Page images
PDF
EPUB

Pompeius from Italy. His march followed the line of the present Ancona and Brindisi railway.

27. c. 24. Brundisium. The name is Italian, and, as we learn from Strabo (6. 3), meant 'the stag's head;' from the shape of the harbour with its many branches. The passage to Dyrrhachium is reckoned (ib.) at 1800 stadia; which, as Gibbon remarks (v. 232), is double the true distance.

30. ccc equites conficit-to match Caesar's Noric horse.

Alba. This was probably the Alba near Rome; not the Alba Forentina above mentioned.

14. 4. N. Magius Cremona, that is, 'Numerius Magius of Cremona ;' engineer-in-chief to Pompeius.

II. c. 25. cum legionibus vi. Supra, c. 6, note 2.

15. Dyrrhachium. (From dùs, paxía, 'the place of heavy surf,' as we may conjecture.) It was the Epidamnus (or, -um) of Thucydides and Shakespeare; the latter name is said by Pliny to have sounded ill-omened to the Romans; whence its change. Its modern name is Durazzo (Gibbon, 1. c.). The consuls had been sent on, because they were losing heart, and beginning to wish for peace.

18. extremis Italiae partibus. The meaning seems to be, that he might be master of the Adriatic at the extreme south point of Italy and the extreme north point of Greece, so as to be able to manage the war in either of the countries, as he pleased.' That is, he might, if he succeeded in levying an army in Greece, either bring it back with him to Brindisi, or force Caesar to follow him to Durazzo.

22. administrationes, the working of the harbour.' Caesar's operation is explained by a letter which Cicero saw from him at this time, saying, 'Conamur opus magnum et multorum dierum propter altitudinem maris... ab utroque cornu portus moles iacimus, ut aut illum quam primum traiicere quod habet Brundisii copiarum cogamus aut exitu prohibeamus.'

25. iaciebat,' he proceeded to throw an embanked mole from each side of the harbour mouth.'

26. By contineri non posset he means, 'could not be held together.'

27. rates duplices; a pair of rafts thirty feet square placed in a straight line with the mole (so as to continue it) in each direction. Instead of the accurate word ' utroqueversum' (which we find in Plautus), 'quoquoversum,' or 'quoqueversum,' is generally used by Latin authors. Scaliger and others propose to read LXXX instead of xxx; as the breadth of thirty feet would be insufficient for the works

to be constructed on the floating mole; and the change seems plausible, as Caesar was apparently imitating Alexander the Great, whose first mole at Tyre was two hundred feet broad, his second still wider. At the same time the reading in the text gives the towers a more natural distance from one another than if LXXX were read. Towers one hundred yards apart would have no effect in clearing with hand-missiles the decks of vessels approaching midway between them; as the cast of a javelin was not more than about forty yards.

6

33. cratibus ac pluteis, with mantlets of hurdle work,' probably covered with skins, that they might not be fired, and crenellated so as to afford shelter to the soldier up to the moment when he threw his javelin.

15. 9. c. 26. ita administrabat, ut. ., ' carried on these military operations without thinking that he need give up the hope of peace.'

12. ea res; and though his repeated attempts for peace made his attacks less impetuous and his plans incomplete.

13. omnibus rebus means on all accounts,' Bell. Gall. I. 4,

note I.

15. Rebilum. This officer had commanded the smaller camp at Alesia.

Libo was father-in-law of Sextus Pompeius; and had commanded in Etruria, till forced to retreat by Caesar's rapid advances.

19. fore ut.. discedatur, 'the result would be that they might lay down their arms on equitable conditions.'

20. cuius rei, and in case of such accommodation;' genitive on genitive (like ‘sine eius offensione animi,' in Bell. Gall. 1. 19). 26. aliquando, ' at length and finally.'

16. 2. c. 27. inaedificat, 'raised walls and cut deep trenches across the streets, planting in the latter fraises and palisades sharpened at the end.' A fraise' is a row of palisades set horizontally on the scarp of a ditch, or on a bank.

