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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2016
The Bellum Hispaniense (= BHisp.), often considered alongside the two other pseudo-Caesarian commentarii, the Bellum Alexandrinum and the Bellum Africum, contains the account of Caesar's final battles with Pompey's forces in Spain during 46 and 45 b.c. In terms of its language and style, the BHisp. is certainly the most un-Caesarian of the pseudo-Caesarian Bella. The work abounds in phenomena belonging to different linguistic varieties, and is an important piece of evidence in the process of the standardization of written Latin.
1 On which, see Petersmann, H. and Petersmann, A., ‘Standardisierung und Destandardisierung der lateinischen Sprache in diachroner Sicht’, in Hornung, A., Jäkel, C. and Schubert, W. (edd.), Studia Humanitatis ac Litterarum Trifolio Heidelbergensi dedicata. Festschrift für Eckhard Christmann, Wilfried Edelmaier und Rudolf Kettemann (Frankfurt am Main, 2004), 235–54Google Scholar, and Neumann, G., ‘Sprachnormung im klassischen Latein’, Sprache der Gegenwart 2 (1968), 88–97 Google Scholar. For a brief linguistic overview, cf. also Clackson, J. and Horrocks, G., ‘The background to standardization’, in id., The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (Oxford, 2004), 77–89 Google Scholar.
2 Gaertner, J.F., ‘The style of the Bellum Hispaniense and the evolution of Roman historiography’, in Dickey, E. and Chahoud, A. (edd.), Colloquial and Literary Latin (Cambridge, 2010), 243–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Gaertner (n. 2), 243, esp. nn. 2 and 4, for an overview of earlier scholarly positions that were not in favour of the style of the BHisp., beginning with Scaliger's indictment (‘horrida … dictio’). Twentieth-century classicists ranging from Löfstedt, E., Philologischer Kommentar zur Peregrinatio Aetheriae. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der lateinischen Sprache (Uppsala, 1911), 8Google Scholar to Henderson, J., ‘XPDNC / Writing Caesar (Bellum Civile)’, ClAnt 15 (1996), 261–88Google Scholar, at 274 have also agreed on the non-literary character of the BHisp.
4 Gaertner (n. 2), 251.
5 Gaertner (n. 2), 244.
6 As Gaertner himself notes, the mutilation of the text can explain only very few oddities in the language of the BHisp.: in effect, it is only responsible for rather isolated phenomena such as the genitive-absolute constructions at 14.1 and 23.5 and some fragmentary sentences. See Gaertner (n. 2), 244–5, with n. 12.
7 Gaertner (n. 2), 245.
8 See esp. Gaertner (n. 2), 252–3 for his examples of stylistic affinities.
9 There is one further, but non-essential, query; it pertains to Gaertner's suggested terminology of a Latin ‘pre-standard’. While I agree that a classification of the style of the BHisp. as ‘substandard’ is methodologically problematic, I am nevertheless hesitant to endorse Gaertner's alternative option: his term ‘pre-standard’ all the same implies the subsequent existence of a ‘standard’. I am not sure whether Caesar's and Cicero's standard actually became the accepted norm of writing Latin afterwards (before Renaissance Humanism): the majority of post-Ciceronian Latin prose deviates from the alleged standard, with Seneca and Tacitus epitomizing the development. See also n. 1.
10 Gaertner (n. 2), 250 states that ‘[i]n the end, few usages can be justly called colloquial or substandard’, but nevertheless has to list nine phenomena as clear colloquialisms.
11 Adams, J.N., ‘The Bellum Africum ’, in Reinhardt, T., Lapidge, M. and Adams, J.N. (edd.), Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose (Oxford, 2005), 73–96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 86.
12 Particularly reliable evidence for the non-literary spoken character of linguistic phenomena are occurrences in Plautus (and, with some caution, Terence), in letters and in many passages in Petronius: cf. Hofmann, J.B., Lateinische Umgangssprache (Heidelberg, 1978), 2–5 Google Scholar, with A. Chahoud, ‘Idiom(s) and literariness in classical literary criticism’, in Dickey and Chahoud (n. 2), 42–64, at 47, and the remarks at Reinhardt, T., Lapidge, M. and Adams, J.N. (edd.), Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose (Oxford, 2005), 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. n. 8. On the difference between vulgar and spoken Latin in particular, Löfstedt (n. 3), 8–13 is still worth consulting.
