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Was Caesar born in 100 or in 102 B.C.?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

The view, originally advocated by Mommsen, and supported by the Comte de Salis, that Caesar was born in 102 B.C., was controverted by A. W. Zumpt and C. Nipperdey, and has recently been examined by Professor Monroe E. Deutsch, who comes to the following conclusion: ‘that Caesar secured a dispensation during 67 B.C. or early in 66 B.C., allowing him to hold the various offices two years before the legal age, seems the simplest solution of the problem.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © T. Rice Holmes 1917. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 145 note 1 Röm. Gesch. iii 8, 1889, p. 16Google Scholar, note (Eng. tr. v, 1894, p. 278, n. I).

page 145 note 2 Rev. arch. xiv, 1866, pp. 1722Google Scholar.

page 145 note 3 De dictatoris Caesaris die et anno natali, 1874, pp. 10–23.

page 145 note 4 See pp. 150–52, infra.

page 145 note 5 Trans. Amer. Philol. Assn. 1914, pp. 17–28.

page 145 note 6 According to Macrobius, (Sat. i, 12, 34Google Scholar), Caesar's birthday was the 12th of July; and his statement is supported by the Fasti Amiterni (C.l.L. i2, p. 244), in which we read that on July 12 ludi feriae were held ‘because Gaius Caesar wad born on that day’ (quod eo die C. Caesar est natus) and by the Fasti Antiates (ib. p. 248). Dio, however (xlvii, 18, 6), says that as the games in honour of Apollo were commonly held on Caesar's birthday, and as a passage in the Sibylline Books forbade that that day should be sacred to any god except Apollo, the triumvirs in 42 B.C. ordained that the preceding day should be observed as Caesar's birthday (καὶ (συνέβαινε γὰρ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ καὶ τὰ Ἀπολλώνεια γίγνεσθαι) ἐψηφίσαντο τῇ προτεραίᾳ τὰ γενέσια ἀγάλλεσθαι, ὡς καὶ λογίου τινὸς Σιβυλλείου ἀπαγορεύοντος μηδενὶ θεῶν τότε πλὴν τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι ἑορτάζεσθαι). These games were at that time celebrated on eight successive days, July 6–13; and accordingly some scholars have explained Dio's statement as meaning that Caesar's birthday was to be kept on July 5 (C.I.L. i, 396; cf. W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals, etc. 1899, p. 174). If so, it would follow that, according to Dio, he was born on the 6th. But Dio, who did not refer to the eight days on which the games were held, but to one only, and that the most important, was of course thinking of July 13, on which day alone the ludi Apollinares were originally held (see Warde Fowler, Op. cit. p. 180, and C.I.L. i, p. 396, i2, p. 286). His statement cannot be explained away, and it therefore seems to me probable that the compilers of the two calendars were misled into supposing that Caesar was born on the 12th of July, on which his birthday was kept, whereas his birthday was really the 13th, and that Macrobius followed them. [I find that A. W. Zumpt (op. cit. pp. 8–9), who argues, as I have done, that the day which Dio had in mind was July 13, supposes that those who compiled the calendars were aware, but did not think it necessary to explain, that Caesar was really born on that day. Christ, W. (Sitzungsher. d. phil.-philol. … Classe d. K. b. Akad. d. Wiss. zu München, i, 1876, pp. 194–5Google Scholar) points out, as a further reason for regarding July 13 as the day of the ludi Apollinares, that on it the games took place in the Circus (see C.I.L. i2, pp. 244, 248) and that the last days of the ludi Cereris (ib. pp. 225, 260–1) and of the ludi Augustales (ib. pp. 245, 249) were also the solemn days.]

page 145 note 7 ii, 41, 2.

page 145 note 8 Caes. 69, 1.

page 145 note 9 Divus lulius, 88.

page 145 note 10 B.C. ii, 149, 620.

page 145 note 11 vi, 24.

page 145 note 12 Bell. Hisp. 31, 8.

page 146 note 1 op.cit. pp. 17–18.

page 146 note 2 ib. p. 18.

