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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. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 49.2–3 Tim Warnock and Cynthia Damon Pecuniae locupletibus imperabantur, quas Longinus sibi expensas ferri non tantum patiebatur sed etiam cogebat. In gregem locupletium simul et causae tenues coniciebantur, neque ullum genus quaestus aut magni et euidentis aut minimi et sordidi praetermittebatur quo domus et tribunal imperatoris uacaret. (3) Nemo erat qui modo aliquam iacturam facere posset quin aut uadimonio teneretur aut in reos referretur. Ita magna etiam sollicitudo periculorum ad iacturas et detrimenta rei familiaris adiungebatur.“Funds were requisitioned from the wealthy, and Longinus not only permitted but even forced these to be set down for him (i.e., in his account books) as expenditures. At this same time frivolous lawsuits, too, were launched against the crowd of wealthy men, and no kind of profit, either great and apparent or small and sordid, was neglected, such that the commander’s residence and tribunal were uninvolved with it. (3) No one who could make at least some outlay was not either constrained by a guarantee or listed among the accused. Thus great anxiety about personal peril, too, was added to expenses and damage to family fortunes.” simul et Latinius (cf. Liu. 2.6.10) | simultatium MUSTV (cf. BG 5.44.2) | simulationis Schneider, qui causa legit infra (cf. Cic. Att. 12.20.1 dissimulationis) || causae MU (cf. Cic. Orat. 124) | causa STV (u. et supra et infra) || coiciebantur MUSTV (cf. XII Tab. apud Gell. 17.2.10) | conciebantur Landgraf 1888, qui causa legit supra, coll. Pollione apud Cic. Fam. 10.33.4 || quaestus MUS | quaestius TV | quaestuis Klotz || quin S (cf. 15.8) | qui MUTV Chapter 49 concerns the finances of Caesar’s governor in Further Spain, Q. Cassius Longinus, particularly his extortion of money from the Spaniards. The first sentence supplies necessary context: one of Cassius’ goals was to reduce his personal debt (49.1 contractum in ea [sc. prouincia] aes alienum … constituit exsoluere). Incertus devotes four sentences to the governor’s procedures, but problems in the transmitted text of the first part of the second sentence obscure the details (the rest of the passage is quoted above for context): in gregem locupletium simultatium causa(e) tenues coniciebantur. The main problems are (1) uncertainty about the reading of the archetype at causa(e), which creates uncertainty about the subject of the sentence: is it causae or tenues? (2) The awkwardness of adjacent genitives dependent on different substantives (locupletium on gregem, simultatium on causa[e]). And (3) the meaning of simultatium: what kinds of disputes does Incertus have in mind?The peculiar expression in gregem locupletium is queried by Vielhaber (1869, 568), who notes that Cassius preyed on the wealthy as individuals, via requisition and lawsuit, not as a collective. But grex seems compatible with the hyperbole of the passage (neque ullum genus … nemo erat … quin). See below for an emendation to coniciebantur. All of these problems are rendered more intractable by uncertainty about the bookkeeping procedure specified in sibi expensas ferri in the previous sentence. Similar accounting language recurs in the following paragraph in connection with members of Cassius’ inner circle, his familiares, who “were in the habit of crediting to themselves whatever they had seized and assigning to Cassius whatever sums were due for payment or subject to claims (50.2 sibi … quod rapuerant acceptum referebant, quod interciderat aut erat interpellatum Cassio assignabant), but in 50.2 the technical terms seem less technical than those in the present passage, referring to who got what, not which category (income or expenditure?) a sum was assigned to.However, Schneider (1888, ad loc.) views the accounting language in 49.2, too, as used loosely, such that expensum ferre simply means “pay.” However, the later passage, along with domus in 49.2, does suggest that these same familiares are envisaged as acting on Cassius’ orders in our passage (cogebat) and entering sums received as sums paid, i.e., putting those from whom Cassius had extorted money into his debt for the amount they had just paid him, potentially doubling their loss should he try to collect on those “debts,” and in any case making it impossible for them to demand restitution