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THE CUES OF CAESAR
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FRANCIS W. KELSEY
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KINIVERSITY OF MICHIOWN
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IV
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
VOLUME II
·Jan 07
DECEMBER 1906
THE CUES OF CAESAR
BY FRANCIS W. KELSEY
University of Michigan
In the last volume of the transactions of the American Philological
Association¹ I presented some considerations which seemed to
warrant the conclusion that Caesar wrote the seven books of the
Gallic War in the winter of 52–51 B.˚C., and gave to them, not the
title familiar to us, but the title C. Iuli Caesaris commentarii rerum
gestarum; that he composed rapidly, arranging the material by
years, and referred back when necessary to preceding portions of the
work by memory, for this reason using "indefinite references (as
ut, or ut ante, or ut supra demonstravimus; ut, or ut supra demon-
stratum est) instead of the more definite references ordinarily used by
writers who make a greater labor of composition and write more
deliberately." Since he avoided exact citation, he had no occasion
to employ in his text a word referring to a book; in neither the
Gallic nor the Civil War do we find liber or commentarius, though the
latter word is used by Hirtius in his supplement to the Gallic War,
which is printed in the editions as Book viii. The original title
can be restored only with the help of external evidence; but if
Caesar's manner of composition was such as I have stated, some
indications should appear in the text besides the indefiniteness of
the references to earlier portions of the narrative. Such indications
are to be found, I believe, in the cues by which the transitions are
made from one book to another.
1 Vol. XXXVI (1905), pp. 211–38.
49
NUMBER 2
159498
878
C20
K2
Cafey
50
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
All teachers of Caesar have probably noticed the mode of expres-
sion by which, with sufficient variation of language to avoid the
monotony of repetition, the opening sentences of the second and
following books of the Gallic War are so framed as to contain a
distinct reminiscence of the last sentences of the preceding books.
In order to make the matter more clear to ourselves, however, let
us arrange the corresponding portions of the text in parallel columns,
indicating the cues by means of italics.
CAESAR'S GALLIC WAR
END OF BOOK I
Caesar una aestate duobus maximis
bellis confectis . . . . in hiberna in
. in hiberna in
Sequanos exercitum deduxit; hibernis
Labienum praeposuit; ipse in citeri-
orem Galliam ad conventus agendos
profectus est.
END OF BOOK II
Quas legationes Caesar, quod in Ita-
liam Illyricumque properabat, inita
proxima aestate ad se reverti iussit;
ipse. legionibus in hiberna de-
ductis in Italiam profectus est. Ob
easque res ex litteris Caesaris dierum
xv supplicatio decreta est, quod ante
id tempus accidit nulli.
•
END OF BOOK III
Itaque vastatis omnibus eorum agris,
vicis aedificiisque incensis Caesar exer-
citum reduxit et in Aulercis Lexoviis-
que, reliquis item in civitatibus, quae
proxime bellum fecerant, in hibernis
conlocavit.
END OF BOOK IV
Caesar in Belgis omnium legionum
hiberna constituit; eo duae omnino
civitates ex Britannia obsides miserunt,
reliquae neglexerunt. His rebus gestis
ex litteris Caesaris dierum xx suppli-
catio ab senatu decreta est.
BEGINNING OF BOOK II
Cum esset Caesar in citeriore Gallia
[in hibernis], ita uti supra demonstra-
vimus, crebri ad eum rumores adfere-
bantur, litterisque item Labieni certior
fiebat omnes Belgas. . . . contra po-
pulum Romanum coniurare obsidesque
inter se dare.
BEGINNING OF BOOK III
Cum in Italiam proficisceretur Cae-
sar, Ser. Galbam cum legione duodeci-
ma et parte equitatus in Nantuatis,
Varagros Sedunosque misit, qui a
finibus Allobrogum et lacu Lemanno
et flumine Rhodano ad summas Alpes
pertinent.
BEGINNING OF BOOK IV
Ea, quae secuta est, hieme, qui fuit
annus Cn. Pompeio M. Crasso consuli-
bus, Usipetes Germani et item Tenc-
teri magna cum multitudine hominum
flumen Rhenum transierunt non longe
a mari, quo Rhenus influit.
