INTRODUCTION

The Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africum and Bellum Hispaniense, which have been transmitted to us as a sort of continuation of Caesar's Bellum civile, are not only important sources for our knowledge of the historical events of the 40s bc. They also have long been recognised as precious pieces of evidence for the stylistic diversity of Latin in the first century bc. At least since the end of the nineteenth century the three pseudo-Caesarian Bella have been interpreted as a reflection of colloquial/substandard Latin and stylistically classed as second-rate literature. This is particularly true of the Bellum Hispaniense. Already humanists such as Lipsius, J. J. Scaliger or G. J. Vossius qualified its style as ‘horrid’ (horridus) or ‘somewhat harsh’ (duriusculus); the early editor Goduinus thought that the author's mother tongue was not Latin; Clarke (1753: 457) and Oudendorp (1737: ii.940) speculated that the work was a soldier's diary, and Madvig, Norden, Klotz, Pascucci, Diouron and others have sketched the image of an author who tries to write in an elevated style but constantly fails and reveals his lack of education.

When looked at more closely, this traditional characterisation must seem rather implausible. First of all, there are several features that contradict the hypothesis of a hastily written soldier's diary. It is commonly agreed that the speeches in 17.1–3 and 42.4–7 and Gnaeus Pompeius' letter in Chapter 26 are written in polished Latin and show no signs of negligence or incompetence.