Ciceronianism

If there is anything wonderful in the case, it is in truth not the orations, but the admiration which they excited. As to Cicero every unbiassed person will soon make up his mind: Ciceronianism is a problem, which in fact cannot be properly solved, but can only be resolved into that greater mystery of human nature—language and the effect of language on the mind. Inasmuch as the noble Latin language, just before it perished as a national idiom, was once more as it were comprehensively grasped by that dexterous stylist and deposited in his copious writings, something of the power which language exercises, and of the piety which it awakens, was transferred to the unworthy vessel. The Romans possessed no great Latin prose-writer; for Caesar was, like Napoleon, only incidentally an author. Was it to be wondered at that, in the absence of such an one, they should at least honour the genius of the language in the great stylist? And that, like Cicero himself, Cicero's readers also should accustom themselves to ask not what, but how he had written? Custom and the schoolmaster then completed what the power of language had begun.

Opposition to Ciceronianism Calvus and His Associates

Cicero's contemporaries however were, as may readily be conceived, far less involved in this strange idolatry than many of their successors. The Ciceronian manner ruled no doubt throughout a generation the Roman advocate-world, just as the far worse manner of Hortensius had done; but the most considerable men, such as Caesar, kept themselves always aloof from it, and among the younger generation there arose in all men of fresh and living talent the most decided opposition to that hybrid and feeble rhetoric. They found Cicero's language deficient in precision and chasteness, his jests deficient in liveliness, his arrangement deficient in clearness and articulate division, and above all his whole eloquence wanting in the fire which makes the orator. Instead of the Rhodian eclectics men began to recur to the genuine Attic orators especially to Lysias and Demosthenes, and sought to naturalize a more vigorous and masculine eloquence in Rome. Representatives of this tendency were, the solemn but stiff Marcus Junius Brutus (669-712); the two political partisans Marcus Caelius Rufus (672-706;(35)) and Gaius Scribonius Curio (d. 705(36);)— both as orators full of spirit and life; Calvus well known also as a poet (672-706), the literary coryphaeus of this younger group of orators; and the earnest and conscientious Gaius Asinius Pollio (678-757). Undeniably there was more taste and more spirit in this younger oratorical literature than in the Hortensian and Ciceronian put together; but we are not able to judge how far, amidst the storms of the revolution which rapidly swept away the whole of this richly-gifted group with the single exception of Pollio, those better germs attained development. The time allotted to them was but too brief. The new monarchy began by making war on freedom of speech, and soon wholly suppressed the political oration. Thenceforth the subordinate species of the pure advocate-pleading was doubtless still retained in literature; but the higher art and literature of oratory, which thoroughly depend on political excitement, perished with the latter of necessity and for ever.

The Artificial Dialogue Applied to the Professional Sciences Cicero's Dialogues

Lastly there sprang up in the aesthetic literature of this period the artistic treatment of subjects of professional science in the form of the stylistic dialogue, which had been very extensively in use among the Greeks and had been already employed also in isolated cases among the Romans.(37) Cicero especially made various attempts at presenting rhetorical and philosophical subjects in this form and making the professional manual a suitable book for reading. His chief writings are the -De Oratore- (written in 699), to which the history of Roman eloquence (the dialogue -Brutus-, written in 708) and other minor rhetorical essays were added by way of supplement; and the treatise -De Republica- (written in 700), with which the treatise -De Legibus- (written in 702?) after the model of Plato is brought into connection. They are no great works of art, but undoubtedly they are the works in which the excellences of the author are most, and his defects least, conspicuous. The rhetorical writings are far from coming up to the didactic chasteness of form and precision of thought of the Rhetoric dedicated to Herennius, but they contain instead a store of practical forensic experience and forensic anecdotes of all sorts easily and tastefully set forth, and in fact solve the problem of combining didactic instruction with amusement. The treatise -De Republica- carries out, in a singular mongrel compound of history and philosophy, the leading idea that the existing constitution of Rome is substantially the ideal state-organization sought for by the philosophers; an idea indeed just as unphilosophical as unhistorical, and besides not even peculiar to the author, but which, as may readily be conceived, became and remained popular. The scientific groundwork of these rhetorical and political writings of Cicero belongs of course entirely to the Greeks, and many of the details also, such as the grand concluding effect in the treatise -De Republica- the Dream of Scipio, are directly borrowed from them; yet they possess comparative originality, inasmuch as the elaboration shows throughout Roman local colouring, and the proud consciousness of political life, which the Roman was certainly entitled to feel as compared with the Greeks, makes the author even confront his Greek instructors with a certain independence. The form of Cicero's dialogue is doubtless neither the genuine interrogative dialectics of the best Greek artificial dialogue nor the genuine conversational tone of Diderot or Lessing; but the great groups of advocates gathering around Crassus and Antonius and of the older and younger statesmen of the Scipionic circle furnish a lively and effective framework, fitting channels for the introduction of historical references and anecdotes, and convenient resting-points for the scientific discussion. The style is quite as elaborate and polished as in the best-written orations, and so far more pleasing than these, since the author does not often in this field make a vain attempt at pathos.

While these rhetorical and political writings of Cicero with a philosophic colouring are not devoid of merit, the compiler on the other hand completely failed, when in the involuntary leisure of the last years of his life (709-710) he applied himself to philosophy proper, and with equal peevishness and precipitation composed in a couple of months a philosophical library. The receipt was very simple. In rude imitation of the popular writings of Aristotle, in which the form of dialogue was employed chiefly for the setting forth and criticising of the different older systems, Cicero stitched together the Epicurean, Stoic, and Syncretist writings handling the same problem, as they came or were given to his hand, into a so-called dialogue. And all that he did on his own part was, to supply an introduction prefixed to the new book from the ample collection of prefaces for future works which he had beside him; to impart a certain popular character, inasmuch as he interwove Roman examples and references, and sometimes digressed to subjects irrelevant but more familiar to the writer and the reader, such as the treatment of the deportment of the orator in the -De Officiis-; and to exhibit that sort of bungling, which a man of letters, who has not attained to philosophic thinking or even to philosophic knowledge and who works rapidly and boldly, shows in the reproduction of dialectic trains of thought. In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly come into existence—"They are copies," wrote the author himself to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble, for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance." Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study in literary matters a becoming silence.

