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CAESAR'S SISENNA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2014

Christopher B. Krebs
Christopher B. Krebs*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
cbkrebs@stanford.edu
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Extract

Caesar's Commentarii have hardly been studied within the historiographical tradition – probably because of their generic difference from historia and, more generally, alleged overall sparseness, famously and influentially compared to nudity. While their relationship to Greek historians has received some haphazard attention, their possible debt to antecedent Roman historians is an even less explored question – admittedly compounded by the fragmentary state of early republican historiography. In the following pages, however, I will suggest that there is ample evidence of Caesar's familiarity with, and even imitation of, the Historiae by Lucius Cornelius Sisenna.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , May 2014 , pp. 207 - 213
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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References

1 The nature of the commentarius and its relation to historia have received a lot of attention; see most recently Walter, U., ‘Caesar macht Geschichte: Memorialpolitik und Historiographie zwischen Konvention und Innovation’, in Urso, G. (ed.), Cesare: precursore o visionario (Pisa, 2010), 159–73Google Scholar, esp. 166–8, and Riggsby, A., Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin, 2006), 133–56Google Scholar.

2 Cic. Brut. 262 nudi enim sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta. The bibliography on this characterization is extensive; see most recently Dugan, J., Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical Works (Oxford, 2005), 175–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on its hidden politics, as well as Rambaud, M., ‘César et la rhétorique. À propos de Cicéron (Brut. 261–2)’, Caesarodonum 14 (1979), 19–39Google Scholar. As for unintentional consequences of this verdict for Caesarian scholarship, see Kraus, C.S., ‘Hair, hegemony, and historiography: Caesar's style and its earliest critics’, in Reinhardt, T., Lapidge, M. and Adams, J.N. (edd.), Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose (Oxford, 2005), 97–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 112 n. 55; cf. also Gotoff, H.C., ‘Towards a practical criticism of Caesar's prose style’, ICS 9 (1984), 1–18, esp. 6, 8, 15Google Scholar.

3 Mostly in passing: Montgomery, H., ‘Caesar und die Grenzen. Information und Propaganda in den Commentarii de bello Gallico’, SO 49 (1973), 57–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 65 n. 41, 66, 72, 78, 79 n. 94; Maurach, G. ‘Caesar-Interpretationen (B.C. 3,41–93)’, Gymnasium 81 (1974), 49–63Google Scholar, esp. 52 n. 17, 54 n. 23, 55–6; Rossi, A., ‘The camp of Pompey: strategy of representation in Caesar's «Bellum ciuile»’, CJ 95 (2000), 239–56Google Scholar, esp. 243–9; and Krebs, C.B., ‘Imaginary geography in Caesar's BG’, AJPh 127 (2006), 111–36Google Scholar, esp. 130–2. More substantial are Reggi, G., ‘Cesare e il racconto delle battaglie navali sotto Marsiglia’, RIL 136 (2002), 71–108Google Scholar, esp. on Thucydides, and Bartley, A., ‘The use of rhetoric in Xenophon's «Anabasis» and Caesar's «De bello Gallico»’, LEC 76 (2008), 361–81Google Scholar. Note also Kraus, C.S., ‘Bellum Gallicum’, in. Griffin, M. (ed.), A Companion to Julius Caesar (Oxford, 2009), 159–74Google Scholar, esp. 164, for the attractive suggestion that BGall. 1.1.1 is modelled on Thuc. 3.92.2.

4 Still the best general discussion of Sisenna is Rawson, E., ‘L. Cornelius Sisenna and the early first century b.c.’, CQ 29 (1979), 327–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 But Cicero swiftly qualifies his praise: puerile quiddam consectatur, ut unum Clitarchum neque praeterea quemquam de Graecis legisse uideatur, possibly pointing to his dilated style; see Dyck, A.R., A Commentary on Cicero, De Legibus (Ann Arbor, 2004), 81, for discussionGoogle Scholar.

6 Cf. McGushin, P., Bellum Catilinae: A Commentary (Leiden, 1977), 66Google Scholar. Compare also Sall. Iug. 95.2 Sisenna, optume et diligentissume omnium qui eas res dixere persecutus, parum mihi libero ore locutus videtur. For Greek precedents for this kind of homage, see Marincola, J., Greek Historians (Oxford, 2001), 106Google Scholar and, more generally, id., Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar, appendixes VI and VII.

