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Hirtius and the Bellum Alexandrinum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Lindsay G. H. Hall
Lindsay G. H. Hall
Affiliation:
Highgate School, London
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Extract

Caesar left off writing de Bello Gallico at the end of the Alesia campaign in 51 B.C., and his account of the civil war begins in January 49. There was therefore a gap ofa year and more between the narratives in the two collections of Caesar's own Commentaries. Some time soon after Caesar's death, his officer A. Hirtius decided toknit together these unlinked narratives, supplying a preface to account for hisprocedure. It is usually assumed, and it is assumed here, that this Preface, whichappears at the start of B.G. 8 in the MSS, should be taken to mean that its author wasthe author too of the book immediately following, which connects de Bello Gallico with de Bello Civili by narrating, essentially, the transactions of the year 50.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 411 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

1 Rather than being a purely conventional literary plural (as for example in Cic.adfam.5.12), however, nobismay reflect the fact that both men will have heard Caesar talk of these campaigns

2 Or ‘are partly known…’, if ex partebe taken with nota.In another context, Caesarissermonemight be taken to mean ‘in Caesar's own words’, thereby implying as much written as oral information. But earlier Hirtius has noted that there were no Commentarii by Caesar after the end of B.C. 3 (that is, on any reconstruction of the disputed text at Praef. 2, ‘non †comparantibus† superioribus atque insequentibus eius scriptis’), and the point made in the rest of the sentence quoted in the text above (‘tamen aliter audimus ea quae rerum novitate aut admiratione nos capiunt, aliter quae pro testimonio sumus dicturi’), dependent on audimus, would make little sense if anything other than oral information were at issue.

3 ‘ipsi hominesingeniosi…quae a nobisfieri viderant’ etc.; 19.6: ‘pugnabatur a nobis exponte, ex mole’. In order defend their belief in Hirtius‘ authorship, Nipperdey and Klotz reached for their scalpels, emending nobisin these passages to nostris;but as will become clear, surgery is unnecessary.

4 Rambaud, Cf. M., L'art de la deformation historique chez César(2nd. edn.Paris, 1966), 61ff?Google Scholar

5 Temperamentally both a literary perfectionist and something of workaholic, Caesar is likely to have insisted on reports and other military documentation being meticulously kept by subordinates.

6 Adcock, F. E., Caesar as Man of Letters(Cambridge, 1956), 102,Google Scholar describes Hirtius as a ‘literary adjutant’ to Caesar; cf. Rambaud (n. 4), 58. For Caesar′s secretariat, see especially Malitz, J., ‘Die Kanzlei Caesars. Herrschaftsorganisation zwischen Republik und Prinzipat’, Historia 36(1987), 5Iff.Google Scholar

7 See e.g.Adams, J. N., ‘The language of the Vindolanda writing tablets: an interim report’, JRSS5(1995), 86–134, at 86 n. 7.Google Scholar

8 ‘De glorialibrum ad te misi, et in eo prohoemium id quod est in Academico tertio. id evenit ob earn rem, quod habeo volumen prohoemiorum: ex eo eligere soleo, cum aliquid ρv³³σ±µµ±institui. itaque iam in Tusculano, qui non meminissem me abusum isto prohoemio, conieci id in eum librum, quern tibi misi. cum autem in navi legerem Academicos, adgnovi erratum meum. itaque statim novum prohoemium exaravi et tibi misi.tu illud desecabis, hoc adglutinabis.’ It is further illustrative of my main point here that Cicero can doubt whether a letter purporting to come from Caesar may not in fact have been composed by Hirtius and Balbus (Att.11.16.1).

9 ‘Hirtius a peu transformé’ these dispatches, and was ‘peu independent de ses sources’—Rambaud (n. 4), 76ff.; Adcock (n. 6), 102f.

10 A. von Premerstein, REIV 726ff.;Oppermann, H., Caesar. Der Schriftsteller undsein Werk(Berlin/Leipzig, 1933), 7;Google ScholarBmer, F., Hermes 81 (1953), 210ffGoogle Scholar

11 B.G. 3.1–6,at least in part, belong chronologically at the end of Book 2 but were postponed, probably because the account of Galba′s undistinguished performance would have left an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth at the end of the otherwise resoundingly successful (as Caesar would have them seem) campaigns of 57; and B.C. 2continues the account of the year 49 in B.C.1, probably because of the unusual scale of Book 1, and the limitations of papyrus–roll lengths (Patzer, 118f.).

12 It is not material to my main point here whether Caesar wrote the Commentarieseach year—which I believe—or at one sitting in late 52 or 51.

13 My thanks to the editors of CQand to their referee for their sympathetic help in improving an earlier draft of this note.