Professional Sciences. Latin Philology Varro

Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life, that of Latin philology. The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo, was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale. There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries of Figulus and the great work of Varro -De Lingua Latina-; monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms, on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue; scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus; works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies of Plautus, and into their genuineness. Latin archaeology, which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities of Things Human and Divine," which was and for all times remained the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687 and 709). The first portion, "Of Things Human," described the primeval age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine," the state- theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts, of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily unfolded. Moreover, besides a number of monographs— e. g. on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes descended from Troy, on the tribes—there was added, as a larger and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life of the Roman People"—a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners, which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance, and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic, and the most recent period. These labours of Varro were based on an empiric knowledge of the Roman world and its adjacent Hellenic domain more various and greater in its kind than any other Roman either before or after him possessed—a knowledge to which living observation and the study of literature alike contributed. The eulogy of his contemporaries was well deserved, that Varro had enabled his countrymen—strangers in their own world—to know their position in their native land, and had taught the Romans who and where they were. But criticism and system will be sought for in vain. His Greek information seems to have come from somewhat confused sources, and there are traces that even in the Roman field the writer was not free from the influence of the historical romance of his time. The matter is doubtless inserted in a convenient and symmetrical framework, but not classified or treated methodically; and with all his efforts to bring tradition and personal observation into harmony, the scientific labours of Varro are not to be acquitted of a certain implicit faith in tradition or of an unpractical scholasticism.(38) The connection with Greek philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often into downright absurdity.(39) In its empiric confidence and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology, and just like the latter, finds its centre in the study of the older drama. We have already observed that the monarchical literature developed the rules of language in contradistinction to this linguistic empiricism.(40) It is in a high degree significant that there stands at the head of the modern grammarians no less a man than Caesar himself, who in his treatise on Analogy (given forth between 696 and 704) first undertook to bring free language under the power of law.

The Other Professional Sciences

Alongside of this extraordinary stir in the field of philology The small amount of activity in the other sciences is surprising. What appeared of importance in philosophy—such as Lucretius' representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero— produced its effect and found its audience not through its philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific nor formal value.

Even the professional sciences were but feebly cultivated. Varro's Books on Husbandry written in the form of dialogue are no doubt more methodical than those of his predecessors Cato and Saserna— on which accordingly he drops many a side glance of censure— but have on the whole proceeded more from the study than, like those earlier works, from living experience. Of the juristic labours of Varro and of Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul in 703) hardly aught more can be said, than that they contributed to the dialectic and philosophical embellishment of Roman jurisprudence. And there is nothing farther here to be mentioned, except perhaps the three books of Gaius Matius on cooking, pickling, and making preserves— so far as we know, the earliest Roman cookery-book, and, as the work of a man of rank, certainly a phenomenon deserving of notice. That mathematics and physics were stimulated by the increased Hellenistic and utilitarian tendencies of the monarchy, is apparent from their growing importance in the instruction of youth (41) and from various practical applications; under which, besides the reform of the calendar,(42) may perhaps be included the appearance of wall-maps at this period, the technical improvements in shipbuilding and in musical instruments, designs and buildings like the aviary specified by Varro, the bridge of piles over the Rhine executed by the engineers of Caesar, and even two semicircular stages of boards arranged for being pushed together, and employed first separately as two theatres and then jointly as an amphitheatre. The public exhibition of foreign natural curiosities at the popular festivals was not unusual; and the descriptions of remarkable animals, which Caesar has embodied in the reports of his campaigns, show that, had an Aristotle appeared, he would have again found his patron-prince. But such literary performances as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings concerning animals, winds, and generative organs. After Greek physical research generally had swerved from the Aristotelian effort to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze; and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom, that the investigation of nature either seeks after things which nobody can know, or after such things as nobody needs to know.

Art Architecture

If, in fine, we cast a glance at art, we discover here the same unpleasing phenomena which pervade the whole mental life of this period. Building on the part of the state was virtually brought to a total stand amidst the scarcity of money that marked the last age of the republic. We have already spoken of the luxury in building of the Roman grandees; the architects learned in consequence of this to be lavish of marble—the coloured sorts such as the yellow Numidian (Giallo antico) and others came into vogue at this time, and the marble-quarries of Luna (Carrara) were now employed for the first time—and began to inlay the floors of the rooms with mosaic work, to panel the walls with slabs of marble, or to paint the compartments in imitation of marble—the first steps towards the subsequent fresco-painting. But art was not a gainer by this lavish magnificence.