13 Klotz adopts John Davies's conjecture, which still makes for the best text. I have printed Davies's original conjecture without Klotz's prodelision (which seems to be unparalleled elsewhere in the BHisp.). Böhm's eccentric argument for praemissus nuntius est quod ( Böhm, G.R., ‘Aus einem Aenigma werden durch Dummheit nur Fehler. Textkritisches zum Bellum Hispaniense 10,1.2’, RCCM 30 [1988], 81–95 Google Scholar, at 85–6) does not avoid the perceived awkwardness of quod, and Davies's praeterire quod at least has the authority of (the slightly different) Cic. Clu. 188 praetereo quod … sibi domum sedemque delegit and the similar constructions at BHisp. 36.1 (and perhaps 18.5: see n. 21).
14 See the passages discussed in G. Mayen, De particulis quod, quia, quoniam, quomodo, ut pro acc. cum infinitivo post verba sentiendi et declarandi positis (Diss., Kiel, 1899), 17–24, and the overview of the distribution of the infinitive construction vs quod (quia/quoniam) at Perrochat, P., Recherches sur la valeur et l'emploi de l'infinitif subordonné en latin (Paris, 1932), 146–7Google Scholar. Cf. also the further evidence discussed by Adams, J.N., ‘The accusative + infinitive and dependent quod/quia-clauses. The evidence of non-literary Latin and Petronius’, in Kiss, S., Mondin, L. and Salvi, G. (edd.), Latin et langues romanes: études de linguistique offertes à József Herman à l'occasion de son 80ème anniversaire (Tübingen, 2005), 195–206 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See Mayen (n. 14), esp. 15–16. Mayen also provides the passages from Petronius discussed above, but does not comment on their colloquial character.
16 On the colloquial character of coepi in Petronius in particular, see the discussion by Petersmann, H., Petrons urbane Prosa. Untersuchungen zu Sprache und Text (Syntax) (Wien, 1977), 189–93Google Scholar.
17 This is implicitly endorsed by Adams (n. 14), 197, who suggests that the vulgarisms in Petronius mainly consist in the ‘perversion of the more “educated” construction by the analogical replacement of the correct subordinator quod with quia’. It is also one of the conclusions of Cuzzolin, P., Sull'origine della costruzione dicere quod. Aspetti sintattici e semantici (Florence, 1994)Google Scholar.
18 Note that there is no such usage in Caesar. The only possible exception may be Caes. BCiv. 1.23.3 pauca apud eos loquitur, quod sibi … gratia relata non sit, where the neuter adjective prepares for the quod. See Pascucci, G., Bellum Hispaniense. Introduzione, Testo Critico e Commento (Florence, 1965), 207Google Scholar, ad BHisp. 10.2.
19 Gaertner (n. 2), 250 n. 68.
20 On which, see Herman, J., La formation du système roman des conjonctions de subordination (Berlin, 1963)Google Scholar.
21 The passage is thus identified at Löfstedt (n. 3), 117. If we accept Koehler's conjecture, an easy and attractive change that unfortunately has not made it into Klotz's apparatus, we have another instance at BHisp. 18.5: duo … fratres transfugae nuntiarunt quod Pompeius contionem habuisset; see Koehler, A., De auctorum Belli Africani et Belli Hispaniensis Latinitate (Erlangen, 1877), 77Google Scholar.
22 See Adams, J.N., Social Variation and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2013), 825–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 See n. 16.
24 See the discussion at Löfstedt, E., Syntactica II. Syntaktisch-stilistische Gesichtspunkte und Probleme (Malmö, 1956 2), 450–2Google Scholar.
25 On Greek ἄρχομαι + infinitive, see Hesseling, D.C., ‘Zur Syntax von ἄρχομαι und Verw.’, ByzZ 20 (1911), 147–64Google Scholar.
