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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. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 66.3–4 Brian Credo and Cynthia Damon Ibi rebus omnibus prouinciae et finitimarum ciuitatium constitutis cupiditate proficiscendi ad bellum gerendum non diutius moratur magnisque itineribus per Cappadociam confectis biduum Mazacae commoratus Comana ​ uetustissimum et sanctissimum in Cappadocia Bellonae templum, quod tanta religione colitur ut sacerdos eius deae maiestate imperio potentia secundus a rege consensu gentis illius habeatur. (4) Id homini nobilissimo Lycomedi Bithyno adiudicauit, qui regio Cappadocum genere ortus propter aduersam fortunam maiorum suorum mutationemque generis iure minime dubio, uetustate tamen intermisso, sacerdotium id repetebat.“When all the affairs of the province and the neighboring cities were settled there, owing to his desire to set out to make war he delayed no longer, and stopping at Mazaca for two days after forced marches through Cappadocia, Comana ​ the shrine of Bellona, the oldest and holiest in Cappadocia, which is worshipped with such great fervor that the priest of this goddess is considered second to the king by the consent of that people in majesty, command, and power. (4)  He awarded it to the very noble Lycomedes, a Bithynian who was born in the royal family of the Cappadocians and was seeking that priesthood again, his right (sc. to it) being not at all in doubt but nevertheless long discontinued on account of the adverse circumstances of his ancestors and a change in the royal line.” cupiditate MUSTV (cf. 20.2) | cupiditatem Schiller 1889 coll. 55.2 || Comana (sc. Cappadociae? uel Pontica?) Kübler dubitanter (u. Gaertner-Hausburg 91 n. 65) | Comana MUSTV, quod defendit Madvig | uenit Comana ς teste Dübner | Comana uenit Nipperdey | Comana ut confirmarentur et (cf. BC 1.29.3 Hispanias et, de coniunctione postposita, 45.3 et 56.6) uel Comana cum dissensionibus essent confecta et repeteretur (cf. 42.2 et u., de re, u. 66.4, de coniunctione postposita, Gaertner-Hausburg 36–39) Damon exemplorum gratia || 66.3 maiestate imperio ed. pr. (cf. BC 3.106.4 et Sal. Cat. 12.1) | magis imperio MUSTV | nisi mauis magis imperio quam (cf. 15.1 et, de antithesi, Sen. Cl. 1.3) || B(i/y)thino MUS (u. TLL 2.2019.14–31) | bithinio TV (u. TLL 2.2019.57–63) || Cappadocum genere [Cappado cum genere S] MUSTcV | Cappadociae cum genere Tac || iure … tamen MUSTV | post ortus transposuit Schiller 1889 coll. Flor. Epit. 3.13.7 || sacerdotium [sacerdotum S] STV | sacerdotio MU The problems in this passage about Caesar’s journey from Cilicia to Pontus through Cappadocia are both historical and textual. Both center on the word Comana. The main historical problem is the identity of Comana. There are two cities called Comana in Cappadocia and Cappadocian Pontus, but it is hard to say which is meant here, since the information supplied by the reference to the famous temple of Bellona, which points to the Cappadocian city, conflicts with the route deduced from the prior reference to Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia: a journey to Comana after two days at Mazaca would have taken Caesar away from Pontus and the coming fight with Pharnaces, towards which, as the passages stresses, he was hastening eagerly (66.3 cupiditate proficiscendi ad bellum gerendum non diutius moratur; 66.5 simili uelocitate). A secondary problem is the apparently unmotivated two-day stop in Mazaca, which is hard to ignore given the incompatibility of non diutius moratur and commoratus. The main textual problem is the absence of a main verb for the second part of the opening compound sentence (magnisque … habeatur). This obscures the syntax of Comana uetustissimum et sanctissimum in Cappadocia Bellonae templum. Are Comana and templum nominative? accusative? in apposition? The secondary textual problems indicated in the apparatus involve the asyndetic list of ablatives of respect (66.3 maiestate imperio potentia) and the position of the ablative absolute (66.4 iure minime dubio, uetustate tamen intermisso); neither needs discussion here. An early repair to the main textual problem, the addition of uenit before Comana, completed the syntax and made Comana and templum accusative. But it left the two in uncomfortable apposition. Nipperdey’s placement of uenit after Comana instead of before allows one to explain the verb’s omission as a jump from uen- to uet-. But the apposition is still a problem, and both repairs exacerbate the historical problems by apparently having Caesar detour to Cappadocian Comana after an unproductive stay in Mazaca. Madvig declared the supplement misguided and the text sound, taking Comana and templum (still in apposition) as objects of adiudicauit and explaining the closer object id as a resumptive pronoun necessitated by the distance between Comana and its verb (31 words). His analysis of the syntax is not entirely persuasive—why id, not ea, which would remove the apposition by making Comana and templum parallel objects in asyndeton?