Arts of Design

In the arts of design connoisseurship and collecting were always on the increase. It was a mere affectation of Catonian simplicity, when an advocate spoke before the jurymen of the works of art "of a certain Praxiteles"; every one travelled and inspected, and the trade of the art-ciceroni, or, as they were then called, the -exegetae-, was none of the worst. Ancient works of art were formally hunted after—statues and pictures less, it is true, than, in accordance with the rude character of Roman luxury, artistically wrought furniture and ornaments of all sorts for the room and the table. As early as that age the old Greek tombs of Capua and Corinth were ransacked for the sake of the bronze and earthenware vessels which had been placed in the tomb along with the dead. for a small statuette of bronze 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds) were paid, and 200,000 (2000 pounds) for a pair of costly carpets; a well-wrought bronze cooking machine came to cost more than an estate. In this barbaric hunting after art the rich amateur was, as might be expected, frequently cheated by those who supplied him; but the economic ruin of Asia Minor in particular so exceedingly rich in artistic products brought many really ancient and rare ornaments and works of art into the market, and from Athens, Syracuse, Cyzicus, Pergamus, Chios, Samos, and other ancient seats of art, everything that was for sale and very much that was not migrated to the palaces and villas of the Roman grandees. We have already mentioned what treasures of art were to be found within the house of Lucullus, who indeed was accused, perhaps not unjustly, of having gratified his interest in the fine arts at the expense of his duties as a general. The amateurs of art crowded thither as they crowd at present to the Villa Borghese, and complained even then of such treasures being confined to the palaces and country-houses of the men of quality, where they could be seen only with difficulty and after special permission from the possessor. The public buildings on the other hand were far from filled in like proportion with famous works of Greek masters, and in many cases there still stood in the temples of the capital nothing but the old images of the gods carved in wood. As to the exercise of art there is virtually nothing to report; there is hardly mentioned by name from this period any Roman sculptor or painter except a certain Arellius, whose pictures rapidly went off not on account of their artistic value, but because the cunning reprobate furnished, in his pictures of the goddesses faithful portraits of his mistresses for the time being.

Dancing and Music

The importance of music and dancing increased in public as in domestic life. We have already set forth how theatrical music and the dancing-piece attained to an independent standing in the development of the stage at this period;(43) we may add that now in Rome itself representations were very frequently given by Greek musicians, dancers, and declaimers on the public stage— such as were usual in Asia Minor and generally in the whole Hellenic and Hellenizing world.(44) To these fell to be added the musicians and dancing-girls who exhibited their arts to order at table and elsewhere, and the special choirs of stringed and wind instruments and singers which were no longer rare in noble houses. But that even the world of quality itself played and sang with diligence, is shown by the very adoption of music into the cycle of the generally recognized subjects of instruction;(45) as to dancing, it was, to say nothing of women, made matter of reproach even against consulars that they exhibited themselves in dancing performances amidst a small circle.

Incipient Influence of the Monarchy

Towards the end of this period, however, there appears with the commencement of the monarchy the beginning of a better time also in art. We have already mentioned the mighty stimulus which building in the capital received, and building throughout the empire was destined to receive, through Caesar. Even in the cutting of the dies of the coins there appears about 700 a remarkable change; the stamping, hitherto for the most part rude and negligent, is thenceforward managed with more delicacy and care.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of the Roman republic. We have seen it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to ruin in politics and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy of Caesar. There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all true delight in life. It was indeed an old world; and even the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar could not make it young again. The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in and run its course. But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon; and when at length after a long historical night the new day dawned once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up, and which owed, as they still owe, to him their national individuality.



Notes for Chapter I

1. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts, 527

2. It is a significant trait, that a distinguished teacher of literature, the freedman Staberius Eros, allowed the children of the proscribed to attend his course gratuitously.

3. IV. X. Proscription-Lists

4. IV. IX. Pompeius

5. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration

6. IV. IV. Livius Drusus

7. IV. IX. Government of Cinna

8. IV. IX. Pompeius

9. IV. IX. Sertorius Embarks

10. IV. VII. Strabo, IV. IX. Dubious Attitude of Strabo

11. IV. IX. Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria

12. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation

13. IV. X. Reorganization of the Senate

14. It is usual to set down the year 654 as that of Caesar's birth, because according to Suetonius (Caes. 88), Plutarch (Caes. 69), and Appian (B. C. ii. 149) he was at his death (15 March 710) in his 56th year; with which also the statement that he was 18 years old at the time of the Sullan proscription (672; Veil. ii. 41) nearly accords. But this view is utterly inconsistent with the facts that Caesar filled the aedileship in 689, the praetorship in 692, and the consulship in 695, and that these offices could, according to the -leges annales-, be held at the very earliest in the 37th-38th, 40th-41st, and 43rd-44th years of a man's life respectively. We cannot conceive why Caesar should have filled all the curule offices two years before the legal time, and still less why there should be no mention anywhere of his having done so. These facts rather suggest the conjecture that, as his birthday fell undoubtedly on July 12, he was born not in 654, but in 652; so that in 672 he was in his 20th-21st year, and he died not in his 56th year, but at the age of 57 years 8 months. In favour of this latter view we may moreover adduce the circumstance, which has been strangely brought forward in opposition to it, that Caesar "-paene puer-" was appointed by Marius and Cinna as Flamen of Jupiter (Veil. ii. 43); for Marius died in January 668, when Caesar was, according to the usual view, 13 years 6 months old, and therefore not "almost," as Velleius says, but actually still a boy, and most probably for this very reason not at all capable of holding such a priesthood. If, again, he was born in July 652, he was at the death of Marius in his sixteenth year; and with this the expression in Velleius agrees, as well as the general rule that civil positions were not assumed before the expiry of the age of boyhood. Further, with this latter view alone accords the fact that the -denarii- struck by Caesar about the outbreak of the civil war are marked with the number LII, probably the year of his life; for when it began, Caesar's age was according to this view somewhat over 52 years. Nor is it so rash as it appears to us who are accustomed to regular and official lists of births, to charge our authorities with an error in this respect. Those four statements may very well be all traceable to a common source; nor can they at all lay claim to any very high credibility, seeing that for the earlier period before the commencement of the -acta diurna- the statements as to the natal years of even the best known and most prominent Romans, e. g. as to that of Pompeius, vary in the most surprising manner. (Comp. Staatsrecht, I. 8 p. 570.)

