Bellum Alexandrinum: 60.2

Bellum Alexandrinum

Cynthia Damon, et al.

Society for Classical Studies

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Maria Kovalchuk

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Isabella Reinhardt

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Brian Credo

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Amelia Bensch-Schaus

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60.2

Isabella Reinhardt and Cynthia Damon

Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret, quod et uictoris et uicti detrimentum ad eundem Caesarem esset redundaturum, neque suae potestatis esset, legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit.“Marcellus, although he thought that combat was utterly wretched, because the loss for both the victor and the defeated would similarly redound on Caesar, and it was not within his official capacity, led his legions across the Baetis and drew up his battle line.”

uictoris MU | uictores STV || esset2 MUSTV | esse ς

teste

Oudendorp (u. TLL 10.2.308.24–27 et 10.2.318.13–15) | esset Larsen | esset uetare uel prohibere Ciacconius | esset receptus Reinhardt exempli gratia (cf. BC 1.45.6) | alii alia

In chapter 60 the rebellion against Cassius has reached a point where armed conflict seems inevitable. Of the five legions originally controlled by Cassius two and a half have mutinied (57.1–5) and put themselves under the leadership of the quaestor M. Marcellus (59.1). Marcellus’ forces are based in Corduba itself, Cassius’ are on high ground across the Baetis River, about four miles distant (59.1). Cassius has taken the initiative by ravaging Cordoban fields and buildings outside the city (59.2), and Marcellus’ troops demand action (60.1). In the present sentence Marcellus does act, but with considerable reluctance, the grounds for which are only partly clear in the text as transmitted, which is printed by Nipperdey and other editors (here with Nipperdey’s punctuation):

Marcellus, cum confligere miserrimum putaret, quod et uictoris et uicti detrimentum ad eundem Caesarem esset redundaturum, neque suae potestatis esset, legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit.

This cum clause, like others in the Bellum Alexandrinum, is complex.See, e.g., 34.2, 35.2, 36.3, 39.1, 40.2, 42.3, 44.1, 44.3, 63.4. It contains two verbs, putaret (governing indirect statement) and esset, connected by neque, and an inset quod clause including an emphatic genitive construction et uictoris et uicti. Plus, one has to extract confligere from the indirect statement dependent on putaret to serve as the subject of esset. The syntax is perhaps tolerable, although the variatio in the modifiers of confligere is more suited to the style of Tacitus than to that of Incertus. However, the meaning of suae potestatis esset is unclear: does it allude to Marcellus’ probable inability to control his troops? This would align with the order Cassius gave him earlier, to retain control of Corduba (57.4 ut eam [sc. Cordubam] in potestate retineret) and his own subsequent prediction about the difficulty of controlling the troops (61.4 necessitate est adductus, ut neque confligeret—cuius si rei facultas esset resistere incitatis militibus non poterat—neque uagari Cassium latius pateretur). But the former passage refers to a civilian population and in the latter passage Incertus specifies that it is resistance to the soldiers’ impetuosity that would be impossible, not fighting per se. Plus, it seems odd for him to assert that fighting is not in Marcellus’ power when the quaestor is about to take his troops across the river and array them for battle (legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit). Potestas may, however, allude to the fact that Marcellus does not have imperium; the mutinous legions call him “praetor” (59.1), as they had done to earlier leaders (53.4, cf. 57.3), but his magistracy is in fact a quaestorship (57.4). Potestas does occasionally denote “official capacity” in the corpus Caesarianum (BAfr 4.1 potestatem … agendi; 33.2 aedilicia potestate; 56.3 regis … potestatem; 77.1 sub dicione et potestate; for the possessive adjective one may compare BG 4.16.5 cur sui quicquam esse imperii aut [sc. suae] potestatis trans Rhenum postularet). But in all of these passages the meaning of potestas is clarified by the presence of other “constitutional” terms. In our passage potestas alone would have to denote Marcellus’ authority.

Repairs have been sought, with suspicion focusing on the second occurrence of esset. The context establishes two parameters for emendation: (1) the quod clause must explain the unusually emotional expression confligere miserrimum (sc. esse), and (2) the quod clause must end before legiones, which belongs to the main clause.This superlative occurs only twice elsewhere in the corpus Caesarianum: BC 3.96.2 about Caesar’s army at Pharsalus, and Hirt. 8.34.1 about the memory of Alesia.