BEGINNING OF BOOK V
L. Domitio Ap. Claudio consulibus
discedens ab hibernis Caesar in Italiam,
ut quotannis facere consuerat, legatis
imperat, quos legionibus praefecerat,
uti, quam plurimas possent, hieme
naves aedificandas veteresque refici-
endas curarent.
THE CUES OF CAESAR
51
END OF BOOK V
Hac re cognita omnes Eburonum et
Nerviorum, quae convenerant, copiae
discedunt pauloque habuit post id fac-
tum Caesar quietiorem Galliam.
END OF BOOK VI
Quibus cum aqua atque igni inter-
dixisset, duas legiones ad fines Tre-
verorum, duas in Lingonibus, sex reli-
quas in Senonum finibus Agedinci in
hibernis conlocavit frumentoque exer-
citui proviso, ut instituerat, in Italiam
ad conventus agendos profectus est,
BEGINNING OF BOOK VI
Multis de causis Caesar maiorem
Galliae motum exspectans per M. Si-
lanum, C. Antistium Reginum, T. Sexti-
um legatos dilectum habere instituit.
BEGINNING OF BOOK VII
Quieta Gallia Caesar, ut consti-
tuerat, in Italiam ad conventus agendos
proficiscitur. Ibi cognoscit de Clodii
caede; de senatusque consulto certior
factus, ut omnes iuniores Italiae con-
iurarent, dilectum tota provincia habere
instituit.
In the first place, we observe that Caesar appears as the subject,
expressed or understood, of the last or the next to the last sentence
of each book; and Caesar is expressed as the subject of the first
sentence of every book except the fourth, which has a special intro-
duction on the Usipetes and Tencteri.
Generally, moreover, the end of a book locates Caesar more or
less definitely, and the following book opens with a corresponding
reference to the location or situation. Thus the first book ends with
Caesar on the way to Hither Gaul, the second begins with the time
of his sojourn in Hither Gaul; the phrase in hibernis, which in the
majority of the better manuscripts appears in the first sentence of
Book ii, is apparently a scribe's careless repetition from hibernis in
the last sentence of Book i, hence is bracketed in critical texts and
usually omitted in school editions. The second book takes leave of
Caesar as he is starting for Italy; the third resumes the narrative at
the same point. The last chapter of Book iv represents him as just
having established winter quarters in Belgium; in the opening sen-
tence of Book v he is leaving the winter quarters for Italy. At the
end of Book vi and the beginning of Book vii substantially the same
words are found, referring to Caesar's trip to North Italy at the close
of 53 B. c. in order to hold court. And in the transitions of the remain-
ing books, though the local relations are less clearly indicated, we
find cues that are almost as easily recognized. At the end of Book
iii Caesar has placed his army "in winter camps," the context show-
ing that more than one camp is meant; the narrative of Book iv
begins by defining the time as "the winter which followed." Equally
Kateg
52
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
subtle, yet obvious, is the association of cues in the transition from
Book v to Book vi; at the end of the fifth book Caesar found “Gaul
more quiet;” at the beginning of the sixth he is "expecting a greater
agitation in Gaul."
In three of the six instances of transition between books, further-
more, the opening sentence contains a reference which is understood
only when the context is read in connection with the closing words
of the preceding book: ii, ita uti supra demonstravimus; iv, quae
secuta est; and vii, ut constituerat. But it is not necessary to carry
further the analysis of details, or to institute a comparison of the
transition cues between books with the turns of expression by means
of which Caesar maintains the connection between the smaller
sections of his narrative, the parts of books. We have no reason to
doubt that the division of the Gallic War into the seven books goes.
back to Caesar; and while we expect to find in all literary works of
size, modern as well as ancient, a more or less graceful bridging of
the gaps between the main parts, Caesar's transitions from book to
book of the Gallic War are so characteristic that we may think our-
selves justified in considering them a feature of his literary style.
We may proceed, then, to use this stylistic peculiarity as a test or
standard in examining the transitions of the books of the Civil War,
in order to ascertain, first, whether similar cues are to be found,
and, in the second place, whether their presence or absence throws
any light upon the question of the division of this work into books.