in the future. As Vielhaber (1869, 567–568, n. 47) explains, this would be a precautionary measure adopted in view of future lawsuits, where account books could be entered as evidence. However, it is unclear whose account books are at issue here: his or theirs? In the scenario described here it is assumed that the books are those of Cassius, since after the assassination attempt he convoked those who had paid him money and seems to have ordered them to alter the entries in their account books as well: 56.3 sanatis uulneribus arcessit omnes qui sibi pecunias expensas tulerant acceptasque eas iubet referri. But in this scenario patiebatur is surprising,As is noted by Vielhaber (1869, 567–568, n. 47). He suggests that the account books in both 49.2 and 56.3 are those of the provincials, and that Cassius wants to ensure that any expenditures recorded there correspond to subsequent income, indicating that their “loans” had been repaid. unless we are to assume that his profit-hungry familiares were pressing this procedure on Cassius. Further confusion arises from Incertus’ report that Cassius had operated similarly as quaestor (50.1 cum Longinus imperator eadem faceret quae fecerat quaestor), since his earlier tenure resulted in debt and his goal in 48/47 is to clear that debt. But perhaps the point of the present passage is that he changed his bookkeeping procedures so that instead of incurring debt he emerged as his victims’ creditor. Some basic orientation can be derived from the insistent binaries in the passage quoted above: requisition vs. prosecution, large and visible profit vs. small and sordid profit, domus vs. tribunal, financial risks (uadimonio … iacturas … detrimenta rei familiaris) vs. criminal charges (in reos … periculorum). Incertus’ Cassius seems to have applied pressure both directly and indirectly in pursuit of money to pay his debts. The first of the problems listed above is the most consequential. Should we read causae or causa? Editors from Nipperdey onwards have read causa, Nipperdey (1847, 197) because he considered it the reading of the best manuscript, others on the basis of the then-current stemma, where the agreement of S and TV showed the reading of the archetype. But with the bifid stemma used in the present edition causa and causae have equal authority, and either might have turned into the other owing to pressure from the adjacent words, simultatium and tenues.Andrieu (1954, 85) asserts in his note complémentaire on this passage that causae “a toute chance d’être une correction,” but causa could as easily have arisen from the preceding genitive. Causa, the reading of the nu-branch, is a preposition-like ablative with simultatium (cf. Var. L. 5.155 litium causa). With this reading the subject of coniciebantur is the substantival tenues, “people of modest means.” Neither simultatium causa nor tenues coniciebantur is easy to understand, however. Nipperdey (1847, 197) paraphrases the sentence thus: “homines tenues, quia Longino erant inuisi, eadem passos esse, quae locupletes.” But simultatium causa seems like an odd way to communicate Cassius’ hostility, and translations are tellingly disparate. Nipperdey’s interpretation of causa, with its causal (“because of”) rather than purposive (“for the sake of”) meaning, is reflected in some translations, e.g.: Andrieu (1954): “en cas de démêlés avec lui, le petit peuple était jeté dans la masse des riches.” Carter (1997):“Men of modest means were lumped in with the rich because of private quarrels.” Other translators, however, give causa its customary senseAs in Varro’s similar phrase L. 5.155 litium causa, which occurs in the etymology of Comitium, ab eo quod coibant eo comitiis curiis et litium causa. but struggle to understand simultatium, e.g.: Ciaffi-Griffa (2008 [1953/1972]): “includeva poi le persone di condizione modesta nella massa de ricchi per confondere le cose.” Raaflaub (2017): “People of modest means were classed with the rich arbitrarily in order to stir up social tensions.”