A relatively simple emendation was already available in the recentiores:

Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret … neque suae potestatis esse legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit.

This emendation simplies the syntax of confligere by putting it in a single accusative/infinitive clause with both of its predicates, miserrimum and suae potestatis. But it does not really solve any of the other problems mentioned above, and the present infinitive seems distinctly odd with the second predicate, which is in effect a prediction about a specific future (note si … facultas esset in 61.4) rather than a generalization about conflict.Kübler (1896, XIX) suggested a supplement based on 61.4 (quoted above), which he put into the text after the recentiores’ esse: Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret … neque suae potestatis esse uideret militibus pugnandi cupidissimis resistere, legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit. However, his supplement moves esse into a new indirect statement governed by uideret. But it is hard to see how this supplement would have fallen out, and why a scribe would alter the perfectly construable esse to esset.

Another fairly simple repair was suggested by Ciacconius, who added an infinitive after esset. Jungermann’s report of the repair (1606, 333) does not indicate whether Ciacconius intended the verb to be part of the cum clause (with neque connecting putaret and esset) or part of the quod clause (with neque connecting esset redundaturum and esset):

Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret, quod et uictoris et uicti detrimentum ad eundem Caesarem esset redundaturum, neque suae potestatis

esset

uetare uel prohibere

, legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit.

Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret, quod et uictoris et uicti detrimentum ad eundem Caesarem esset redundaturum neque suae potestatis esset

uetare uel prohibere

, legiones Baetim traducit aciemque instruit.

In the cum clause esset requires an awkward shift from concessive sense (“although he thought”) to causal (“since it was not in his power to prevent”). In the quod clause it is something of a non sequitur after confligere miserrimum putaret.

Larsen (1886, 25) left the matter of what was not in Marcellus’ power open, placing a lacuna after esset:

As a supplement one could imagine, say, a second quod clause explaining the second verb in the cum clause: e.g.,

quod belli imperium non obtineret

.For belli imperium cf. BG 2.4.6 belli imperium sibi postulare; for imperium obtinere cf. 4.2 omne imperium obtinebat (sc. Arsinoe), 15.2 imperium classis obtineret (sc. Euphranor); for the connection between imperium and potestas BG 7.4.6–7 ad eum (sc. Vercingetorigem) defertur imperium. qua oblata potestate, etc. But this explanation adds very little, especially by comparison with the first quod clause, which justifies the striking word miserrimum.

Another possibility would be to find a supplement that would place esset in the extant quod clause, along the lines of Ciacconius’ emendation, discussed above. As an exempli gratia supplement based on the subsequent course of events we considered:

Marcellus cum confligere miserrimum putaret, quod et uictoris et uicti detrimentum ad eundem Caesarem esset redundaturum neque suae potestatis esset

receptus

, legiones Baetim traducit.

With this supplement Marcellus would consider combat utterly wretched “because the loss for both the victor and defeated would similarly redound on Caesar and retreat was not in his power.” The phrase esset receptus could be misconstrued as a pluperfect verb form, of course, but the same is true at BC 1.45.6 Hac nostris erat receptus and BC 3.45.5 erat per decliue receptus. However, the difficulties of the terrain are not mentioned until later in the narrative (60.4–5, esp. cum … quid transitus fluminis uitii difficultatisque haberet cognitum esset), and the two explanations for miserrimum are both strangely dissimilar and strangely arranged, with the proximate and practical worry about retreat placed after the future and general worry about what the battle would cost Caesar. And even if one solves the latter problem by placing a comma before neque and making esset

receptus

parallel to putaret, the fact that we don’t know about the difficulties of the terrain gives pause.

In the end we decided that no supplement (and hence no lacuna) is needed here, and that the transmitted text, despite the awkward syntax of confligere and the ambiguity of potestatis, was acceptable. Marcellus’ worry about the limits of his authority aligns well his subsequent decision to withdraw his troops at the first opportunity (60.3) and with Caesar’s obiter dictum at BC 3.51.4: aliae … sunt legati partes atque imperatoris. Marcellus’ loyalty to Caesar is stressed at 59.1, his deference to authority at 63.2 (huic [sc. Lepido] uenienti sine dubitatione Marcellus se credit), and his reluctance to fight is mentioned more forcefully than in the present passage at 61.4 (quoted above). The repairs reported in the apparatus indicate our lingering dissatisfaction with the paradosis and suggest possible approaches for improving it.