—but on his reading the problem of Caesar’s route through Cappadocia disappears (1873, 285): “Mazacae, non Comanis, de templo statuit.” Caesar made his decision about Comana and the temple without going there. The solution is particularly appealing because the following sentence, although somewhat opaque owing to its lacuna, clearly concerns decisions pertaining to Cappadocian royalty, whose seat was in Mazaca. Madvig’s explanation also supplies welcome information about why a hurrying Caesar spent two days in Mazaca: two days for two decisions about the future administration of a powerful priesthood and a kingdom. But syntax of the transmitted text remains unsatisfactory, and subsequent editors, including Klotz and Andrieu, have posited, with Kübler, a multi-word lacuna between Comana and uetustissimum. The possibility that our Comana is in Cappadocian Pontus rather than Cappadocia proper is suggested by Strabo, a native of Pontus adolescent in 47 BCE, who in discussing Comana Pontica in his Geography says that it had a temple modeled on the one in Cappadocia and once had a priest named Lycomedes, and echoes the description of the priesthood’s importance, which had earlier been held by Strabo’s own great-great-grandfather (12.3.32–36). Strabo tells us that the tenure of the priesthood in Comana Pontica had been a bone of contention from Sulla onwards, with the latest recipient being Pompey’s beneficiary, so a Caesarian intervention makes sense. But it is difficult to see the Pontic city in a text in which Comana uenit is sandwiched between references to the capital and king of Cappadocia. This has led to the assumption that Incertus is unaware of the distinction between the two cities.Bibliography and discussion in Gaertner-Hausburg (2013, 91 n. 65). But that assumption is predicated on the emendation uenit. So we need to take another look at the lacuna. Desiderata include (1) a verb, (2) a syntactic differentiation between Comana and templum that accommodates the demonstrative id, and (3) content that keeps Caesar out of Cappadocian Comana, that allows for a reference to Comana Pontica, and that explains Caesar’s stop at Mazaca. Here are two possibilities for the missing syntax; the words in each lacuna are supplied exempli gratia: biduum Mazacae commoratus Comana ut confirmarentur et uetustissimum et sanctissimum in Cappadocia Bellonae templum, quod tanta religione colitur ut sacerdos eius deae maiestate imperio potentia secundus a rege consensu gentis illius habeatur, id homini nobilissimo Lycomedi Bithyno adiudicauit … “stopping at Mazaca for two days in order to consolidate Comana and the shrine of Bellona, the oldest and holiest in Cappadocia, which is worshipped with such great fervor that the priest of this goddess is considered second to the king by the consent of that people in majesty, command, and power, he awarded it (sc. the shrine) to the very noble Lycomedes …” biduum Mazacae commoratus Comana cum dissensionibus essent confecta et repeteretur uetustissimum et sanctissimum in Cappadocia Bellonae templum, quod tanta religione colitur ut sacerdos eius deae maiestate imperio potentia secundus a rege consensu gentis illius habeatur, id homini nobilissimo Lycomedi Bithyno adiudicauit … “stopping at Mazaca for two days since Comana was exhausted by disputes and there was a claimant for the shrine of Bellona, the oldest and holiest in Cappadocia, which is worshipped with such great fervor that the priest of this goddess is considered second to the king by the consent of that people in majesty, command, and power, he awarded it (sc. the shrine) to the very noble Lycomedes …” Both of them make Comana the object of a verb in a subordinate clause whose conjunction is postponed and, after repunctuation, use adiudicauit as the desired main verb. Incertus postpones ut twice (45.3, 56.6) and cum frequently (Gaertner-Hausburg [2013] 36–39), so the stylistic oddity passes muster. In the first version the lacuna contains a verb, confirmarentur, that can govern both Comana and templum, which are connected by et. There is a parallel for the double object at BC 1.29.3 (interim ueterem exercitum duas Hispanias confirmari … nolebat [sc. Caesar]), and Incertus had earlier used confirmare in a passage where Caesar was intent upon settling protracted disputes involving Eastern royalty (33.2 priusquam diuturnitate confirmarentur regum imperia). The omission would have originated in a skip from ut to uet-. With this supplement Caesar’s stop in Mazaca is explained by the purpose clause but it is still hard to see Comana as anything but the Cappadocian city, given the presence of in Cappadociae … templum and, later, regio Cappadocum genere ortus. And the supplement sits somewhat awkwardly with id, since the demonstrative points to a resolution of the temple issue but leaves the problem of Comana apparently unresolved. In the second version the supplement contains two verbs and a connective between them. Comana and templum are now subjects of their respective verbs, and Caesar’s stop in Mazaca is explained by the cum-clause. His intention of settling dissensiones in the East was announced in the previous paragraph (65.1 praeferendum existimauit quas in prouincias regionesque uenisset eas ita relinquere constitutas ut domesticis dissensionibus liberarentur), and the description of a territory troubled by dissensiones is paralleled at 42.2 (prouincia … finitimo bello ac dissensionibus confecta et uastata); the verb in this parallel may not be precisely the right one for our passage. The reference to the claimant comes from just below (66. 4 sacerdotium id repetebat [sc. Lycomedes]), where, however, the object is the priesthood rather than the shrine itself. The omission of this string of words is harder to explain than the omission of the ut-clause, but the gap created by the reference to a solution for the temple but nothing about the trouble in Comana is less apparent, since the trouble in Comana might have been centered on control of the temple.From Strabo it appears that Caesar’s arrangement involved both the priesthood mentioned here and a gift of land (12.3.35). With this supplement Comana again seems to be the city in Cappadocia. Both supplements deliver some but not all of the desiderata listed above. Neither acquits Incertus of confusing the two Comanas—assuming that Strabo deserves our credence—but both provide a main verb, keep Caesar out of the Cappadocian city, and explain Caesar’s stop. The syntax of each repair makes a welcome distinction between the city and the shrine, but in neither version is id entirely unproblematic. So neither is good enough to go in the text, and we follow Klotz and Andrieu in indicating a lacuna.