Bellum Alexandrinum: 36.4

Bellum Alexandrinum

Cynthia Damon, et al.

Society for Classical Studies

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Virgina K. Felkner

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Dallas Simons

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Tom Vozar

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Marcie Persyn

Coauthor of content related to sections 35.3 and 36.4–5:

Maria Kovalchuk

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Tim Warnock

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Isabella Reinhardt

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Brian Credo

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Amelia Bensch-Schaus

Coauthor of content related to sections 72.2–3 and 74.4:

Wes Hanson

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36.4–5

Maria Kovalchuk and Cynthia Damon

Quibus ex castris cum locus angustus atque impeditus esset transeundus, Pharnaces in insidiis delectos pedites omnesque paene disposuit equites, magnam autem multitudinem pecoris intra eas fauces dissipari iussit paganosque et oppidanos in his locis obuersari (5) ut, siue amicus siue inimicus Domitius eas angustias transiret, nihil de insidiis suspicaretur cum in agris et pecora et homines animaduerteret uersari tamquam amicorum aduentu, sin ut in hostium fines ueniret, praeda diripienda milites dissiparentur dispersique caederentur.“Since a narrow and obstructed place had to be traversed (sc. by anyone approaching Nicopolis) from this camp, Pharnaces set selected infantry and almost all his cavalry in an ambush. Moreover, he ordered a large quantity of livestock to be scattered within the pass and the peasants and townsfolk to linger in these places, (5) so that, whether Domitius traversed this narrow spot as friend or enemy, he would have no suspicion of an ambush when he noticed that both livestock and men were moving about in the fields as if at the arrival of friends, or, if he came as if into enemy territory, his soldiers would be scattered in plundering booty and slaughtered piecemeal.”

equites MUS | equiter TV || obuersari MUS (cf. Liu. 38.1.8) | obseruari TV (cf. Liu. 3.22.6) || 36.5 siue amicus siue inimicus MUSTV, quam lectionem defendit Hoffmann 1890, LIV (cf. 74.3 et u. infra) | si amicus siue inimicus Aldus | siue amicus siue inimicus Nipperdey (u. et infra) || aduentu sin Hoffmann1857 (cf. 24.1) | aduentus MUSTV | aduentu sin uero ϛ teste Oudendorp | aduentu siue inimicus Nipperdey coll. Cic. Phil. 14.13, Fin. 1.3 (u. et supra) | aduentu siue Forchhammer 1886, 92, Nipperdey supra secutus | aduentu si Andrieu (de coniunctione iterata cf. BC 3.78.3)

In paragraph 36 Domitius is imagined by Pharnaces as marching from his camp to Nicopolis, seven miles away, through a pass between mountains. Pharnaces set some of his troops in an ambush and ordered livestock and locals to be visible within the pass in order to lure Domitius into the trap. The king’s plan seems designed to accommodate either a friendly or a hostile approach by Domitius, who has issued an ultimatum: Pharnaces must withdraw from Lesser Armenia (34.2, 35.2). Pharnaces, for his part, is still hoping for a negotiated solution, especially one that can be deferred (35.1–2, 36.1, 37.1). In the text of 36.5 as transmittedThe vulgate text as represented by the editio princeps is unusually far from the text of the archetype, especially in the stretch tamquam … ut in, where it reads tanquam amicorum aduentu greges. Sin uero ut in.—36.4 is simply given as context here—both possibilities are mentioned twice, the friendly approach with siue amicus and tamquam amicorum aduentus, the hostile approach with siue inimicus and ut in hostium fines:

ut siue amicus siue inimicus Domitius eas angustias transiret nihil de insidiis suspicaretur cum in agris et pecora et homines animaduerteret uersari tamquam amicorum aduentus ut in hostium fines ueniret praeda diripienda milites dissiparentur dispersique caederentur

The sense is fine up to suspicaretur, and even up to aduentus provided that one supplies esset to complete the syntax of the tamquam clause. But thereafter things become murky. What kind of ut clause comes next? How are dissiparentur and caederentur connected to the rest of the sentence? And why is ut in hostium fines so far from siue inimicus?

The friend/enemy antithesis and the siue … siue pair have suggested various approaches to repairing the text.

Taking his lead from a reading found in the editio princeps, Aldus excised siue inimicus and replaced the adjacent siue … siue pair with a more distant si … sin uero pair:

ut siue amicus siue inimicus Domitius eas angustias transiret, nihil de insidiis suspicaretur, cum in agris, et pecora, et homines animaduerteret uersari, tamquam amicorum aduentu, sin uero, ut in hostium fines ueniret, praeda diripienda milites dissiparentur, dispersique caederentur.Square and pointed brackets are supplied here and below for the sake of clarity. Aldus also omitted the word greges that appeared in the editio princeps (see the previous note, ).

He thereby clustered the two references to friendly behavior and the two references to hostile behavior, and simplied the syntax of tamquam with aduentu as a circumstantial ablative. The resulting sense is good but the repair requires at least three innovations, whose sequence is hard to understand. Did si amicus generate siue inimicus, which then generated siue in place of si? Did uero fall out before ut, and aduentu acquire a final s, whereupon the orphaned in was excised as nonsensical?