In the Life of Caesar by Napoleon III (B. 2, ch. 1) it is objected to this view, first, that the -lex annalis- would point for Caesar's birth-year not to 652, but to 651; secondly and especially, that other cases are known where it was not attended to. But the first assertion rests on a mistake; for, as the example of Cicero shows, the -lex annalis- required only that at the entering on office the 43rd year should be begun, not that it should be completed. None of the alleged exceptions to the rule, moreover, are pertinent. When Tacitus (Ann. xi. 22) says that formerly in conferring magistracies no regard was had to age, and that the consulate and dictatorship were entrusted to quite young men, he has in view, of course, as all commentators acknowledge, the earlier period before the issuing of the -leges annales—-the consulship of M. Valerius Corvus at twenty-three, and similar cases. The assertion that Lucullus received the supreme magistracy before the legal age is erroneous; it is only stated (Cicero, Acad. pr. i. 1) that on the ground of an exceptional clause not more particularly known to us, in reward for some sort of act performed by him, he had a dispensation from the legal two years' interval between the aedileship and praetorship—in reality he was aedile in 675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and after his coalition with Crassus also of a powerful party, we can readily conceive. But it would be in the highest degree surprising, if the same thing should have been done with Caesar on his candidature for the minor magistracies, when he was of little more importance than other political beginners; and it would be, if possible, more surprising still, that, while there is mention of that—in itself readily understood—exception, there should be no notice of this more than strange deviation, however naturally such notices would have suggested themselves, especially with reference to Octavianus consul at 21 (comp., e. g., Appian, iii. 88). When from these irrelevant examples the inference is drawn, "that the law was little observed in Rome, where distinguished men were concerned," anything more erroneous than this sentence was never uttered regarding Rome and the Romans. The greatness of the Roman commonwealth, and not less that of its great generals and statesmen, depends above all things on the fact that the law held good in their case also.

15. IV. IX. Spain

16. At least the outline of these organizations must be assigned to the years 674, 675, 676, although the execution of them doubtless belonged, in great part, only to the subsequent years.

17 IV. IX. The Provinces

18. The following narrative rests substantially on the account of Licinianus, which, fragmentary as it is at this very point, still gives important information as to the insurrection of Lepidus.

19. Under the year 676 Licinianus states (p. 23, Pertz; p. 42, Bonn); [Lepidus?] -[le]gem frumentari[am] nullo resistente l[argi]tus est, ut annon[ae] quinque modi popu[lo da]rentur-. According to this account, therefore, the law of the consuls of 681 Marcus Terentius Lucullus and Gaius Cassius Varus, which Cicero mentions (in Verr. iii. 70, 136; v. 21, 52), and to which also Sallust refers (Hist. iii. 61, 19 Dietsch), did not first reestablish the five -modii-, but only secured the largesses of grain by regulating the purchases of Sicilian corn, and perhaps made various alterations of detail. That the Sempronian law (IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus) allowed every burgess domiciled in Rome to share in the largesses of grain, is certain. But the later distribution of grain was not so extensive as this, for, seeing that the monthly corn of the Roman burgesses amounted to little more than 33,000 -medimni- = 198,000 -modii- (Cic. Verr. iii. 30, 72), only some 40,000 burgesses at that time received grain, whereas the number of burgesses domiciled in the capital was certainly far more considerable. This arrangement probably proceeded from the Octavian law, which introduced instead of the extravagant Sempronian amount "a moderate largess, tolerable for the state and necessary for the common people" (Cic. de Off. ii. 21, 72, Brut. 62, 222); and to all appearance it is this very law that is the -lex frumentaria- mentioned by Licinianus. That Lepidus should have entered into such a proposal of compromise, accords with his attitude as regards the restoration of the tribunate. It is likewise in keeping with the circumstances that the democracy should find itself not at all satisfied by the regulation, brought about in this way, of the distribution of grain (Sallust, l. c.). The amount of loss is calculated on the basis of the grain being worth at least double (IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus); when piracy or other causes drove up the price of grain, a far more considerable loss must have resulted.

20. From the fragments of the account of Licinianus (p. 44, Bonn) it is plain that the decree of the senate, -uti Lepidus et Catulus decretis exercitibus maturrime proficiscerentur- (Sallust, Hist. i. 44 Dietsch), is to be understood not of a despatch of the consuls before the expiry of their consulship to their proconsular provinces, for which there would have been no reason, but of their being sent to Etruria against the revolted Faesulans, just as in the Catilinarian war the consul Gaius Antonius was despatched to the same quarter. The statement of Philippus in Sallust (Hist. i. 48, 4) that Lepidus -ob seditionem provinciam cum exercitu adeptus est-, is entirely in harmony with this view; for the extraordinary consular command in Etruria was just as much a -provincia- as the ordinary proconsular command in Narbonese Gaul.

21. III. IV. Hannibal's Passage of the Alps

22. In the recently found fragments of Sallust, which appear to belong to the campaign of 679, the following words relate to this incident: -Romanus [exer]citus (of Pompeius) frumenti gra[tia r]emotus in Vascones i... [it]emque Sertorius mon... e, cuius multum in[terer]it, ne ei perinde Asiae [iter et Italiae intercluderetur].