“Classed with the rich” is an effective way of dealing with in gregem … coniciebantur (cf. BHisp 22.7 siqui ex nostris transfugerent in leuem armaturam conici), but “arbritrarily” has no basis in the text. Landgraf: “gegen das Corps der Reichen wurden simultatium causa die Armen aufgewiegelt” (see below for the verb translated here). The difficulty of simultatium causa prompted Schneider to emend the genitive: in gregem locupletium simulationis causa tenues coniciebantur. Klotz (1927, ad loc.), who prints simulationis causa, explains it as follows: “i. in numerum eorum quibus pecuniae imperabantur, etiam pauperes referebantur, ne locupletium divitias peti appareret.” But Incertus’ Cassius is unconcerned about his public image—for another of his flagrant abuses see note ​ in this section—indeed he so provokes the provincials that he is the target of two unsuccessful assassination attempts and a successful defection. Furthermore, the context makes it problematic to take tenues as the subject of coniciebantur, since it is clear that Cassius favored wealthy targets: 49.3 Nemo erat qui modo aliquam iacturam facere posset quin aut uadimonio teneretur aut in reos referretur. To address this problem Landgraf (1888, 49) emended the verb: in gregem locupletium simultatium causa tenues conciebantur. With this reading the tenues are not Cassius’ targets (real or simulated) but his tools: he arouses them to initiate prosecutions that they will profit from, but intends to profit from their profits himself. Landgraf (1889, 13) later claimed that the passage should be viewed as “definitiv geheilt.” His repair does permit a logical connection to the preceding sentence about largesse (49.1 Et, ut largitionis postulat consuetudo, per causam liberalitatis speciosam plura largitori quaerebantur): these prosecutions will count as largesse for the tools. But in a context where actual largesse has been mentioned (48.2–3) and will be mentioned again (52.1) the connection seems rather tenuous, and Klotz (1927, ad loc.) deems Landgraf’s verb ill-suited to the context. With the reading of the mu-branch, causae, by contrast, the sentence is relatively straightforward. Causae is the subject of coniciebantur. The metaphorical weaponizing of lawsuits is part of Latin legal language already in the Twelve Tables (cf. ante meridiem causam coniciunto, quoted at Gell. 17.2.10).Cf. Gell. 5.10.9 Et cum ad iudices coniciendae consistendaeque causae gratia uenissent. For causae coniectio as a legal expression see TLL 4.311.84–312.4. And the expression causae tenues is used by Cicero at Orat. 124, where it denotes cases that don’t allow the orator to use the full range of his power. Here it seems rather to indicate frivolous lawsuits that a defendant with money might pay to be free of.Cassius later used a similarly profitable abuse of power in levying troops from the well-off class of equites Romani: 56.4 Quos ex omnibus conuentibus coloniisque conscriptos, transmarina militia perterritos, ad sacramenti redemptionem uocabat. Magnum hoc fuit uectigal, maius tamen creabat odium. Simultatium is still a problem, however, indeed a worse problem than it was with causa. The awkwardness of its position next to locupletium was mentioned above, and with causae the genitive is ambiguous. The other occurrence of simultates in the corpus Caesarianum refers to the contests between Pullo and Vorenus (BG 5.44.2 summis simultatibus), and at BC 2.25.4 the singular refers to a dispute involving Curio and Pompey. But “trivial causes of contests (or disputes)” seems to give Cassius’ victims too much agency: why give them reasons to fight him? The term can also denote lawsuits (e.g., Liu. 39.5.2 alienarum uero simultatium tribunum plebis cognitorem fieri turpe … esse), but neither “causes of lawsuits” (objective genitive) nor “cases, i.e., lawsuits” (defining genitive) seems likely here. A long-neglected 16th-century emendation improves the sense signficantly: in gregem locupletium simul et causa tenues conciebantur. This was proposed by the humanist Latinus Latinius (1513–1593) and published posthumously in a catalog of Latinius’ emendations (1677, 2.26). Simul et links the two modes of extortion used by Cassius in Corduba and is equivalent to simul etiamThe usage is Ciceronian (⟩10x) and Livian (⟩10x), not Caesarian. Simul et does appear in the corpus Caesarianum, but only in tandem with a second et: e.g., BG 7.48.4 simul et cursu et spatio pugnae defatigati.; et seems preferable to etiam to avoid clashes with sed etiam (above) and magna etiam (below). The text that results resembles Liv. 2.6.10 in its structure: simul et cetera equestris pugna coepit, neque ita multo post et pedites superueniunt. The innovation may have started as a persistence error repetition of the ending of locupletium, and been “corrected” by accommodation to causa(e).