5. maximis.. trabibus, 'he barred with huge beams planted upright,' so as to make a stockade of enormous strength.

10. expedito loco, 'in a place out of the enemy's way.'

14. c. 28. concursantibus illis, ' as soon as they saw them mustering for withdrawal.'

15. vulgo ex tectis, 'made signs from the roofs at every point.' The scene must have been like that in Oporto in 1809, when 'a long loud shout in the town, and the waving of handkerchiefs from the windows gave notice that the French had abandoned the lower city.' Napier, vol. ii. p. 107.

21. vallum caecum, 'the rampart where the outlets were built up ;' as caeca domus' means 'a windowless house.'

23. duas naves; as the French at Corunna managed to destroy a few of our last transports.

25. reprehensas excipiunt, and after grappling, they boarded them.'

[ocr errors]

31. c. 29. insequendi sui; an unusual gerundive, like docendi Caesaris' in c. 5, 'appellandorum regum' in c. 4, and 'Pompei sequendi,' below, in c. 30.

relinquebatur,' the only alternative was that he would have to wait for ships.'

32. a freto, from the strait of Messina' (after leaving Domitius' men in Sicily).

17. I. veterem exercitum, 'meantime he was unwilling that a veteran army should be collected for Pompeius, and the whole of Spain secured to his interest.'

[ocr errors]

2. altera.. devincta. Pompeius had given the Roman franchise to many Spaniards who had supported him in the war with Sertorius; and among them to the L. Corn. Balbus who was defended by Cicero against a charge of assuming citizenship wrongfully. As a counterpoise, however, to these inexpensive ‘beneficia,' his own letter to the Senate says, with sufficient candour, Hispaniam citeriorem. . nos aut Sertorius ad internecionem vastavimus,' Sall. Fr. 3. 1. Caesar's resolution to go to Spain arose from an almost instinctive feeling in a Roman general, prevailing since the time of the Second Punic War, leading them to consider Spain as important as Italy itself. See Arn. Hist. Rome, vol. iii. p. 81; where this point is well brought out. Indeed we

find from Cic. Att. 7. 18, that Pompeius had himself thought of retiring thither.

3. Galliam Italiamque temptari, and that attempts should be made to win Italy and Gaul;' probably by outbidding the offers of political privilege made to them by Caesar and the liberals—a policy not yet obsolete.

6. c. 30. duumviris. Cp. supra, c. 23, note 1.

8. in Sardiniam. His aim was to possess himself at once of the three grain-producing provinces, Sicily, Sardinia, Africa. Meantime Pompeius was intending suffocare urbem et Italiam fame' (Cic. Att. 9. 7), and to lead a host of barbarians against his country in support of the sacred rights of the nobility (Cic. ad Att. 8. 11). In another place Cicero says that Pompeius sullaturit et proscripturit,' like Lentulus in

c. 4.

[ocr errors]

F

12. Cotta. Supra, 3. 6, note 8.

21. adventu Curionis cognito. This participial construction is more immediate to the verb than that which immediately precedes it : like Xenophon's ἐπιθυμῶ ἐκταθεὶς, ὥσπερ Οδυσσεὺς, καθεύδων ἀφικέσθαι, ‘Ι should like to stretch myself out, and so get home asleep, as Ulysses did.' 26. confirmavisset, had positively stated.'

[ocr errors]

28. c. 31. nacti.. Valerius, Curio. The oxμа кað öλov kaì μépos, like οὗτοι μὲν ἄλλος ἄλλο λέγει.

vacuas ab imperiis, ‘finding Sardinia and Sicily in the hands of no magistrates.'

33. sua sponte, ‘had occupied it by his own authority.'

18. 2. nactus aditus,' having found means.'

4. portu.. prohibet; although Tubero was on his own side.

7. c. 32. ut reliquum tempus. . intermitteretur, in order that the time (until he marched for Spain) might be a break in their labours.' Kraner quotes Bell. Gall. 7. 70, 'planicies intermissa collibus.'