Notes for Chapter II

1. IV. VIII. New Difficulties

2. IV. VIII. Preliminaries of Delium, IV. VIII. Peace at Dardanus

3. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

4. IV. I. Cilicia

5. IV. I. Piracy

6. IV. I. Crete

7. The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa is placed by native chronicles in 620 (IV. I. The Parthian Empire), but it was not till some time after its rise that it passed into the hands of the Arabic dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards find there. This dynasty is obviously connected with the settlement of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa, Callirrhoe, Carrhae (Plin. H. N. v. 20, 85; ax, 86; vi. 28, 142); respecting which Plutarch also (Luc. 21) states that Tigranes, changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to his kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade. We may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were accustomed to open routes for traffic through their territory and to levy on these routes fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were to serve the great-king as a sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates. These "Osrhoenian Arabs" (-Orei Arabes-), as Pliny calls them, must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued (Plut. Pomp. 39).

8. The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament proceeded from Alexander I (d. 666) or Alexander II (d. 673), is usually decided in favour of the former alternative. But the reasons are inadequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38; 16, 41) does not say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it did so in or after this year; and while the circumstance that Alexander I died abroad, and Alexander II in Alexandria, has led some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former, they have overlooked that Alexander II was killed nineteen days after his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, Inscr, de I'Egypte, ii. 20), when his treasure might still very well be in Tyre. On the other hand the circumstance that the second Alexander was the last genuine Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergamus, Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by the last scion of the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir. The ancient constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client- states, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in the absence of -agnati- entitled to succeed. Comp. Gutschmid's remark in the German translation of S. Sharpe's History of Egypt, ii. 17.

Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained, and is of no great moment; there are no special reasons for assuming a forgery.

9. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

10. IV. VIII. Cyrene Roman

11. V. I. Collapse of the Power of Sertorius

12. IV. IV. The Provinces

13. IV. VIII. Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast

14. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia

15. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio

16. That Tigranocerta was situated in the region of Mardln some two days' march to the west of Nisibis, has been proved by the investigation instituted on the spot by Sachau ("-Ueber die Lage von Tigranokerta-," Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1880), although the more exact fixing of the locality proposed by Sachau is not beyond doubt. On the other hand, his attempt to clear up the campaign of Lucullus encounters the difficulty that, on the route assumed in it, a crossing of the Tigris is in reality out of the question.

17. Cicero (De Imp. Pomp. 9, 23) hardly means any other than one of the rich temples of the province Elymais, whither the predatory expeditions of the Syrian and Parthian kings were regularly directed (Strabo, xvi. 744; Polyb, xxxi. 11. 1 Maccab. 6, etc.), and probably this as the best known; on no account can the allusion be to the temple of Comana or any shrine at all in the kingdom of Pontus.

18. V. II. Preparations of Mithradates, 328, 334

19. V. II. Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus

20. V. II. Roman Preparations

21. V. I. Want of Leaders

22. V. II. Maritime War

23. IV. I. Crete

24. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War, IV. IV. Revolts of the Slaves

25. These enactments gave rise to the conception of robbery as a separate crime, while the older law comprehended robbery under theft.

26. V. II. The Pirates in the Mediterranean

27. As the line was thirty-five miles long (Sallust, Hist, iv, 19, Dietsch; Plutarch, Crass. 10), it probably passed not from Squillace to Pizzo, but more to the north, somewhere near Castrovillari and Cassano, over the peninsula which is here in a straight line about twenty-seven miles broad.

28. That Crassus was invested with the supreme command in 682, follows from the setting aside of the consuls (Plutarch, Crass. 10); that the winter of 682-683 was spent by the two armies at the Bruttian wall, follows from the "snowy night" (Plut. l. c).



Notes for Chapter III

1. IV. X. Assignations to the Soldiers

2. V. I. Pompeius

3. IV. X. Abolition of the Gracchan Institutions

4. V. II. The Insurrection Takes Shape

5. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals

6. V. I. Insurrection of Lepidus

7. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges

8. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers

9. IV. IV. Marius Commander-in-Chief

10. The extraordinary magisterial power (-pro consule-, -pro praetore-, -pro quaestore-) might according to Roman state-law originate in three ways. Either it arose out of the principle which held good for the non-urban magistracy, that the office continued up to the appointed legal term, but the official authority up to the arrival of the successor, which was the oldest, simplest, and most frequent case. Or it arose in the way of the appropriate organs—especially the comitia, and in later times also perhaps the senate—nominating a chief magistrate not contemplated in the constitution, who was otherwise on a parity with the ordinary magistrate, but in token of the extraordinary nature of his office designated himself merely "instead of a praetor" or "of a consul." To this class belong also the magistrates nominated in the ordinary way as quaestors, and then extraordinarily furnished with praetorian or even consular official authority (-quaestores pro praetore- or -pro consule-); in which quality, for example, Publius Lentulus Marcellinus went in 679 to Cyrene (Sallust, Hist. ii. 39 Dietsch), Gnaeus Piso in 689 to Hither Spain (Sallust, Cat. 19), and Cato in 696 to Cyprus (Vell. ii. 45). Or, lastly, the extraordinary magisterial authority was based on the right of delegation vested in the supreme magistrate. If he left the bounds of his province or otherwise was hindered from administering his office, he was entitled to nominate one of those about him as his substitute, who was then called -legatus pro praetore-(Sallust, lug. 36, 37, 38), or, if the choice fell on the quaestor, -quaestor pro praetore- (Sallust, Iug. 103). In like manner he was entitled, if he had no quaestor, to cause the quaestorial duties to be discharged by one of his train, who was then called -legatus pro quaestore-, a name which is to be met with, perhaps for the first time, on the Macedonian tetradrachms of Sura, lieutenant of the governor of Macedonia, 665-667. But it was contrary to the nature of delegation and therefore according to the older state-law inadmissible, that the supreme magistrate should, without having met with any hindrance in the discharge of his functions, immediately upon his entering on office invest one or more of his subordinates with supreme official authority; and so far the -legati pro praetore-of the proconsul Pompeius were an innovation, and already similar in kind to those who played so great a part in the times of the Empire.

