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Bellum Alexandrinum Cynthia Damon, et al. Society for Classical Studies TEI XML encoding: Samuel J. Huskey Programming for automatic generation of TEI XML: Virgina K. Felkner Coauthor of content related to section 2.5: Dallas Simons Coauthor of content related to sections 12.1–2 and 13.5: Tom Vozar Coauthor of content related to section 26.1–2: Marcie Persyn Coauthor of content related to sections 35.3 and 36.4–5: Maria Kovalchuk Coauthor of content related to sections 47.2, 49.1, and 49.2–3: Tim Warnock Coauthor of content related to section 60.2: Isabella Reinhardt Coauthor of content related to sections 63.5 and 66.3–4: Brian Credo Coauthor of content related to sections 67.1 and 68.1: Amelia Bensch-Schaus Coauthor of content related to sections 72.2–3 and 74.4: Wes Hanson First Edition The Digital Latin Library 650 Parrington Oval Carnegie Building 101 Norman OK 73071 USA The University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 2022 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-SA 4.0) Library of Digital Latin Texts Edited by Samuel J. Huskey 1 ​ Born digital. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 49.1 Tim Warnock and Cynthia Damon Cassius legionibus in hiberna dispositis ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque in ea aes alienum grauissimis oneribus prouinciae constituit exsoluere. Et, ut largitionis postulat consuetudo, per causam liberalitatis speciosam plura largitori quaerebantur.“Having established the legions in their various winter quarters, Cassius went to Corduba for the purpose of hearing legal cases, and he decided to pay off debt contracted in the province by means of extremely heavy burdens on the province. And as the custom of largesse demands, the specious pretext of generosity was used, but the intended beneficiary of the majority of the requests was the donor.” hiberna U (cf. BC 1.14.3) | hibernia MTV | ibernia S || in ea (sc. prouincia) MUSTV (de prolepsi cf. 12.2 eas) | antea (uel alea) Madvig (cf. Cic. Rab. Post. 4 et, de ablatiuo, u. TLL 4.762.81–763.1) | ingens Jurinius (cf. Sal. Cat. 16.4) ‘magnum … fuisse patet ex duobus donatiuis’ | interea (i.e., inter ius dicendum) Menge  The misdeeds of Caesar’s representative in Spain, Q. Cassius, caused serious disturbances, particularly in further Spain, where Cassius had been quaestor some years earlier (48.1).He was in Spain as Pompey’s representative in the late 50s BCE (Broughton 1952, 2.236, supplemented at 1986, 3.52), which may be why the narrative here is left rather vague. The report of his abuse of the civilian population starts in a sentence that has attracted emendations with strikingly different meanings: Cassius legionibus in hiberna dispositis ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque in ea aes alienum grauissimis oneribus prouinciae constituit exsoluere. The syntax is fine, but the meaning of in ea is unclear. The demonstrative seems to point back to Corduba, but if it does, it refers to debts that have not been mentioned. It is possible that they were incurred during his earlier stint in Spain, but the specificity of the reference to Corduba is puzzling, since this is its first occurrence in the Bellum Alexandrinum.Corduba will later defect from Cassius (57.5, 58.4), but his debts are not mentioned in that connection. A variety of substitutes for the offending demonstrative have been suggested. Jurinius (1742, ad loc.) supplied an adjective: Cassius … ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque ingens aes alienum … constituit exsoluere. The “huge debt” mentioned here is, in his view, the result of Cassius’ recent largesse to the soldiers, described immediately above (48.2–3)This meant to win the affection of the army and counterbalance the hostility of the province (48.1 compensare offensionem prouinciae exercitus amore cupiebat). and alluded to in the following sentence (quoted above for context). However, ingens is used nowhere else by Incertus, and in its infrequent occurrences in Caesar’s commentarii it does not modify anything comparable to aes alienum (BG 1.39.1 and 5.3.4 magnitudine, 4.10.4 insulis, 5.12.3 numerus). For a “vast indebtedness” one has to turn to Sallust (Cat. 16.4 aes alienum per omnis terras ingens erat; cf. Liu. 7.21.8 uis ingens aeris alieni). Madvig (1873, 284), noting that if in ea refers to Corduba, the expression ought to be in ea urbe, suggested two replacements for it, an ablative noun and a temporal adverb: Cassius … ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque alea aes alienum … constituit exsoluere Cassius … ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque antea aes alienum … constituit exsoluere Alea has little to recommend it apart from its final two letters, since nothing in the narrative connects the cause of Cassius’ indebtedness with the measures he took to to remedy it; gambling would be a stray detail. Antea is a little better, since Incertus did mention Cassius’ earlier office in Spain, and the temporal adverb does not point specifically to Corduba. However, it adds nothing to the sense, since the participle contractum itself indicates priority. Menge (1889, 126) suggested a different temporal adverb: Cassius … ad ius dicendum Cordubam se recepit contractumque interea aes alienum … constituit exsoluere Interea is closer to the paradosis, and Menge (ibid.) explains it as a reference to the time “während er Recht spricht.” But the word order associates it closely with contractum and makes it point to an unspecified period of time between Cassius’ quaestorship and praetorship and events nowhere mentioned in the commentarii. Since none of the available repairs is significantly less problematic than the transmitted text,In his translation Carter (1997, ad loc.) seems to omit in ea and all its replacements and take contractum with grauissimis oneribus: “He decided to pay off debts of his which had caused great hardship to the province.” He then implies that Cassius’ repayment constituted the largesse mentioned in the following sentence. we join the editors who print in ea, and explain the demonstrative as proleptic. As we saw above, Madvig objected to the absence of a noun with ea. But there is a similar ellipsis at 47.3 in ea (sc. insula), referring to Issa. In our view, however, the ellided word is not urbe but prouincia. That is, the demonstrative anticipates a substantive that comes later in the sentence: contractumque in ea (sc. prouincia) aes alienum grauissimis oneribus prouinciae constituit exsoluere. The fact that Cassius was guilty of financial irregularities during previous tenure is mentioned at 50.1 (cum Longinus imperator eadem faceret quae fecerat quaestor) and suggested by the assassination attempt mentioned at 48.1 (ex insidiis ibi uulneratus), although it is unclear how these irregularities left him him debt.See further the discussion of 49.2 causae tenues. This train of thought is not convincing. There is a more extreme prolepsis at 12.2, where eas points to naues, 14 words later: Idem, posteaquam Ganymedes in concilio confirmauit sese et eas quae essent amissae restituturum et numerum adaucturum, magna spe et fiducia ueteres reficere naues accuratiusque huic rei studere atque inseruire instituerunt. On this reading, Cassius accumulated this debt during his time in Spain as Pompey’s representative, and he used his recent largesse to the soldiers as an excuse for extortion and financial chicanery (described in the following sentences), some of the proceeds of which went to canceling his debt.