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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. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 72.2–3 Wes Hanson and Cynthia Damon Circumpositi sunt huic oppido (sc. Zelae) magni multique intercisi uallibus colles, quorum editissimus unus, qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido, magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem nec multo longius milibus passuum tribus abest ab Zela—hunc locum Pharnaces, ueteribus paternorum felicium castrorum refectis operibus, copiis suis omnibus occupauit.“Many large hills separated by valleys surround this town. And the highest of these, a single hill that on account of Mithridates’ victory and Triarius’ misfortune and the defeat of our army ([sc. it is] practically connected to the town by relatively high ground and paths) has a great notoriety in those parts and is not much more than three miles away from Zela—(3) this location Pharnaces occupied with all of his troops after the old defenses of the camp that was lucky for his father were repaired.” huic M (cf. Tac. Ann. 14.15.2) | hoc USTV || multique intercisi MUSTV (cf. Sen. Ep. 90.18 et BC 3.43.1) | multisque intercisi Schneider (cf. 61.1 et Cic. Att. 4.15.5) | nisi mauis multique intercisis (cf. 73.3) || unus qui MUTV (de anacolutho u. Damon 2015b, 242) | qui S non male | nisi mauis unus qui uel unus est qui || superioribus … oppido transposuerunt post unus Klotz dubitanter, post nobilitatem Morus dubitanter, post Zela Madvig 1.48–49 | seclusit ut glossema Vielhaber 1869 | alii alia || itineribus MUSTV | commodis itineribus Klotz (cf. BC 3.97.3) || coniunctus MUSTV | coniunctus est Vielhaber 1864 Morum secutus | coniunctis Larsen, qui Madvig secutus est || nec MUSTV | non Morus dubitanter This description of the famous site of two consequential battles—according to Pliny, Zela was nobilis clade Triarii et uictoriae C. Caesaris (Nat. 6.10)—is barely legible. Editors have been variously tolerant of its difficulties since none of the words is obviously corrupt and the general picture is clear: Pharnaces established his camp on the prominent hill near Zela on which his formidable father, Mithridates, had established his own camp twenty years earlier and from which Mithridates had inflicted a devastating defeat on Roman troops led by C. Valerius Triarius.On the battle in 67 BCE see Plut. Luc. 35.1, App. Mith. 88–89.397–408, D.C. 36.12–13. According to Appian the name of the hill was τὸ Σκότιον ὄρος (Mith. 120.595). Appian (Mith. 89.403–404, 406) and Dio (36.12.4) situate the fighting on level ground. The themes introduced here—the memory of the earlier battle and the nature of the terrain—are both prominent in the subsequent narrative.The earlier battle: 73.2, 74.3; the terrain: 73.1–3 (valleys), 74.1–4 and 76.2 (the disadvantages of the terrain), 76.1 (the slope). The main problems in the paradosis pertain to the stretch of text quorum … Zela. quorum editissimus unus qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem nec multo longius milibus passuum tribus abest ab Zela The clause introduced by quorum lacks a verb. The words superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido, which pertain to terrain, seem out of place in the middle of a relative clause about the memory of an earlier battle. But the unusual expression (see below) is unlikely to have originated as a gloss. And the severity of this problem depends in part on what one takes to be the point of coniunctus oppido: is the hill’s connection to Zela relevant to the tactics of the coming battle, or to the memory of both battles? As it happens, the town per se plays no role in either battle: it is nothing more than a place name for battles fought in the vicinity. Accounts of the battle of 67 BCE situate it on level ground (see above, note ​), while Incertus situates Caesar’s battle near a collis more than three miles from the town. The syntax of superioribus locis is puzzling: by itself it might be taken as a local ablative (cf. BC 1.65.1 locis superioribus constitit and possibly 12.1 superioribus locis subleuabantur; contra, 35.3 in locis superioribus) but with atque itineribus it seems to be a rather loose ablative either of route (cf. 35.3 locisque superioribus iter facere instituit) or means (cf. 30.3 castellum … brachiis … cum opere castrorum coniunxerat). Furthermore the adjective is unexpected given the prominence of editissimus—which places are higher than the highest hill?—and the expression superioribus … itineribus is unparalleled.In the apparent parallel at BC 1.51.2 superiorum temporum atque itinerum licentia the adjective has a temporal sense. Klotz (1927, ad loc.) suggests adding commodis before itineribus. The grammatical connection created by nec between habet and abest seems arbitrary, given the divergent referents of the two verbs, reputation for the one, terrain for the other. The latter verb seems better suited to the clause introduced by quorum editissimus. The adjective unus is strangely emphatic. There is another emphatic unus at 25.6 Ita qui unus ex omnibus eo proelio bene rem gessit solus cum sua quadriremi uictrice periit, but in that passage unus prepares the way for solus. The adjective in our passage has no comparable role. It is hard to say whether its omission by S is deliberate. Another possibility is that unus originated in a misconstrued abbreviation, here possibly for est (cf. ad BC 3.19.4, where the original might have been primo). Problem 1 is the easiest to solve: as Clarke said in 1712 (543), one can either understand est after unus or assume an anacoluthon. In the latter scenario the