11. V. III. Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power

12. According to the legend king Romulus was torn in pieces by the senators.

13. IV. II. Further Plans of Gracchus



Notes for Chapter IV

1. V. III. Senate, Equites, and Populares

2. V. II. Metellus Subdues Crete

3. [Literally "twenty German miles"; but the breadth of the island does not seem in reality half so much.—Tr.]

4. V. II. Renewal of the War

5. Pompeius distributed among his soldiers and officers as presents 384,000,000 sesterces (=16,000 talents, App. Mithr. 116); as the officers received 100,000,000 (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, 16) and each of the common soldiers 6000 sesterces (Plin., App.), the army still numbered at its triumph about 40,000 men.

6. V. II. Sieges of the Pontic Cities

7. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

8. V. II. Syria under Tigranes

9. V. II. Syria under Tigranes

10. IV. I. The Jews

11. V. II. Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta

12. Thus the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of angels and spirits and the resurrection of the dead. Most of the traditional points of difference between Pharisees and Sadducees relate to subordinate questions of ritual, jurisprudence, and the calendar. It is a characteristic fact, that the victorious Pharisees have introduced those days, on which they definitively obtained the superiority in particular controversies or ejected heretical members from the supreme consistory, into the list of the memorial and festival days of the nation.

13. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

14. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War, V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

15. Pompeius spent the winter of 689-690 still in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea (Dio, xxxvii. 7). In 690 he first reduced the last strongholds still offering resistance in the kingdom of Pontus, and then moved slowly, regulating matters everywhere, towards the south. That the organization of Syria began in 690 is confirmed by the fact that the Syrian provincial era begins with this year, and by Cicero's statement respecting Commagene (Ad Q. fr. ii. 12, 2; comp. Dio, xxxvii. 7). During the winter of 690-691 Pompeius seems to have had his headquarters in Antioch (Joseph, xiv. 3, 1, 2, where the confusion has been rectified by Niese in the Hermes, xi. p. 471).

16. III. V. New Warlike Preparations in Rome

17. III. IV. War Party and Peace Party in Carthage

18. Orosius indeed (vi. 6) and Dio (xxxvii. 15), both of them doubtless following Livy, make Pompeius get to Petra and occupy the city or even reach the Red Sea; but that he, on the contrary, soon after receiving the news of the death of Mithradates, which came to him on his march towards Jerusalem, returned from Syria to Pontus, is stated by Plutarch (Pomp. 41, 42) and is confirmed by Floras (i. 39) and Josephus (xiv. 3, 3, 4). If king Aretas figures in the bulletins among those conquered by Pompeius, this is sufficiently accounted for by his withdrawal from Jerusalem at the instigation of Pompeius.

19. V. II. Renewal of the War, V. IV. Variance between Mithradates and Tigranes

20. This view rests on the narrative of Plutarch (Pomp. 36) which is supported by Strabo's (xvi. 744) description of the position of the satrap of Elymais. It is an embellishment of the matter, when in the lists of the countries and kings conquered by Pompeius Media and its king Darius are enumerated (Diodorus, Fr, Vat. p. 140; Appian, Mithr. 117); and from this there has been further concocted the war of Pompeius with the Medes (Veil. ii. 40; Appian, Mithr. 106, 114) and then even his expedition to Ecbatana (Oros. vi. 5). A confusion with the fabulous town of the same name on Carmel has hardly taken place here; it is simply that intolerable exaggeration—apparently originating in the grandiloquent and designedly ambiguous bulletins of Pompeius—which has converted his razzia against the Gaetulians (p. 94) into a march to the west coast of Africa (Plut. Pomp. 38), his abortive expedition against the Nabataeans into a conquest of the city of Petra, and his award as to the boundaries of Armenia into a fixing of the boundary of the Roman empire beyond Nisibis.

21. The war which this Antiochus is alleged to have waged with Pompeius (Appian, Mithr. 106, 117) is not very consistent with the treaty which he concluded with Lucullus (Dio, xxxvi. 4), and his undisturbed continuance in his sovereignty; presumably it has been concocted simply from the circumstance, that Antiochus of Commagene figured among the kings subdued by Pompeius.

22. To this Cicero's reproach presumably points (De Off. iii. 12, 49): -piratas immunes habemus, socios vectigales-; in so far, namely, as those pirate-colonies probably had the privilege of immunity conferred on them by Pompeius, while, as is well known, the provincial communities dependent on Rome were, as a rule, liable to taxation.

23. IV. VIII. Pontus

24. V. IV. Battle at Nicopolis

25. V. II. Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela

26. V. IV. Pompeius Take the Supreme Command against Mithradates

27. IV. VIII. Weak Counterpreparations of the Romans ff.

28. V. II. Egypt not Annexed

29. V. IV. Urban Communities



Notes for Chapter V

1. V. III. Renewal of the Censorship

2. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius

3. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges

4. IV. VII. The Sulpician Laws

5. IV. X. Permanent and Special -Quaestiones-

6. IV. VI. And Overpowered

7. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts

8. Any one who surveys the whole state of the political relations of this period will need no special proofs to help him to see that the ultimate object of the democratic machinations in 688 et seq. was not the overthrow of the senate, but that of Pompeius. Yet such proofs are not wanting. Sallust states that the Gabinio- Manilian laws inflicted a mortal blow on the democracy (Cat. 39); that the conspiracy of 688-689 and the Servilian rogation were specially directed against Pompeius, is likewise attested (Sallust Cat. 19; Val. Max. vi. 2, 4; Cic. de Lege Agr. ii. 17, 46). Besides the attitude of Crassus towards the conspiracy alone shows sufficiently that it was directed against Pompeius.