page 146 note 3 Cic. De imp. Cn. Pompei, 21, 62; App. B.C. iii, 88, 361.

page 146 note 4 ii, 43, 1.

page 147 note 1 Cf. Livy, Epit. 89 with Licinianus (ed. Flemisch), p. 31, 11. 1–3, Ps. Aurelius Victor (De vir.ill. 77), and Eutropius, v, 9. See also Plut. Pomp. 46. 1, 79. 2, and App. B.C. i, 121, 560. The former wrongly says that Pompey was not quite 40 when he celebrated his third triumph [in 61 B.C.], and that he died at the age of 59; the latter that when he stood in 71 B.C. for the consulship he was in his 34th year ! Cf. Plut. Pomp. 46, 1.

page 147 note 2 op. cit. pp. 19–20.

page 147 note 3 ii, 53, I.

page 147 note 4 op. cit. 20–23.

page 147 note 5 Dial. 34, 8.

page 147 note 6 Cat. 49, 2.

page 147 note 7 Phil. ii, 46, 118.

page 147 note 8 Cat. 54, 1.

page 148 note 1 op. cit. p. 19, n. 10.

page 148 note 2 Coin Types, 1905, p. 179.

page 148 note 3 Hist. Roman Coins, 1909, pp. 101–3 (cf. Mr. M. O. B. Caspari's article in The Numismatic Chronicle, 1911, p. 104).

page 148 note 4 Descrn…. des monn. de la république Tom. ii, 1886, pp 1819Google Scholar.

page 148 note 5 See R. Cagnat, Cours d'épigr. lat. 2, 1890, p.31.

page 148 note 6 Doctrina numorum veterum, vi, 1795, pp. 6, 16.

page 148 note 7 Mém. de la Soc. franç. de numism. etc. Section d'attributions numism. 1873, pp. 7–8.

page 148 note 8 Caesar was saluted as imperator in Spain (Plut. Caes. 12, 2) and again in Gaul (Cic. Fam. vii, 5). It has been wrongly stated that he was imperator iterum in 45 B.C.; and even if this were true, a portrait of Vercingetorix would be out of place on coins minted a year after Caesar's Gallic triumph and after Vercingetorix had been put to death.

I learn from Rev. numism. 1867, p. 464, that Borghesi in 1823 interpreted 111 as 52, and accordingly referred the coins to 48 B.C., for he assumed that Caesar was born in 100 (cf. Eckhel, op. cit. p. 16).

page 148 note 9 Babelon, , Descrn. etc. ii, 1718Google Scholar.

page 148 note 10 op. cit. p. 21.

page 149 note 1 Cf. Caes. B.C. i, 32–3Google Scholar with Cic. Att. ix, 17, 1Google Scholar; x, 8, 6; and x, 8B. See also O. E. Schmidt, Der Briefwechsel, etc. 1893, pp 167, 69, 173.

page 149 note 2 B.G. viii, 54, 3–4; B.C. i, 25, 1. I include the legion called Alaudae.

page 149 note 3 op. cit. p. 25.

page 149 note 4 19, 52.

page 149 note 5 The Ms. readings are magistratus (δ) and magna (V). Halm propsed as an emendation magistratum.

page 149 note 6 op. cit. pp. 26–28.

page 150 note 1 Abhandl. d. philol.-hist. Classe d. Königl. sächs. Gesellschaft d. Wissensch. 1870, pp. 3–62 (see especially pp. 3–4, 37, 53–62).

page 150 note 2 Divus Iulius, 7, 1.

page 150 note 3 The legions of which Suetonius speaks were raised by Marcius Rex, who was consul in 68 B.C.

page 150 note 4 Röm. Staatsr. i 3, 1887, p. 570Google Scholar, n. 1.

page 151 note 1 De lege agr. ii, 2, 3.

page 151 note 2 Phil. v, 17, 48.

page 151 note 3 op. cit. p. 52.

page 151 note 4 ib. pp. 57–8.

page 152 note 1 Röm. Staatsr. i 3, 1887, pp. 568, n. 2, 569, n. 2Google Scholar.