thought initiated by editissimus unus is eventually expressed by hunc locum Pharnaces … occupauit. Comparable anacolutha introduced by prominent nominatives occur in both the BG (3.22.1–4 Adiatuanus) and the BC (3.18.3–4 Vibullius, 3.19.3–4 locutus, 3.44.6 loca).See Damon 2015b, 242. One could also address the problem by adding est or excising qui. Problem 4, too, responds to relatively simple approaches. Oudendorp (1737), for example, uses punctuation: quorum editissimus unus, qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis, et infelicitatem Triari, detrimentumque exercitus nostri, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido, magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem; nec multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela. Problem 2 has been addressed by a variety of transpositions, all of them serial innovations: omission of the original string of words, addition of the string in the margin uel sim., insertion of the string into the text at an inappropriate spot. Morus (1780, ad loc.), who prints the paradosis, explains in a note how to address problems 1, 2, and 4 by moving superioribus … oppido to after nobilitatem, making the relative clause a parenthesis, and altering nec to non: quorum editissimus unus, (qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis, et infelicitatem Triari, detrimentumque exercitus nostri, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem,) superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido, non multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela. Vielhaber (25) later varied the response to problem 4 by making the verb for the quorum-clause coniunctus est and placing a period before Morus’ non.Klotz (1927, ad loc.) comments that the addition of est is “praeter necessitatem.” Quorum editissimus unus, qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus est oppido. Non multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela. But later (1869, 574) he abandoned this complicated repair and suggested instead that superioribus … oppido was an incorporated gloss that was subsequently corrupted. Quorum editissimus unus qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem nec multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela. Madvig (1873, 1.48–49) addressed problem 2 by moving superioribus … oppido to the end of the sentence. Quorum editissimus (sc. est) unus qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem nec multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido. This creates a useful, if tacit, antithesis between abest and paene coniunctus, strengthening the topographical significance of coniunctus. But as Vielhaber says (1869, 574) the term is “bei einer Entfernung von mehr als 3/5 Meilen auffällig.” And in this position superioribus is oddly lacking in point: how does the close connection on high ground qualify the absolute distance between the hill and the city? Larsen (1886, 28–29) added a solution for problem 3 to Madvig’s repair by turning the transposed string into a terminal ablative absolute: quorum editissimus (sc. est) unus qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem nec multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela, superioribus locis atque itineribus paene coniunctis oppido. The resulting text bears a certain resemblance to the description of the terrain at Nicopolis: 36.3 quod oppidum positum (sc. Nicopolis) in Armenia minore est plano ipsum loco, montibus tamen altis ab duobus lateribus obiectis, satis magno interuallo ab oppido remotis. But the presence of tamen here makes the point of this terminal ablative much clearer. Problem 3 is addressed head-on by Kübler (ad loc.), who rewrites the text thus: quorum editissimus unus, qui propter uictoriam Mithridatis et infelicitatem Triari detrimentumque exercitus nostri superioribus acceptum temporibus paene coniunctus oppido magnam in illis partibus habet nobilitatem, paene coniunctus est oppido nec multo longius milibus passuum III abest ab Zela. The description of the site is now much more legible, but to get from this original to the paradosis would have required a mininum of five innovations.Kübler discusses this emendation briefly in his 1896 Philologus article “Recisamenta critica,” on pp. 154–155. Klotz (1927, ad loc.), pronouncing the passage a “locus nondum probabiliter emendatus,” obelizes superioribus … oppido, as does Andrieu (1954, ad loc.).In his apparatus Klotz (1927, ad loc.) proposes yet another transposition, moving superioribus … oppido earlier in the sentence, to follow unus. (See also note ​ in this section.) The topographical information sits well there, but the arbitrariness of nec is even more striking without paene in close proximity. But as was mentioned earlier, none of the words is obviously corrupt, so desperation seems unwarranted. We have used a dash to mark the anacoluthon and assumed that superioribus … oppido was something of an afterthought, added by Incertus to explain why the two battles were remembered as having been fought at Zela, when they weren’t. The distance is also minimized later in the sentence with nec multo longius, and superioribus may have been prompted by excelsiore … fastigio in the description of Zela itself. (We would have punctuated the afterthought as a parenthesis except that the profusion of dashes would have been confusing.) Incertus may have been motivated by the distinction between what was remembered locally (in illis partibus, an otherwise surprising qualification), namely, the collis, Mt. Scotius, and the place name, Zela, to which his readers will have attached their knowledge of these battles.