9. ad urbem; to Rome, where, in spite of the tribune Metellus, he took possession of the treasury.

13. latum ab X tribunis. 'A resolution,' he said, ' had been moved by the whole body of the tribunes.'

16. cur ferri passus esset. The unusual subjunctive in an obliquely expressed question, is caused by the 'qui' having already occurred in the nominative at the beginning of the sentence, so as to make the oblique construction impossible. See above, c. 9, note 6.

[ocr errors]

21. in se recusarent, refused in their own case,' like ' quod in Nerviis fecisset,'' illi dolebant in adolescentulo,' &c.

omnia permisceri mallent. Cp. above, c. 7 (ad fin.).

23. eripiendis legionibus; in taking from him the two legions mentioned in c. 4, and Bell. Gall. 8. 54.

[ocr errors]

24. in circumscribendis tribunis. The word 'circumscribo' means legally to embezzle' ('circumscriptis H.S DCCC'). In Cic. Mil. 33 it is used as equivalent to coerceo;' and the meaning is the same here.

26. ut rempublicam suscipiant. Something like a senate had been convened, in the absence of the consuls, by the tribunes Antonius and Cassius.

31. ad quos legati mitterentur, 'that when ambassadors are sent to any one, that person is ipso facto acknowledged as an authority.' 33. haec.. videri, 'such apprehensions as these seem to show a weak and unstable mind.'

ut.. studuerit is the oblique of 'ut studui.' So 'ut optasti, ita est would be in the oblique ut optarit, ita esse.'

[ocr errors]

19. 4. c. 33. eodem. . habiturum loco, that he would treat in the same way.' So obsidis loco mitti' means 'to be sent as a hostage' (the phrase 'esse obsidi' being inadmissible).

7. subicitur, 'was set on by Caesar's enemies.'

atque.. pervenit. Caesar does not dwell for a moment on such a trifle as posting at full speed from Rome to Lyons. Modern writers, more diffuse, give us full accounts of Napoleon's mode of travelling, as Gleig, in the Campaign of Leipzig.' The latter might serve as a description of the former.

15. c. 34. Domitium. His tenacity in opposing Caesar would arise partly from his being Cato's brother-in-law, partly from the terrible humiliation to which his soldiers had just subjected him at Corfinium. 17. Igilium, the island off Cosa in Etruria.

colonis suis, 'with his agricultural tenants.'

23. Albici.

Riez.

Their name remains in the town of Albiosc near

25. ex omnibus castellis, 'from all the outlying forts.'

26. officinas' opificinas.'

28. c. 35. quindecim primos. These were the presidents of a council of 600 tiμoûxoi, an oligarchical constitution which made them side with Pompeius and the Senate. (Strabo 4. 1, dɩɩkoûvтαI ÅρIOTOKPATIKŵS οἱ Μασσαλιῶται πάντων εὐνομώτατα. Their fidelity to Rome itself had been secured, as Montesquieu (21. 11) points out, at an earlier time, by their jealousy of the superior power of Carthage in the Western part of the Mediterranean. The family of the Protiadae, supposed to be descended from the founders, had exercised an almost sovereign influence there.

20. I. ex auctoritate, 'by the authority of the whole senate.'

6. alter.. iis concesserit. In stating a historic fact, Caesar often, as here, uses the determinative instead of the reflexive pronouns. So Bell. Gall. 1. 5, 'persuadent Rauracis . . ut una cum iis proficiscantur.' Pompeius' concession of the Helvian and Volcian territory to Massilia was because many of the Gauls of the Roman province had aided Sertorius to keep the passes of the Alps against him, and attacked Massilia, which remained faithful. How and when the Salyes were given by Caesar to them does not appear; but the grant must have been important, as this nation, by its possession of Arles, commanded the navigation of the Rhone a little way up; while the Massaliots held the Fossa Mariana, which was the eastern outlet of that river.

[ocr errors]

II. c. 36. haec dum.. aguntur, while they thus professed neutrality.'

« PreviousContinue »