7 Gell. NA 16.9.5. I agree with Köves-Zulauf, T., ‘Plinius d. Ä. und die römische Religion’, ANRW 2.16.1 (1978), 187–288Google Scholar, at 241: ‘Dieser Historiker muß für Varro gewissermaßen der Historiker gewesen … sein.’

8 Cf. Eden, P.T., ‘Caesar's style: inheritance versus intelligence’, Glotta 40 (1962), 74–117, esp. 114Google Scholar. See further E. Fantham, ‘Caesar as an intellectual’, in Griffin (n. 3), 141–56.

9 Varro, Ling. 8.73: item plures patres familias dicere non debuerunt, sed, ut Sisenna scribit, patres familiarum. For a discussion of the analogical movement see Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Baltimore, 1985), 117–32Google Scholar, and Reitzenstein, R., Marcus Terentius Varro und Johannes von Mauropus (Leipzig, 1901), 31–65Google Scholar.

10 But Caesar rejected Sisenna's suggestion: Pascucci, G., ‘Interpretazione linguistica e stilistica del Cesare autentico’, ANRW 1.3 (1973), 488–522Google Scholar, esp. 490 n. 1.

11 On Sisenna's language see Briscoe, J., ‘The language and style of the fragmentary Republican historians’, in Aspects (n. 2), 53–72Google Scholar, esp. 54, 57, 70–1, and now, first and foremost, Ambrosetti, M., ‘Sulla lingua di L. Cornelio Sisenna’, Invigilata lucernis 31 (2009), 9–58Google Scholar.

12 Cic. Brut. 260 recte loqui putabat esse inusitate loqui. But Cicero also gave Sisenna pride of place; see Rawson (n. 4), 344.

13 See now: Garcea, A., Caesar's De Analogia: Edition, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar, but with the important review by J.F. Gaertner in Mnemosyne 66 (2013). The following quotation is from Reitzenstein (n. 9), 62.

14 Rawson (n. 4), 344 (elaborating on the discussion of Reitzenstein [n. 9], 62–4), to whom I also owe the subsequent observation.

15 Cf. TLL 6.1, 1469.40–2 [Rubenbauer], to which the instances in Hyginus (see n. 16) should be added. Sisenna's historiae are quoted from Chassignet, M., L'Annalistique romaine (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar; I will also add the numbering used in Peter, H., Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae (Leipzig, 1914)Google Scholar.

16 Hyg. Poet. astr. 2.4, 2.23, Fab. 8.4, 15.5. Note also Ov. Met. 11.334 concita membra fugae mandat.

17 On sese in Caesar see Klotz, A., Caesarstudien (Leipzig, 1910), 223–39Google Scholar. The other three instances are BGall. 2.24.2 et calones … cum respexissent et hostes in nostris castris versari vidissent, praecipites fugae sese mandabant, 5.18.5 ut hostes impetum legionum atque equitum sustinere non possent ripasque dimitterent ac se fugae mandarent, 7.67.6 reliqui ne circumirentur veriti se fugae mandant.

18 Hirt. BGall. 8.29.2 quibus visis perculsae barbarorum turmae ac perterrita acies hostium, perturbato impedimentorum agmine, magno clamore discursuque passim fugae se mandant. BAfr. 34.2 parvulum navigium nactus conscendit ac se fugae commendat. Gregory Mellen has suggested to me in discussion that the phrase might belong to the sermo castrensis whence all four ‘historians’ borrowed it. This is, of course, a possibility. But the fact that it is not attested in the works of other soldiers turned authors, while it is used by Hyginus and, in a modified form, by Ovid, to me make a literary origin in Sisenna's Historiae more likely. The difference in the distribution of castra maxima (p. 212) is significant.

19 TLL 8.1357.42–60 [Rubenbauer].

20 Syme, R., Sallust (Berkeley, 1964)Google Scholar, 261 thought that ‘the weighty termination[s] … [i.e., –mentum] suggested ancient majesty’, but Perrot, J., Les Dérivés latins en –men et –mentum (Paris, 1961), esp. 127–34Google Scholar, has shown that formations with –mentum were frequent in common language.