Leaving out of consideration the Alexandrian, African, and
Spanish Wars, it will be convenient to place side by side, for purposes
of comparison, the text of the end of Books i and ii, and the beginning
of Books ii and iii, of the Civil War as this is divided in the editions.
CAESAR'S CIVIL WAR
END OF BOOK I
Parte circiter tertia exercitus eo biduo
dimissa duas legiones suas antecedere,
reliquas subsequi iussit, ut non longo
inter se spatio castra facerent, eique
negotio Q. Fufium Calenum legatum
praefecit. Hoc eius praescripto ex His-
pania ad Varum flumen est iter factum,
atque ibi reliqua pars exercitus dimissa
est.
BEGINNING OF BOOK II
Dum haec in Hispania geruntur, C.
Trebonius legatus, qui ad oppugnati-
onem Massiliae relictus erat, duabus
ex partibus aggerem, vineas turresque
ad oppidum agere instituit.
THE CUES OF CAESAR
53
END OF BOOK II
Quorum cohortes militum ante oppi-
dum Iuba conspicatus, suam esse
praedicans praedam, magnam partem
eorum interfici iussit, paucos electos in
regnum remisit, cum Varus suam fidem
ab eo laedi quereretur neque resistere
auderet. Ipse equo in oppidum vectus
prosequentibus compluribus senatori-
bus, quo in numero, erat Ser. Sulpicius
et Licinius Damasippus, paucis [die-
bus], quae fieri vellet, Uticae constituit
atque imperavit diebusque post paucis
se in regnum cum omnibus copiis
recepit.
BEGINNING OF BOOK III
Dictatore habente comitia Caesare
consules creantur Iulius Caesar et P.
Servilius; is enim erat annus, quo per
leges ei consulem fieri liceret. His rebus
confectis, cum fides tota Italia esset
angustior neque creditae pecuniae sol-
verentur, constituit, ut arbitri darentur.
That the transition from Book i to ii of the Civil War has nothing
in common with the manner of transition between the books of the
Gallic War may be seen at a glance. Even the appearance of His-
pania at the end of Book i and the beginning of Book ii forms an
apparent, not a real, exception, for the use of haec in the first sentence
of Book ii, referring to events narrated at the end of Book i, indicates
a much closer connection of thought than appears in the relation
between the corresponding parts of any other two books. The form
of expression adopted in Dum haec in Hispania geruntur is in
Caesar's writings typical, if not stereotyped, and is invariably used
to effect a transition between the minor sections of the narrative,
hence in the best editions generally marks the beginning of a para-
graph; examples are B. G. iii. 17. 1, Dum haec in Venetis geruntur;
vii. 37. and 42. 1, Dum haec ad Gergoviam geruntur; vii. 75. 1, Dum
haec ad Alesiam geruntur; B. C. i. 56. 1, Dum haec ad Ilerdam ge-
runtur. In the last case the connection between the end of chap. 55,
and the beginning of chap. 56, is no closer than that between the
last sentence of Book i and the opening sentence of Book ii; on
grounds of style and connection it is not easy to see why the end of
Book i may not just as well be at the end of chap. 56 as of chap. 87.
But we shall return to this topic later.
The transition from Book ii to Book iii is of an altogether different
character. Book ii ends with the disastrous campaign of Curio in
Africa, and the closing sentences with consummate literary art, by
UorM
54
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
13
means of a few bold touches, show how the victory over Caesar's
hapless lieutenant meant the temporary ascendancy of the arrogant
and vindictive Juba, with the shedding of Roman blood ruthlessly
by barbarian bands. With the opening of the third book the scene
changes. There is a brief introduction of five chapters outlining
the military situation at the end of the year 49 as a prelude to the
account of the campaign of 48 to which the rest of the book, 107
chapters, is devoted. In this introduction we have in chaps. 1 and 2
a statement in regard to the actions and plans of Caesar, in chaps. 3
to 5, a summary of the preparations of Pompey for the final struggle;
chap. 6 begins the narrative of the campaign with Caesar's ad-
dress to his soldiers at Brundisium and his setting sail for Epirus
"on the day before the nones of January" 48 B. C. That the real
or solar date of the departure for Epirus was in the first week of
November, 49, according to the corrected calendar, has no bearing
upon our inquiry; for, in arranging his material by years, Caesar
naturally adopted the official, not the solar, year as his chronological
unit.
Th
At the beginning of this special introduction to Book iii we find
the names of the consuls for the year 48; for that is the year desig-
nated as is annus, ten years having elapsed since Caesar's first
consulship in 59, so that his second consulship to this extent had the
sanction of the old law by which (Liv. vii. 42. 1) cautum ne quis
eundem magistratum intra decem annos caperet; and his name is
given as Iulius Caesar instead of Caesar because it is mentioned in
an official connection. While we discern no cue to bridge the gap
between Books ii and iii, we nevertheless observe a generic resem-
blance between the special introduction at the beginning of Book iii
and that which is prefixed to Book iv of the Gallic War. The two
introductions are of about the same length; the latter contains 79
lines, the former 89, in the text of Kuebler. Both begin with the
names of the consuls of the year in which the events of the following
narrative fall; and while the totally different character of the subject-
matter necessitated a different treatment, so that a detailed com-
parison of the two introductions would be barren of results, it is easy
to recognize in them a similarity in respect to point of view, grasp,
and perspective. Both impress one as Caesarian, and as designed
Maou
THE CUES OF CAESAR
55
for precisely the places which they occupy, at the beginning of
books.
There is then no good reason to doubt that the third book of the
Civil War retains its original compass; at any rate we may rest
secure in the belief that the division between it and the preceding
book has from Caesar's time been where it appears in the editions.
The character of the transition from Book i to Book ii, however, when
contrasted with the other transitions between books, may well pro-
voke inquiry as to whether there is other evidence bearing upon
the division between these two books; and such evidence is not
lacking.
Students of Caesar have frequently remarked that Books i and
ii of the Civil War differ from all the other "commentaries" in this,
that the two together cover the events of a year. But Hirtius expressly
tells us that Caesar wrote a separate "commentary" for each year
(B. G. viii. 48. 10, Scio Caesarem singulorum annorum singulos
commentarios confecisse); and he feels called upon to explain why he
includes the events of two years (51 and 50 B. C.) in a single "com-
mentary." When he was writing this book he had not only Caesar's
Gallic War, but also the Civil War, before him; in his prefatory
letter to Balbus he says, in effect, that he has filled in the gap in
Caesar's writings; that is, the gap between the “commentaries" of
the Gallic and those of the Civil War. Had Caesar himself split
up the narrative of the events of the year 49 into two books, it is
reasonable to suppose that Hirtius would either have modified the
statement just quoted, or would have put somewhat differently his
apology for departing from a plan of Caesar's which Caesar himself
on this supposition had disregarded.
I
But again, the narrative of Books i and ii is continuous, and
curiously interlocked, in a manner corresponding with the wide
range and complication of the military operations described, which
were in part synchronous. It is not worth while to give here an
outline of the events of the two books in their order of narration;
let us rather group the military operations and note the chapters in
which they are treated.
*
1 Cf. "Hirtius' Letter to Balbus and the Commentaries of Caesar," in Classical
Philology, Vol. II, No. 1.
56
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
CONTENTS OF CAESAR'S CIVIL WAR, BOOKS I AND II
Introduction: Outbreak of the Civil War
Book i, chaps. I-7
1. The Campaign in Italy: Ariminum to Brundisium, Rome
i. 8-33
2. Siege of Massilia
i. 34-36, 56-58
ii. 1-16, 22
3. Operations in Spain
i. 37-55, 59-87
ii. 17-21
4. The Campaign of Curio in Africa
ii. 23-44
If Caesar had resolved to abandon his plan, elsewhere consistently
carried out, of devoting a single "commentary" to the events of
each year, and to set forth the events of the year 49 in two books, it
is not easy to see why he should not have brought Book i to a close.
at the end of chap. 33, so as to include the interlocked narrative
of the operations in Spain and about Massilia all in Book ii, which
with the campaign of Curio would still have been considerably
shorter than Book iii. From the point of view of the contents, the
division of matter between Books i and ii seems singularly infelici-
tous, and inconsistent with Caesar's standard of literary workman-
ship.
As Birt has shown, in his monograph Das antike Buchwesen, in
antiquity the size of the books of a work was governed by certain
conventions and in the same work, unless there were good reasons to
the contrary, the books were of approximately the same length. In the
Gallic War the books vary greatly in length, because Caesar adhered
rigidly to the annalistic principle of arrangement and the events of
some years required fuller treatment than those of others. Assuming
that he discarded this principle of arrangement when he wrote the
earlier part of the Civil War, we should expect to find him so dis-
tributing his matter that the books, in accordance with the current
convention, would be of nearly the same size. The lengths of the
three books as given by Birt (op. cit., p. 329) in standard lines
are as follows: i, 1,913; ii, 1,116; iii, 2,710. The irregularity in
respect to size is noteworthy. But assuming that the usual division
THE CUES OF CAESAR
57
of the matter of Books i and ii is wrong and that originally these were
one, we see that the single "commentary" thus composed would
contain 3,029 lines, only about 300 lines more than the present
Book iii; the former as well as the latter would fall within the norm
designated by Birt as "grösseres Format."
In view of the character of the transition from one book to the
other, the close relation of the contents, and the size, it is hard to
avoid the inference that Caesar wrote what are now Books i and ii
of the Civil War as a single "commentary."
commentary." But there is also
external evidence. In one of the best manuscripts of Caesar, Codex
Ashburnhamianus, now in Florence, while the seven books of the
Gallic War are numbered i to vii, and the "commentary" of Hirtius
is numbered viii, liber nonus appears at the beginning of the Civil
War and the text continues without a break to the end of what is now
Book ii, Book iii of the editions being numbered x. Since this
manuscript was described by Stangl in Philologus in 1886 (Vol.
XLV, pp. 213-20) the view has been maintained that this numbering
of books, of which traces appear also in a couple of inferior manu-
scripts, reflects an early arrangement of the Caesarian corpus. It
confirms the conclusion that the Civil War as left by Caesar consisted
of two "commentaries," of which the first contained Books i and ii
of the editions, and the second corresponded with our Book iii.²
This conclusion is by no means inconsistent with the view held by
many that the "commentaries" of the Civil War were unpublished
at the time of Caesar's death; but it cannot be reconciled with the
opinion that the manuscript as he left it contained no division into
books, the division into two as into three books being later and
entirely arbitrary.3 The manuscript of the Civil War was incom-
plete and had not received its final revision; it may have been a
M
1 Cf. Chatelain, Pal. des class. lat., I, pl. 50 A. 2.
2 The limits of this paper do not permit us to discuss here the transition from the
end of the second " Commentary" (now Book iii) of the Civil War to the Alexan-
drian War in the light of the hypothesis advanced by Zingerle (Wiener Studien,
XIV, pp. 75-119) that the first twenty-one chapters of this work are from the hand
of Caesar. It is obvious, however, that this transition conforms in type to those of
the Gallic War (end of Book iii, Haec initia belli Alexandrini fuerunt; beginning of
Alexandrian War, Bello Alexandrino conflato), and so far may be reckoned as evidence
in favor of Zingerle's view.
3 Cf. Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit. I2, p. 204.
1
58
THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL
draft prepared by an amanuensis from dictation. But the mind of
Caesar was marvelously keen and logical; and a fuller analysis
of the two "commentaries" of the Civil War, divided in the manner
indicated, will only confirm the impression that, whether they were
committed to writing by the dictator himself or by an amanuensis,
they were thought out and composed as separate units, cast in the
same mold as the "commentaries" of the Gallic War.
The cues of the Gallic War are significant as heightening the
impression of the unity of the work. They are a natural form of
transition between books for one who writes rapidly and consecu-
tively; had the books of the Gallic War been composed in different
years and published separately, it is inconceivable that they should
have been so artfully joined. It is not impossible that the less care-
ful joining of the beginning of Book iii of the Civil War with the end
of the preceding book may reflect haste and the interruptions in the
midst of which those books must have been composed.
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