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IRONY AND THE TEXT OF CAESAR, BELLVM GALLICVM 5.31.5

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2017

Rex Stem
Rex Stem*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
*
srstem@ucdavis.edu
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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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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , May 2017 , pp. 307 - 310
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

omnia excogitantur, quare nec sine periculo maneatur nec languore militum et uigiliis periculum augeatur.

et ω

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.Footnote 1 A. Klotz posited a lacuna after quare.Footnote 2 Others sought smaller adjustments.Footnote 3 Yet, the defence of the text as transmitted also drew advocates (T. Rice Holmes, A. Ernout, O. Seel) and the debate quietened.Footnote 4 The current Teubner edition, by W. Hering in 1987, prints the transmitted text and does not acknowledge the debate in the apparatus criticus.Footnote 5 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.

The text of the sentence in context, as printed by Hering, is as follows:

[5.31.4] pronuntiatur prima luce ituros. consumitur uigiliis reliqua pars noctis, cum sua quisque miles circumspiceret, quid secum portare posset, quid ex instrumento hibernorum relinquere cogeretur. [5] omnia excogitantur, quare nec sine periculo maneatur et languore militum et uigiliis periculum augeatur. [6] prima luce sic ex castris proficiscuntur ut quibus esset persuasum non ab hoste, sed ab homine amicissimo Ambiorige consilium datum, longissimo agmine maximisque impedimentis. [5.32.1] at hostes, posteaquam ex nocturno fremitu uigiliisque de profectione eorum senserunt, conlocatis insidiis …

The passage describes the hours after the tense disagreement between the legati Sabinus and Cotta over how to respond to the offer of Ambiorix to lead them away from an allegedly impending Gallic revolt to the safety of another Roman winter-camp. The debate over whether to stay or go continues into the middle of the night (res disputatione ad mediam noctem perducitur, 5.31.3), at which point Sabinus’ argument for evacuating the camp prevails and it is announced that the soldiers will leave at first light (5.31.4). Caesar is explicit that the men spend the rest of the night awake (uigiliis, ‘in wakefulness’, OLD s.v. 4), determining what could be taken and what had to be left. It is in this context, of soldiers awake all night and fretting about their dawn departure, that we come to 5.31.5.

The first part of the sentence is not in dispute: omnia excogitantur, quare nec sine periculo maneatur, ‘All reasons were devised as to why remaining would be not without danger’.Footnote 6 The force of the ex– in excogitantur suggests that these reasons are contrived and not genuine (OLD s.v.). Caesar is describing how the evacuation order was justified by playing up the danger instead of facing up to it, and his tone is sarcastic and critical.Footnote 7 The second clause after quare appears in the manuscripts as et languore militum et uigiliis periculum augeatur. This clause is conventionally understood as a claim that the danger of staying in the camp would be increased owing to the exhaustion that the troops would experience by standing watch.Footnote 8

This interpretation of the clause is fallible. First, it ignores the context of 5.31.5 directly after the announcement that the troops will be marching at first light. What is needed is an argument that justifies the decision to depart immediately, not an argument about future conditions in camp if the Romans were to stay. Second, the focus on the danger of standing watch is peculiar. Roman troops would regularly stand watch (see, for example, Polyb. 6.34.7-6.37.6), especially when under threat of attack, and it is not clear why maintaining that protocol would be a notable source of exhaustion or danger. The exhaustion and danger of enduring an enemy siege would encompass much more than standing watch, and the latter poorly epitomizes the former. Moreover, the understanding of uigiliis in 5.31.5 as ‘watches’ (OLD s.v. 1) is not apt.Footnote 9 The larger context of the passage reveals the difficulty. After a scathing sentence (5.31.6) describing how the Romans marched out in a long (and thus vulnerable) column with heavy baggage, as if Ambiorix were a good friend and not an enemy, Caesar then explains that the enemy has had the time to prepare an ambush because they perceived the Romans’ imminent departure ex nocturno fremitu uigiliisque, ‘from the noisy wakefulness during the night’ (5.32.1). This is precisely the sense of uigiliis in 5.31.4 when Caesar describes each man staying up all night to choose which of his possessions to carry with him. The conventional interpretation of 5.31.5 thus requires that uigiliis be understood differently in 5.31.5 than it is in 5.31.4 and in 5.32.1. Meusel's Lexicon Caesarianum reveals that these three occurrences of uigiliis are the only occurrences of uigilia in the plural in the whole of the Bellum Gallicum.Footnote 10 Given that they are clustered closely together in one passage, it would be jarring to have the middle occurrence understood differently. Such a variation seems especially hard to justify when it is not apparent why the usual practice of standing watch would markedly add to the soldiers’ exhaustion in these particular circumstances. The sense of uigiliis as ‘watches’ does not fit, and uigiliis should be understood as ‘wakefulness’ in 5.31.5, just as it is in 5.31.4 and in 5.32.1.

Once the idea of ‘watches’ is removed, then the clause, as it appears in the manuscripts, would be rendered ‘and the danger would be increased by the exhaustion of the soldiers and their wakefulness’. How can this clause make sense in context? What danger would their exhaustion increase? What danger is relevant in relation to a rationalization devised in the middle of the night in support of the order to depart at first light? Framing the question as such suggests the answer: the danger of the march about to be undertaken. Yet, an argument that the exhaustion of the men from staying up all night would increase the danger of their early-morning march works against the purpose of the sentence, for such an argument suggests that they should rest and wait to depart the camp. What the context of contrived justification requires is the opposite argument, namely that the danger would not be increased if they were to leave the camp at first light. I therefore propose to emend the text to fit the needed sense and replace et with nec. This change creates two parallel nec clauses that explain how the announced plan to leave at first light is justified: ‘All reasons were devised as to why remaining would be not without danger [of attack] and why the danger [of departing at first light] would not be increased by the exhaustion of the soldiers and their wakefulness.’Footnote 11

The unconvincing nature of the claim that marching, when exhausted, does not increase the danger of the march is part of the rhetorical goal of the sentence, for Caesar disapproves of these justifications and is presenting them as elements of the flawed thinking that led these soldiers into a fatal trap. The Roman forces should not have feared danger and sought to escape it, and they should not have trusted Ambiorix. Even if they did have to evacuate, they should not have done so after a night without sleep in a long column laden with baggage. It is possible that the corruption of nec to et resulted solely from palaeographical confusion,Footnote 12 but it could also have arisen through the failure of a copyist to perceive how the irony of the passage emerges through the weak logic of the justifications for departure. However the et appeared, a consistent and appropriate understanding of 5.31.5 can best be achieved by negating it.

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.