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IRONY AND THE TEXT OF CAESAR, BELLVM GALLICVM 5.31.5
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2017
Extract
The sentence that comprises 5.31.5 in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum has long been felt to be problematic. It was deleted entirely by H. Meusel. A. Klotz posited a lacuna after quare. Others sought smaller adjustments. Yet, the defence of the text as transmitted also drew advocates (T. Rice Holmes, A. Ernout, O. Seel) and the debate quietened. The current Teubner edition, by W. Hering in 1987, prints the transmitted text and does not acknowledge the debate in the apparatus criticus. I propose a new solution, one that reinterprets the sentence in context and requires a small textual change from et to nec. I will first set the context and identify problems with the conventional understanding of 5.31.5.
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References
1 Meusel, H. (ed.), C. Iuli Caesaris Belli Gallici Libri VII (Berlin, 1894), 117 Google Scholar, following W. Paul.
2 Klotz, A. (ed.), C. Iuli Caesaris Commentarii, Vol. I: Commentarii Belli Gallici (Leipzig, 1962 4), 118 Google Scholar. He suggests, on the model of Livy 8.38.8, that nec cum periculo eatur has dropped out. He then prints Fleischer's augetur in place of the manuscripts’ augeatur.
3 See the several suggestions, with bibliography, listed at Meusel, H., Coniecturae Caesarianae (Berlin, 1893), 38 Google Scholar (or in the Tabulae Coniecturarum at the back of the second volume of Meusel, H., Lexicon Caesarianum [Berlin, 1887–1893], 20Google Scholar). The most ingenious emendation is Hartz's mane eatur for maneatur, which is adopted in Constans, L.-A. (ed.), César: Guerre des Gaules (Paris, 1926), 2.154Google Scholar.
4 See Holmes, T. Rice, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (Oxford, 1931 2), 726–7Google Scholar; A. Ernout, review of Klotz (n. 2), RPh 27 (1953), 192–202, at 197–8; Seel, O. (ed.), C. Iulii Caesaris Commentarii Rerum Gestarum, Vol. I: Bellum Gallicum (Leipzig, 1961), 151–2Google Scholar.
5 Hering, W. (ed.), C. Iulii Caesaris Commentarii Rerum Gestarum, Vol. I: Bellum Gallicum (Leipzig, 1987), 79 Google Scholar.
6 Unattributed translations are my own.
7 The two other occurrences of excogito in Caesar also convey implicit authorial criticism: BCiv. 3.32.1, BGall. 8.51.2 (Hirtius). If the excogitations described in this sentence are derived from the same source as the order to leave at first light, the fault behind them is likely to be assigned ultimately to Sabinus, whom Caesar increasingly targets as the story develops. See Welch, K., ‘Caesar and his officers in the Gallic War Commentaries’, in Welch, K. and Powell, A. (edd.), Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter (Swansea, 1998), 85–110, at 95–6Google Scholar.
8 A survey of several prominent English translations of 5.31.5 reveals the conventional understanding of the sentence. Rice Holmes (n. 4), 727: ‘Men thought of every argument to persuade themselves that they could not remain without danger and that the danger would be increased by protracted watches and consequent exhaustion.’ Edwards, H.J., Caesar: The Gallic War (Loeb) (London, 1917)Google Scholar, 275: ‘They thought of any and every plea to prove that it must be dangerous to remain, and that the danger would be increased by the exhaustion of the troops in long watches.’ A. and Wiseman, P., Julius Caesar: The Battle for Gaul (Boston, 1980)Google Scholar, 102: ‘They went through every possible argument to convince themselves that danger was inevitable if they remained, and that it would be increased as they became exhausted by constant night watches.’ Hammond, C., Caesar: The Gallic War (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar, 104–5: ‘All kinds of reasons were thought up as to why it would be unsafe to remain, and how the men's fatigue and constant watches would intensify the risk.’ When understood thus, the two clauses after quare are correlated by nec … et, which suggests a relationship of ‘not only not … but also’ (Lewis and Short s.v. neque 4) or ‘while not … (yet) at the same time’ (OLD s.v. neque 8). Not only would there be no way to remain without danger, in other words, but that danger would also be increased by exhaustion and watches. This correlative use of neque/nec … et can be paralleled at, for example, BGall. 3.14.4, 4.1.10, 4.29.4.
9 Note also how all the translations quoted above (n. 8) stress, in the spirit of their interpretation, the onerous nature of these watches: they are ‘protracted’ or ‘long’ or ‘constant’. Yet, no such adjective modifying uigiliis exists in the Latin text.
10 Meusel (n. 3 [Lexicon]), 2.2323-4.
11 Or, reading languore and uigiliis as hendiadys, ‘owing to the soldiers’ sleepless exhaustion’.
12 For example, the abbreviation for the –ur at the end of maneatur, often similar in shape to the letter u and not always clearly superscript, could have been misread as u, after which the initial n of nec was read as r and the ec as et (confusion of c and t is itself a common problem). Such a scenario (or others like it) is speculative, but cannot be ruled out. I am grateful to my colleague David Traill for help with this and other arguments in this article.