or do I
see slaves in arms against their masters?--Formerly every one who
did not present himself for the levy, was sold on the part of
the state into slavery abroad; now the censor who allows cowardice and
everything to pass is called [by the aristocracy, III. XI. Separation
Of the Orders in the Theatre; IV. X. Shelving of the Censorship, V. III.
Renewal of the Censorship; V. VIII. Humiliations of the Republicans]
a great citizen, and earns praise because he does not seek
to make himself a name by annoying his fellow-citizens.--
Formerly the Roman husbandman had his beard shaven once every week;
now the rural slave cannot have it fine enough.--Formerly one saw
on the estates a corn-granary, which held ten harvests, spacious
cellars for the wine-vats and corresponding wine-presses; now
the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid
with African cypress-wood.--Formerly the housewife turned
the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on
the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it
is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for
a pound of precious stones, and the wife her husband for a bushel of
pearls.--Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful;
now the wife surrenders herself to the first coachman that comes.--
Formerly the blessing of children was woman's pride; now if her
husband desires for himseli children, she replies: Knowest thou not
what Ennius says?
"'-Ter sub armis malim vitam cernere Quam semel modo parere--.--'
"Formerly the wife was quite content, when the husband once or twice
in the year gave her a trip to the country in the uncushioned
waggon;" now, he could add (comp. Cicero, Pro Mil. 21, 55), "the
wife sulks if her husband goes to his country estate without her,
and the travelling lady is attended to the villa by the fashionable
host of Greek menials and the choir." --In a treatise of a graver
kind, "Catus or the Training of Children," Varro not only instructs
the friend who had asked him for advice on that point, regarding
the gods who were according to old usage to be sacrificed to for
the children's welfare, but, referring to the more judicious mode
of rearing children among the Persians and to his own strictly
spent youth, he warns against over-feeding and over-sleeping,
against sweet bread and fine fare--the whelps, the old man thinks,
are now fed more judiciously than the children--and likewise
against the enchantresses' charms and blessings, which in cases of
sickness so often take the place of the physician's counsel. He
advises to keep the girls at embroidery, that they may afterwards
understand how to judge properly of embroidered and textile work,
and not to allow them to put off the child's dress too early; he
warns against carrying boys to the gladiatorial games, in which
the heart is early hardened and cruelty learned.--In the "Man of Sixty
Years" Varro appears as a Roman Epimenides who had fallen asleep
when a boy of ten and waked up again after half a century. He is
astonished to find instead of his smooth-shorn boy's head an old
bald pate with an ugly snout and savage bristles like a hedgehog;
but he is still more astonished at the change in Rome. Lucrine
oysters, formerly a wedding dish, are now everyday fare; for which,
accordingly, the bankrupt glutton silently prepares the incendiary
torch. While formerly the father disposed of his boy, now
the disposal is transferred to the latter: he disposes, forsooth, of
his father by poison. The Comitium had become an exchange,
the criminal trial a mine of gold for the jurymen. No law is any
longer obeyed save only this one, that nothing is given for
nothing. All virtues have vanished; in their stead the awakened
man is saluted by impiety, perfidy, lewdness, as new denizens.
"Alas for thee, Marcus, with such a sleep and such an awakening!"--
The sketch resembles the Catilinarian epoch, shortly after which
(about 697) the old man must have written it, and there lay a truth
in the bitter turn at the close; where Marcus, properly reproved
for his unseasonable accusations and antiquarian reminiscences, is--
with a mock application of a primitive Roman custom--dragged as
a useless old man to the bridge and thrown into the Tiber. There was
certainly no longer room for such men in Rome.
28. "The innocent," so ran a speech, "thou draggest forth,
trembling in every limb, and on the high margin of the river's bank
in the dawn of the morning" [thou causest them to be slaughtered].
Several such phrases, that might be inserted without difficulty in
a commonplace novel, occur.
29. V. XII. Poems in Prose
30. V. XII. Catullus
31. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome
32. That the treatise on the Gallic war was published all at once,
has been long conjectured; the distinct proof that it was so, is
furnished by the mention of the equalization of the Boii and
the Haedui already in the first book (c. 28) whereas the Boii still
occur in the seventh (c. 10) as tributary subjects of the Haedui,
and evidently only obtained equal rights with their former masters
on account of their conduct and that of the Haedui in the war
against Vercingetorix. On the other hand any one who attentively
follows the history of the time will find in the expression as to
the Milonian crisis (vii. 6) a proof that the treatise was published
before the outbreak of the civil war; not because Pompeius is there
praised, but because Caesar there approves the exceptional laws of
702.(p. 146) This he might and could not but do, so long as he
sought to bring about a peaceful accommodation with Pompeius,( p.
175) but not after the rupture, when he reversed the condemnations
that took place on the basis of those laws injurious for him.(p.