21 Chassignet (n. 15), 70, ad fr. 73.

22 There is an earlier instance at Hist. 30 [P29], the text of which is highly uncertain: Galli materibus ac lanceis conf<li>gunt (as it is printed in Chassignet).

23 The orthography varies; the MSS offer mataris, materis and, on this one occasion in Caesar, matara; cf. TLL 8.434.39 (Rubenbauer).

24 On his interaction with Gallic native speakers see Adams, J.N., Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2003), 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 TLL 5.1.1389.47–60 (Gudeman).

26 Cf. Chassignet (n. 15), 206, ad fr. 36, with ref. to Quint. Inst. 8.4.26. See also Lausberg, H., Handbook of Literary Rhetoric (Boston, 1998), 400–9Google Scholar, esp. 406.

27 Cf. Menge, R. and Preuss, S., Lexicon Caesarianum (Hildesheim, 1972 [orig. 1890])Google Scholar, s.v. See also TLL 4.94.30–1 (Lommatsch). The third instance is in Ammianus (19.2.6 vixque ubi Grumbates hastam infectam sanguine ritu patrio nostrique more coniecerat fetialis, armis exercitus concrepans involat muros confestimque lacrimabilis belli turbo crudescit), who seems to have had Caesar in mind.

28 Little is known about the context, but it seems as if it applied to Roman soldiers' reaction to the death of A. Postumius Albinus: cf. Chassignet (n. 15), 78, ad fr. 106.

29 For its meaning (and past misunderstandings), cf. Stadter, P.A., ‘Caesarian tactics and Caesarian style: Bell. Civ. 1.66–70’ CJ 88 (1993), 217–21Google Scholar, esp. 220–1. On the possibly intentional equivocality of this poetic expression (and others), see now Grillo, L., The Art of Caesar's Bellum Civile: Literature, Ideology and Community (Cambridge, 2012), 18–19Google Scholar.

30 TLL 1.1489.37–9 (Bannier) also lists BAfr. 11.1, 80.3; Cypr. Gall. Exod. 1053. Symm. Ep. 1.13.2.

31 See e.g. Eden (n. 8), 114.

32 Cf. TLL 7.2.811.78–81 (Flury).

33 The MSS offer summa as well as summae.

34 TLL 2.221.45 (Prinz); cf. also TLL 7.2.1028.26–9 (Kuhlmann).

35 Cf. Menge and Preuss (n. 27), s.v.

36 Forms both of inermus and inermis are attested; even in Caesar, the MSS occasionally offer both (e.g. BGall. 1.40.6); see TLL 7.1.1304.73–1305.19 (Gumpoltsberger).

37 Cf. Varro (Ling. 7.56): … quod olim ascribebantur inermes armatis militibus qui succederent, si quis eorum deperisset, and TLL 7.1.1305.31 (Gumpoltsberger).

38 See Maselli, G., La ‘Pro Caecina’ di Cicerone (Fasano, 2006)Google Scholar, 183 n. 76. Both Pacuvius and Accius wrote a Iudicium armorum, and a wordplay like inermus armatus would certainly not be out of place there.

39 Menge and Preuss (n. 27), s.v.

40 TLL 5.2.846.47 (Junod).

41 Albeit in a slightly different sense: … L. Domitium, cuius domum constitutam fuisse unde eruptio fieret.

42 In consequence, they faced a nova et inusitata belli ratio cum tot castellorum numero tantoque spatio et tantis munitionibus et toto obsidionis genere, tum etiam reliquis rebus (BCiv. 3.47.1).

43 The entry in TLL, esp. 3.552.2 ‘saepe maiora, minora, maxima’ (Bannier) is, this once, not helpful. The passages discussed above were located with the help of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana Latina.

44 Cf. the definition in TLL 3.525.20–1 (Bannier) castri parvi genus ad castra vel res alias tutenda extructum.

45 I owe this observation to Tony Woodman.

46 Wölfflin, E. and Miodoński, A.S., C. Asini Polionis De Bello Africo Commentarius (Leipzig, 1889)Google Scholar, ad loc.

47 I am indebted once again to Tony Woodman (University of Virginia) for his helpful comments on an earlier draft; I should also like to thank Luca Grillo (Amherst College), Gregory Mellen (Harvard University) and especially Jan Felix Gärtner (Universität Leipzig) for critical discussions and, last but not least, both the editor Bruce Gibson and the anonymous reader.