9. V. V. Transpadanes

10. Plutarch, Crass. 13; Cicero, de Lege agr. ii. 17, 44. To this year (689) belongs Cicero's oration -de rege Alexandrino-, which has been incorrectly assigned to the year 698. In it Cicero refutes, as the fragments clearly show, the assertion of Crassus, that Egypt had been rendered Roman property by the testament of king Alexander. This question of law might and must have been discussed in 689; but in 698 it had been deprived of its significance through the Julian law of 695. In 698 moreover the discussion related not to the question to whom Egypt belonged, but to the restoration of the king driven out by a revolt, and in this transaction which is well known to us Crassus played no part. Lastly, Cicero after the conference of Luca was not at all in a position seriously to oppose one of the triumvirs.

11. V. IV. Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis

12. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals, V. III. Renewal of the Censorship

13. The -Ambrani- (Suet. Caes. 9) are probably not the Ambrones named along with the Cimbri (Plutarch, Mar. 19), but a slip of the pen for -Arverni-.

14. This cannot well be expressed more naively than is done in the memorial ascribed to his brother (de pet. cons. i, 5; 13, 51, 53; in 690); the brother himself would hardly have expressed his mind publicly with so much frankness. In proof of this unprejudiced persons will read not without interest the second oration against Rullus, where the "first democratic consul," gulling the friendly public in a very delectable fashion, unfolds to it the "true democracy."

15. His epitaph still extant runs: -Cn. Calpurnius Cn. f. Piso quaestor fro pr. ex s. c. proviniciam Hispaniam citeriorem optinuit-.

16. V. V. Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy

17. V. III. Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution

18. IV. XII. Priestly Colleges

19. IV. VII. Economic Crisis

20. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius

21. Such an apology is the -Catilina- of Sallust, which was published by the author, a notorious Caesarian, after the year 708, either under the monarchy of Caesar or more probably under the triumvirate of his heirs; evidently as a treatise with a political drift, which endeavours to bring into credit the democratic party— on which in fact the Roman monarchy was based—and to clear Caesar's memory from the blackest stain that rested on it; and with the collateral object of whitewashing as far as possible the uncle of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (comp. e. g. c. 59 with Dio, xxxvii. 39). The Jugurtha of the same author is in an exactly similar way designed partly to expose the pitifulness of the oligarchic government, partly to glorify the Coryphaeus of the democracy, Gaius Marius. The circumstance that the adroit author keeps the apologetic and inculpatory character of these writings of his in the background, proves, not that they are not partisan treatises, but that they are good ones.

22. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome



Notes for Chapter VI

1. V. IV. Aggregate Results

2. The impression of the first address, which Pompeius made to the burgesses after his return, is thus described by Cicero (ad Att. i. 14): -prima contio Pompei non iucunda miseris (the rabble), inanis improbis (the democrats), beatis (the wealthy) non grata, bonis (the aristocrats) non gravis; itaque frigebat-.

3. IV. X. Regulating of the Qualifications for Office

4. V. V. New Projects of the Conspirators

5. V. VI. Pompeius without Influence

6. IV. IX. Government of Cinna, IV. X. Punishments Inflicted on Particular Communities

7. IV. XII. Oriental Religions in Italy

8. V. V. Transpadanes

9. IV. X. Cisalpine Gaul Erected into a Province

10. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed

11. IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in the Voting

12. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed



Notes for Chapter VII

1. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered

2. IV. IX. Spain

3. V. I. Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection

4. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul

5. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War

6. V. V. Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital

7. V. I. Pompeius Puts and End to the Insurrection

8. IV. II. Scipio Aemilianus

9. There was found, for instance, at Vaison in the Vocontian canton an inscription written in the Celtic language with the ordinary Greek alphabet. It runs thus: —segouaros ouilloneos tooutious namausatis eiorou beileisamisosin nemeiton—. The last word means "holy."

10. An immigration of Belgic Celts to Britain continuing for a considerable time seems indicated by the names of English tribes on both banks of the Thames borrowed from Belgic cantons; such as the Atrebates, the Belgae, and even the Britanni themselves, which word appears to have been transferred from the Brittones settled on the Somme below Amiens first to an English canton and then to the whole island. The English gold coinage was also derived from the Belgic and originally identical with it.

11. The first levy of the Belgic cantons exclusive of the Remi, that is, of the country between the Seine and the Scheldt and eastward as far as the vicinity of Rheims and Andernach, from 9000 to 10,000 square miles, is reckoned at about 300,000 men; in accordance with which, if we regard the proportion of the first levy to the whole men capable of bearing arms specified for the Bellovaci as holding good generally, the number of the Belgae capable of bearing arms would amount to 500,000 and the whole population accordingly to at least 2,000,000. The Helvetii with the adjoining peoples numbered before their migration 336,000; if we assume that they were at that time already dislodged from the right bank of the Rhine, their territory may be estimated at nearly 1350 square miles. Whether the serfs are included in this, we can the less determine, as we do not know the form which slavery assumed amongst the Celts; what Caesar relates (i. 4) as to the slaves, clients, and debtors of Orgetorix tells rather in favour of, than against, their being included.

That, moreover, every such attempt to make up by combinations for the statistical basis, in which ancient history is especially deficient, must be received with due caution, will be at once apprehended by the intelligent reader, while he will not absolutely reject it on that account.

12. "In the interior of Transalpine Gaul on the Rhine," says Scrofa in Varro, De R. R. i. 7, 8, "when I commanded there, I traversed some districts, where neither the vine nor the olive nor the fruit-tree appears, where they manure the fields with white Pit-chalk, where they have neither rock—nor sea-salt, but make use of the saline ashes of certain burnt wood instead of salt." This description refers probably to the period before Caesar and to the eastern districts of the old province, such as the country of the Allobroges; subsequently Pliny (H. N. xvii. 6, 42 seq.) describes at length the Gallo-Britannic manuring with marl.