316) Accordingly the publication of this treatise has been quite
rightly placed in 703.
The tendency of the work we discern most distinctly in
the constant, often--most decidedly, doubtless, in the case of the
Aquitanian expedition (III. XI. The Censorship A Prop of the Nobility)--
not successful, justification of every single act of war as
a defensive measure which the state of things had rendered inevitable.
That the adversaries of Caesar censured his attacks on the Celts
and Germans above all as unprovoked, is well known (Sueton. Caes. 24).
33. V. XI. Amnesty
34. V. XII. The New Roman Poetry
35. V. XI. Caelius and Milo
36. V. IX. Curio, V. X. Death of Curio
37. IV. XIII. Sciences
38. A remarkable example is the general exposition regarding
cattle in the treatise on Husbandry (ii. 1) with the nine times
nine subdivisions of the doctrine of cattle-rearing, with
the "incredible but true" fact that the mares at Olisipo (Lisbon)
become pregnant by the wind, and generally with its singular
mixture of philosophical, historical, and agricultural notices.
39. Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who
makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after
Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius,
a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra
cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth. This
practice, which appears not merely in isolated instances but as
a main element of the philological literature of this age, presents
a very great resemblance to the mode in which till recently
comparative philology was prosecuted, before insight into
the organism of language put a stop to the occupation of the empirics.
40. V. XII. Grammatical Science
41. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period
42. V. XI. Reform of the Calendar
43. V. XII. Dramatic Spectacles
44. Such "Greek entertainments" were very frequent not merely in
the Greek cities of Italy, especially in Naples (Cic. pro Arch. 5,
10; Plut. Brut. 21), but even now also in Rome (iv. 192; Cic. Ad
Fam. vii. 1, 3; Ad Att. xvi. 5, 1; Sueton. Caes. 39; Plut. Brut.
21). When the well-known epitaph of Licinia Eucharis fourteen
years of age, which probably belongs to the end of this period,
makes this "girl well instructed and taught in all arts by
the Muses themselves" shine as a dancer in the private exhibitions of
noble houses and appear first in public on the Greek stage (-modo
nobilium ludos decoravi choro, et Graeca in scaena prima populo
apparui-), this doubtless can only mean that she was the first girl
that appeared on the public Greek stage in Rome; as generally
indeed it was not till this epoch that women began to come forward
publicly in Rome (p. 469).
These "Greek entertainments" in Rome seem not to have been properly
scenic, but rather to have belonged to the category of composite
exhibitions--primarily musical and declamatory--such as were not of
rare occurrence in subsequent times also in Greece (Welcker,
Griech. Trag., p. 1277). This view is supported by the prominence
of flute-playing in Polybius (xxx. 13) and of dancing in
the account of Suetonius regarding the armed dances from Asia Minor
performed at Caesar's games and in the epitaph of Eucharis;
the description also of the -citharoedus- (Ad Her. iv. 47, 60; comp.
Vitruv. v. 5, 7) must have been derived from such "Greek
entertainments." The combinations of these representations in Rome
with Greek athletic combats is significant (Polyb. l. c.; Liv.
xxxix. 22). Dramatic recitations were by no means excluded from
these mixed entertainments, since among the players whom Lucius
Anicius caused to appear in 587 in Rome, tragedians are expressly
mentioned; there was however no exhibition of plays in the strict
sense, but either whole dramas, or perhaps still more frequently
pieces taken from them, were declaimed or sung to the flute by
single artists. This must accordingly have been done also in Rome;
but to all appearance for the Roman public the main matter in these
Greek games was the music and dancing, and the text probably had
little more significance for them than the texts of the Italian
opera for the Londoners and Parisians of the present day. Those
composite entertainments with their confused medley were far better
suited for the Ionian public, and especially for exhibitions in
private houses, than proper scenic performances in the Greek
language; the view that the latter also took place in Rome cannot
be refuted, but can as little be proved.
45. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period
End of Notes for Volume V
TABLE OF CALENDAR EQUIVALENTS
A.U.C.* B.C. B.C. A.U.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------
000 753 753 000
025 728 750 003
050 703 725 028
075 678 700 053
100 653 675 078
125 628 650 103
150 603 625 128
175 578 600 153
200 553 575 178
225 528 550 203
250 503 525 228
275 478 500 253
300 453 475 278
325 428 450 303
350 303 425 328
375 378 400 353
400 353 375 378
425 328 350 403
450 303 325 428
475 278 300 453
500 253 275 478
525 228 250 503
550 203 225 528
575 178 200 553
600 153 175 578
625 128 150 603
650 103 125 628
675 078 100 653
700 053 075 678
725 028 050 703
750 003 025 728
753 000 000 753
*A. U. C.--Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome)