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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 

Caesar's Commentarii have hardly been studied within the historiographical tradition – probably because of their generic difference from historia Footnote 1 and, more generally, alleged overall sparseness, famously and influentially compared to nudity.Footnote 2 While their relationship to Greek historians has received some haphazard attention,Footnote 3 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.Footnote 4

First, a few general observations on why Caesar should have been acquainted with Sisenna's work. It earned the contemporary praise of Cicero (Leg. 1.7): Sisenna … omnis adhuc nostros scriptores … facile superauit.Footnote 5 This estimation seems to have been shared by Sallust who, a few years later, in all likelihood paid homage to his predecessor by beginning his Histories where Sisenna's had left off (around 79 b.c.).Footnote 6 And Varro, finally, acknowledged the reputation of the historian by naming the Logistoricus Sisenna vel de historia after him.Footnote 7 Such a work would not have escaped the attention of a leading intellectual like CaesarFootnote 8 who, as a matter of fact, had yet another reason to be interested in it. For Sisenna firmly believed in analogy as the fundamental morphological principle of the Latin language, as evidenced by, most famously, ‘patres familiarum’ (which he promoted instead of ‘patres familias’).Footnote 9 While this innovation appears to have been successful,Footnote 10 many others did not convince native speakers of Latin; the list of hapax legomena in Sisenna's work is fairly long,Footnote 11 and not for nothing did Cicero quip that the historian considered recte loqui to be equivalent to inusitate loqui.Footnote 12 Given that Caesar composed a treatise De analogia,Footnote 13 it is hard to believe that ‘der Fortsetzer und … Gegner Sisennas’ was not well versed in the work of the foremost and most controversial analogist of his time; and it has been suggested by Elizabeth Rawson that Caesar's famous sententious advice in his linguistic treatise – tamquam scopulum sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum (Gell. NA 1.10.4) – was directed against Sisenna's uncommon way of speaking.Footnote 14 Such closer engagement on Caesar's part with Sisenna might also explain why Cicero, having characterized Sisenna as a quasi emendator sermonis usitati who embraces the principle of inusitate loqui, immediately turns to Caesar who rationem adhibens consuetudinem vitiosam et corruptam pura et incorrupta consuetudine emendat (Brut. 259–61) – just as if he wanted to contrast the two. Be that as it may, there are plenty of reasons why we should look for traces of Sisenna's work and language in Caesar's Commentarii, the six clearest instances of which will now be presented in chronological order, to be followed by four highly doubtful cases which will indirectly strengthen the case for the former.

Post principia paulatim recedunt atque inde cum paucis fugae se mandant, writes Sisenna (Hist. 28 [P34]), introducing the choice expression se fugae mandare.Footnote 15 Latin literature accommodates a great number of expressions signifying ‘to flee’, ranging from the prosaic fugere to the poetic terga dare fugae (Prop. 4.2.54). Sisenna's expression had only a very limited afterlife,Footnote 16 which makes it all the more surprising that it has six attestations in the Corpus Caesarianum. A favourite expression with Caesar, who uses it four times, it occurs for the first time in BGall. 1 (12.3): reliqui sese fugae mandarunt atque in proximas silvas abdiderunt;Footnote 17 Hirtius employs it once, as does the author of the Bellum Africum, varying mandare with commendare.Footnote 18

It is also during this first campaign season in Gaul that Caesar has to measure up to the Germanic leader Ariovistus who, in communication with the Roman leader, wonders what Caesar is doing in his, Ariovistus', Gaul (quid in sua Gallia … 1.34.4). This is said in response to Caesar's attempt to set up a meeting, which Ariovistus declares impossible (BGall. 1.34.3): … nequeexercitum sine magno commeatu atque molimento [Faernus : emolumento vel emulomento codd.] in unum locum contrahere posse. The word molimentum, corrupted in the manuscripts by dittography but rightly restored by Faernus and accepted by all recent editors, is rare. There are a total of ten instances in all of Latin literature, most of which in historical texts;Footnote 19 Sisenna is the first to use it (Hist. 73 [P72]): Galli contra magno cum molimento ac perpetuo sonu procedunt.Footnote 20 A Caesarian debt to Sisenna seems particularly likely since Ariovistus, if he had not used a litotes (neque … sine), would have said cum magno (or magno cum) commeatu atque molimento. One might also want to mention that this fragment of Sisenna's belongs, as is generally assumed,Footnote 21 to the same context as the following (Hist. 72 [P71]): <G> al<l>i materibus aut lanceis tamen medium perturbant agmen. materis is, Nonius tells us with reference to this passage, a generic term for a Gallic lance (556.6M = 892 L). The word is surprisingly rare in Latin literature: five times in total, whereof two occur in SisennaFootnote 22 and one in Caesar (BGall. 1.26.3): inter carros rotasque mataras ac tragulas subiciebant.Footnote 23 However, aside from the variant orthographies, two circumstances make Caesar's dependence on Sisenna with regard to the ‘Gallic lance’ less probable: surely Caesar would have had ample opportunity to come upon it himself during his proconsulship in Gaul;Footnote 24 and if, as seems likely, it was also used in Rhet. Her. 4.32.43 (si quis … Gallos significans: ‘nec tam facile ex Italia materis [Victor: matris M, armatura E] Transalpina depulsa est’), it would have enjoyed too wide a currency in the first century b.c. to make an individual debt likely.

In the fifth year of the war, Caesar's finest legate Labienus, confronted with the Treveri under the leadership of Indutiomarus, pretends to be frightened and holed up in his camp, only to stage a surprise attack on the disorderly departing Gauls (BGall. 5.58.3): … sub vesperum dispersi ac dissipati discedunt. subito Labienus duabus portis omnem equitatum emittit. Caesar here imitates a sound effect in Sisenna, who had made similar use of the prefix di(s)–, while also using the conjunction ac and the memorable (and quite rare) verb dispalo(r) Footnote 25 (Hist. 36 [P35]): dispalati ab signis digressi omnes ac dissipati. Furthermore, just like Sisenna, Caesar produces a fine example of an amplificatio brought about by congeries.Footnote 26 An imitation seems very probable.

A similarly noteworthy sound pattern occurs in BGall. 7. Vercingetorix, accused by his own men of treachery (proditionis insimulatus, 7.20.1), eloquently defends his actions and successfully sways his Gallic audience. In consequence, Caesar writes, conclamat omnis multitudo et suo more armis concrepat (7.21.1). He employs the onomatopoeic concrepare nowhere else in his works, which, in conjunction with armis, occurs just twice more in all of Latin literature and only once before Caesar:Footnote 27conglobati et collecti concrepant armis (Hist. 106 [P64]), writes Sisenna, whose consonant verb forms, especially the repetition of the prefix con-, seem to have inspired Caesar as well.Footnote 28

In the early phase of the civil war, in the midst of the Spanish campaign, Caesar as well as the Pompeians Afranius and Petreius realize that nearby defiles promise a sizeable strategic advantage; consequently (BCiv. 1.68.1): Caesar exploratis regionibus albente caelo omnes copias castris educit magnoque circuitu nullo certo itinere exercitum ducit. The highlighted expression, often misunderstood,Footnote 29 is exceedingly rare; the TLL lists a total of six instances, only one of which is prior to Caesar.Footnote 30 Sisenna writes (Hist. 121 [P103]): innox<i>os trementibus artubus repente extrahis [some edd. read extrahit] atque in labro summo fluminis, caelo albente. While several readers of Caesar have pointed out this precedent in Sisenna,Footnote 31 two related circumstances have, to my knowledge, not yet received proper attention. On the one hand, thanks to Quintilian, we know that Sisenna was indeed the first to use this expression (Inst. 8.3.35): idem (sc. Cicero) putat a Terentio primum dictum esse ‘obsequium’, Caecilius a Sisenna ‘albenti caelo’; this attested origin of the expression with Sisenna strongly suggests that Caesar owed it to him. This is the more likely as the latter seems to have borrowed another expression from that very fragment: Sisenna's in labro summo fluminis is noteworthy; while labrum is, unsurprisingly, frequently attested before and after Sisenna, its metaphorical application to a riverbed is unprecedented.Footnote 32 One might therefore wonder whether, without it, Caesar would have written (BGall. 7.72.1): … ut eius fossae solum tantundem pateret, quantum summa Footnote 33fossae labra distarent.

There are a further four parallels between Caesar and Sisenna which, however, are significantly less likely to represent Caesarian debts. The usage of apertus as a military technical term signifying ‘exposed’ is not attested before Sisenna (Hist. 35 [P15]):Footnote 34adoriuntur aversos ut apertis lateribus. This meaning of apertus occurs frequently in Caesar's Commentarii, for the first time in BGall. 1.25.6:Footnote 35ex itinere nostros latere aperto adgressi. The similarities between the two expressions are obvious; but this meaning of apertus is fairly widespread, occurring in a variety of genres (see e.g. Verg. Aen. 10.313–14 huic gladio perque aerea suta, | per tunicam squalentem auro latus haurit apertum), which should caution against the assertion of a specific Caesarian debt.

At the height of crisis in the battle against the Nervii, the arrival of the tenth legion in the Roman camp causes a turn-around, saving the day (BGall. 2.27.1–2): horum adventu tanta rerum commutatio est facta ut nostri, etiam qui vulneribus confecti procubuissent, scutis innixi proelium redintegrarent, calones perterritos hostes conspicati etiam inermes armatis occurrerent, equites vero, ut turpitudinem fugae virtute delerent, omnibus in locis pugnando se legionariis militibus praeferrent. The highlighted antithetical juxtaposition can be compared to Sisenna (Hist. 66 [P73]): inermos armat<i>, impeditos expediti sine ullo suorum vulnere cunctos interficiunt,Footnote 36 which is the more memorable for the repetition of the rhetorical device in impeditos expediti. But the situation is complicated by the facts that the opposition of ‘armed’ and ‘unarmed’ is quite frequent in Latin literatureFootnote 37 and Cicero uses it in a speech delivered in 69, albeit in a slightly different way, in a context marked by an allusion to the Iudicium armorum (Caecin. 62):Footnote 38nam tum quidem omnis mortalis implorare posses, quod homines in tuo negotio Latine obliviscerentur, quod inermi armati iudicarentur …

Caesar is fond of the expression eruptionem facere; he uses it fourteen times (eight of which are in passive constructions),Footnote 39 as at BGall. 3.6.1: quod iussi sunt faciunt, ac subito omnibus portis eruptione facta neque cognoscendi quid fieret neque sui colligendi hostibus facultatem relinquunt. Sisenna is the first author in whose work the phrase is attested (Hist. 55 [P86]):Footnote 40neque porta neque ullum foramen erat, qua posset eruptio fieri. But the expression can also be found in a letter by Cicero to Atticus (Att. 2.24.3), dating to 59,Footnote 41 which suggests a currency that once again makes a Caesarian debt to Sisenna hardly likely.

Lastly, in preparation of the battle at Dyrrachium, Pompey assembles his troops (BCiv. 3.62.2): … magnum numerum levis armaturae et sagittariorum aggeremque omnem noctu in scaphas et naves actuarias imponit et de media nocte cohortes LX ex maximis castris praesidiisque deductas ad eam partem munitionum ducit, quae pertinebat ad mare longissimeque a maximis castris Caesaris aberat. The castra Caesar speaks of are called maxima so as to differentiate them from the numerous castella both Roman leaders had built in their attempt to cut each other off from their supply lines (cf. BCiv. 3.43.1–2, 44.2–3).Footnote 42 This expression, which does not occur elsewhere in Caesar's extant works, is noteworthy and rare.Footnote 43 For why – since the term castra alone marks the difference from the castella Footnote 44 – are the castra further specified by the superlative maxima? Sisenna had already used the expression, and in a very similar fashion (Hist. 110 [P65]):Footnote 45praetor festinatim de castellis ad castra maxima peditis conducit. But so did Cicero in an epistolary mini-commentarius sent from Cilicia to Cato in Rome around 51 (Fam. 15.4.10): vallo et fossa circumdedi (sc. oppidum), sex castellis castrisque maximis saepsi … This alone suggests a wider currency of the term, which in turn makes a direct debt to Sisenna by Caesar very questionable.

Another occurrence, in the Bellum Africum, might shed more light on the meaning and origin of the expression (BAfr. 51.2): Caesar … in eo colle quo erat potitus castra munivit. Deinde ab suis maximis castris per medium campum e regione oppidi Uzittae … duo brachia instituit ducere et ita derigere ut ad angulum dextrum sinistrumque eius oppidi convenirent. Here the castra maxima are not opposed to castella but to the castra in colle nuperrime capto posita, as Wölfflin rightly remarks.Footnote 46 Similarly later in Livy (23.49.7): … cohortatique oppidanos, ut eodem animo moenia tutarentur quo pro se pugnantem Romanum exercitum uidissent, ad castra maxima oppugnanda, quibus Hasdrubal praeerat, ducunt. Here again the castra maxima are contrasted with other castra (cf. trina castra hostium, 23.49.6). These five instances seem to suggest that castra maxima was a military technical term used irrespective of the size of the other camps. Wölfflin's translation ‘Hauptlager’, though apparently deduced solely from the passage in BAfr., seems right and is, in fact, applicable to all other instances. It would also seem significant that the expression is, with the exception of Livy, used by authors of military experience.

In sum, while the fragmentary state of Sisenna's text does not allow us to look for any particular reasons Caesar might have had to think of his predecessor's specific treatment, it seems clear that, in spite of the two historians' linguistic and stylistic differences, Caesar was not only familiar with Sisenna's work – he liked some of it well enough to imitate it in his own work.Footnote 47

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.