13. "The Gallic oxen especially are of good repute in Italy, for field labour forsooth; whereas the Ligurian are good for nothing." (Varro, De R. R. ii. 5, 9). Here, no doubt, Cisalpine Gaul is referred to, but the cattle-husbandry there doubtless goes back to the Celtic epoch. Plautus already mentions the "Gallic ponies" (-Gallici canterii-, Aul. iii. 5. 21). "It is not every race that is suited for the business of herdsmen; neither the Bastulians nor the Turdulians" (both in Andalusia) "are fit for it; the Celts are the best, especially as respects beasts for riding and burden (-iumenta-)" (Varro, De R. R. ii. 10, 4).

14. We are led to this conclusion by the designation of the trading or "round" as contrasted with the "long" or war vessel, and the similar contrast of the "oared ships" (—epikopoi veies—) and the "merchantmen" (—olkades—, Dionys. iii. 44); and moreover by the smallness of the crew in the trading vessels, which in the very largest amounted to not more than 200 men (Rhein. Mus. N. F. xi. 625), while in the ordinary galley of three decks there were employed 170 rowers (III. II. The Romans Build A Fleet). Comp. Movers, Phoen. ii. 3, 167 seq.

15. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

16. IV. V. Defeat of Longinus

17. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

18. This remarkable word must have been in use as early as the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po; for Ennius is already acquainted with it, and it can only have reached the Italians at so early a period from that quarter. It is not merely Celtic, however, but also German, the root of our "Amt," as indeed the retainer-system itself is common to the Celts and the Germans. It would be of great historical importance to ascertain whether the word—and so also the thing—came to the Celts from the Germans, or to the Germans from the Celts. If, as is usually supposed, the word is originally German and primarily signified the servant standing in battle "against the back" (-and-= against, -bak- = back) of his master, this is not wholly irreconcileable with the singularly early occurrence of this word among the Celts. According to all analogy the right to keep -ambacti-, that is, —doouloi misthotoi—, cannot have belonged to the Celtic nobility from the outset, but must only have developed itself gradually in antagonism to the older monarchy and to the equality of the free commons. If thus the system of -ambacti- among the Celts was not an ancient and national, but a comparatively recent institution, it is—looking to the relation which had subsisted for centuries between the Celts and Germans, and which is to be explained farther on—not merely possible but even probable that the Celts, in Italy as in Gaul, employed Germans chiefly as those hired servants-at- arms. The "Swiss guard" would therefore in that case be some thousands of years older than people suppose. Should the term by which the Romans, perhaps after the example of the Celts, designate the Germans as a nation-the name -Germani—-be really of Celtic origin, this obviously accords very well with that hypothesis.—No doubt these assumptions must necessarily give way, should the word -ambactus- be explained in a satisfactory way from a Celtic root; as in fact Zeuss (Gramm. p. 796), though doubtfully, traces it to -ambi- = around and -aig- = -agere-, viz. one moving round or moved round, and so attendants, servants. The circumstance that the word occurs also as a Celtic proper name (Zeuss, p. 77), and is perhaps preserved in the Cambrian -amaeth- = peasant, labourer (Zeuss, p. 156), cannot decide the point either way,

19. From the Celtic words -guerg- = worker and -breth- = judgment.

20. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

21. The position which such a federal general occupied with reference to his troops, is shown by the accusation of high treason raised against Vercingetorix (Caesar, B. G. vii. 20).

22. IV. V. The Cimbri

23. II. IV. The Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy

24. V. VII. Art and Science

25. Caesar's Suebi thus were probably the Chatti; but that designation certainly belonged in Caesar's time, and even much later, also to every other German stock which could be described as a regularly wandering one. Accordingly if, as is not to be doubted, the "king of the Suebi" in Mela (iii. i) and Pliny (H. N. ii. 67, 170) was Ariovistus, it by no means therefore follows that Ariovistus was a Chattan. The Marcomani cannot be demonstrated as a distinct people before Marbod; it is very possible that the word up to that point indicates nothing but what it etymologically signifies—the land, or frontier, guard. When Caesar (i, 51) mentions Marcomani among the peoples fighting in the army of Ariovistus, he may in this instance have misunderstood a merely appellative designation, just as he has decidedly done in the case of the Suebi.

26. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along the Danube

27. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along the Danube

28. IV. V. Teutones in the Province of Gaul

29. The arrival of Ariovistus in Gaul has been placed, according to Caesar, i. 36, in 683, and the battle of Admagetobriga (for such was the name of the place now usually, in accordance with a false inscription, called Magetobriga), according to Caesar i. 35 and Cicero Ad. Att. i. 19, in 693.

30. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There

31. That we may not deem this course of things incredible, or even impute to it deeper motives than ignorance and laziness in statesmen, we shall do well to realize the frivolous tone in which a distinguished senator like Cicero expresses himself in his correspondence respecting these important Transalpine affairs.

32. IV. V. Inroad of the Helvetii into Southern Gaul

33. According to the uncorrected calendar. According to the current rectification, which however here by no means rests on sufficiently trustworthy data, this day corresponds to the 16th of April of the Julian calendar.

34. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite

35. -Julia Equestris-, where the last surname is to be taken as in other colonies of Caesar the surnames of sextanorum, decimanorum, etc. It was Celtic or German horsemen of Caesar, who, of course with the bestowal of the Roman or, at any rate, Latin franchise, received land-allotments there.

36. Goler (Caesars gall. Krieg, p. 45, etc.) thinks that he has 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).