The difficulty of tracing a path from the original text to what is found in the manuscripts prompted Nipperdey (1847, 195) to try a different approach. He transposed siue inimicus to later in the sentence, simultaneously changing the syntax of aduentus by dissolving its final s into the transposed phrase:

ut siue amicus siue inimicus Domitius eas angustias transiret, nihil de insidiis suspicaretur, cum in agris et pecora et homines animaduerteret uersari tamquam amicorum aduentu; siue inimicus ut in hostium fines ueniret, praeda diripienda milites dissiparentur dispersique caederentur.

With this text the puzzling ut introduces an elliptical comparison ut in hostium fines parallel to tamquam amicorum aduentu. The initial ut clause expresses Pharnaces’ double purpose: that the Romans either fail to suspect the presence of the enemy (ut … nihil … suspicaretur) or scatter in pursuit of booty and get killed (ut … dissiparentur dispersique caederentur). The two-part purpose is supported by parallel siue clauses, siue amicus … transiret and siue inimicus … ueniret, a construction for which Nipperdey cites two Ciceronian parallels (Phil. 14.13, Fin. 1.3). Clarity, it seems, has been restored, and this is the text printed by Klotz. But the explanation of how clarity was lost is still complicated: siue inimicus was omitted, the omission was noticed, a repair was attempted by writing the omitted words elsewhere on the page, and they were then reincorporated into the text at a plausible but incorrect position following siue amicus. The alteration of aduentu to aduentus in this scenario is poorly motivated: siue inimicus seems to have left its initial letter behind and regenerated it during the course of its travels. Forchhammer (1852, 92) adds that siue inimicus contributes nothing when placed in front of ut in hostium fines; he prefers to see it as a gloss motivated by the simple siue that originally preceded ut in hostium fines, but his repair is as complicated as Nipperdey’s.

Andrieu adopts a simplified version of the repair proposed by Aldus, with si in place of sin uero.

The series of innovations is now clearer: aduentu acquired a final s, the left-over minim was omitted, and si amicus was expanded into siue amicus siue inimicus to make up for the loss of the second si clause and apply the friend/enemy antithesis for the verb transiret; ut … ueniret would then mean “supposing he came.” But this is still a three-part innovation involving two spots in the text.

In our view the apparent parallelisms in this passage have been pressed too hard.See, for example, the note in Dauisius arguing for si amicus siue inimicus Domitius: “nam si inimici antea mentionem fecerat noster, nihil opus erat, ut postea adjiceret sin uero un in hostium fines ueniret, quibus ex uerbis luce fit clarius ineptum esse illud additamentum.” As was said above, the text as transmitted makes sense up to aduentu(s): Pharnaces’ aim is to keep Domitius in ignorance about the ambush.The aim expressed at 35.3 ut … nihil … suspicaretur is consonant with that expressed at 37.1 numquam … intermittebat legatos de pace atque amicitia mittere ad Domitium, cum hoc ipso crederet facilius eum decipi posse, although the cum clause in the latter passage could also be used to argue that Pharnaces planned a preemptive attack. However, it seems more likely to reflect the fact that Domitius did learn about the ambush—or so one presumes from the reference to it in our text. See also note . The text says nothing about any plan for a preemptive attack on Domitius, and Pharnaces later recalls his troops to prevent their being spotted (37.2 cum uereretur ne cognoscerentur insidiae, suos in castra reuocauit); their presence seems to have been a precautionary measure that would allow him to respond quickly if there was any overt aggression on Domitius’ part. He may not have expected aggression, since he knew that Domitius’ army had been weakened by the loss of the two legions that were sent to Caesar (34.3, 35.2), and he was actively seeking a negotiated solution (37.1 numquam … intermittebat legatos de pace atque amicitia mittere ad Domitium; cf. 37.2 on Domitius’ spes pacis), but precautions were not unwarranted.As it happened, Domitius’ “hope of peace” kept him in camp for another day (37.2 spes pacis Domitio in isdem castris morandi attulit causam), so Pharnaces lost his chance to make a preemptive attack if he did plan one (37.2 amissa proximi temporis occasione). On this reading the two parts of this passage are not parallel (“if friend, do X, if enemy, do Y”) but rather sequential (“deceive Domitius, then react to his actions”). Of the two reactions envisaged, doing nothing and responding to aggression, only the second is mentioned in the present passage; the first is given narrative space later (37.2, quoted above). The implicit contrast here between inaction and action is expressed by the text of Hoffmann:

ut, siue amicus siue inimicus Domitius eas angustias transiret, nihil de insidiis suspicaretur, quum in agris et pecora et homines animaduerteret uersari tamquam amicorum aduentu; sin ut in hostium fines ueniret, praeda diripienda milites dissiparentur, dispersique caederentur.

Hoffmann printed the same text in 1890 and argued against Nipperdey’s emendation (why move siue inimicus out of the first conditional clause if deceiving Domitius would have been even more important if his arrival was hostile? 1890, LIV). The adversative sin is used twice elsewhere in the Bellum Alexandrinum (24.1, 42.4), the sequence siue … siue … sin in Cicero (De orat. 2.292, Att. 7.3.2). Hoffmann’s repair implies a two-part innovation (aduentu =⟩ aduentus, in is omitted) but neither stage is per se implausible and the fact that they involve the same spot in the text is a distinct advantage over the repairs discussed so far. Dübner adopted it, and so do we.