26 See also BHisp. 22.4 manus intentare coeperunt and 39.2 in speluncam Pompeius se occultare coepit.
27 See e.g. Caes. BGall. 5.7.5 at impeditis omnium animis Dumnorix cum equitibus Haeduorum a castris insciente Caesare domum discedere coepit and BCiv. 3.97.2 Pompeiani, quod is mons erat sine aqua, diffisi ei loco relicto monte uniuersi iugis eius Larisam uersus se recipere coeperunt. The only passages that I would regard as borderline cases which hint at a phraseological character of the construction are BGall. 3.23.2 and 4.27.7. Cf. Gaertner, J.F. and Hausburg, B., Caesar and the Bellum Alexandrinum. An Analysis of Style, Narrative Technique, and the Reception of Greek Historiography (Göttingen, 2013), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 112.
28 Gaertner (n. 2), 252, esp. n. 79. On the ubiquitousness of the phenomenon in the BHisp. and its colloquial character, see also Petersmann (n. 16), 191.
29 See Adams (n. 22), 826.
30 See e.g. Plaut. Epid. 248–9 hoc quod actum est. egomet postquam id illas audiui loqui, | coepi rursum uorsum ad illas pauxillatim accedere; Ter. Phorm. 75 coepi aduorsari primo: quid uerbis opust?; Phorm. 78–9 … coepi is omnia | facere, obsequi quae uellent …; Phorm. 82 hanc ardere coepit perdite; and Cic. Fam. 7.5.1 coepi uelle ea Trebatium exspectare a te, quae sperasset a me, with Kühner, R. and Stegmann, C., Ausführliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache. Zweiter Teil: Satzlehre (München, 1962 4), 570Google Scholar.
31 For the clusters in the BHisp. see the occurrences cited above and, for another example, 31.4 premere coeperunt and traduci coepta sit, 31.5 premere coepit, 31.7 agere coeperunt. The occurrence in clusters is identified by Adams (n. 22), 827. For an example of the distribution in Petronius, Adams points to 74.8 osculari diutius coepit, 74.9 male dicere Trimalchioni coepit, 74.12 gemere ac flere coepit.
32 Klotz calls the phenomenon ‘phraseologisch in vulgärer Sprache’: Klotz, A., Kommentar zum Bellum Hispaniense (Leipzig and Berlin, 1927), 38Google Scholar. See also Hofmann, J.B. and Szantyr, A., Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik (München 1972 2), 329Google Scholar (‘vor allem umgangssprachlich’).
33 The use of magis/maxime as intensifiers is classical with most adjectives ending in -uus and -ius. See further Hofmann and Szantyr (n. 32), 165.
34 For the colloquial character of bene + adjective see, by way of example, Plaut. Capt. 966 bene morigerus fuit puer; Cas. 596 ut bene uociuas aedis fecisti mihi; Lucil. 268 Marx bene plena; 1073 bene longincum … morbum; Cic. Fam. 12.13.4 classis bene magna, and cf. the representative distribution at TLL II.2125.53–2126.80, s.v. bonus.
35 bene magnus: 1.2, 4.2, 12.4, 13.4, 15.6, 16.2, 22.6, 35.2, 35.3, 40.2, 41.1; bene multus: 12.6, 34.6, 36.4; cf. also bene longe, 25.2.
36 See Wölfflin, E., ‘Lateinische und romanische Komparation’, in Meyer, G. (ed.), Ausgewählte Schriften (Leipzig, 1933), 126–92Google Scholar, at 140.
37 See e.g. firmissimus, 6.1; crassissimus, 6.3; uehementissime, 13.7.
38 For this view, see Gaertner (n. 2), 251.
39 The Ennian hexameter could thus be reconstructed as <et> premitur pede pes <atque> armis arma teruntur: see Norden, E., Ennius und Vergil (Leipzig, 1915), 158Google Scholar. Vahlen's Teubneriana has <et iam> pes premitur pede <et> armis arma teruntur: Vahlen, J., Ennianae poesis reliquiae (Leipzig, 1928 2)Google Scholar.
40 Pascucci (n. 18), ad loc.
41 See again Pascucci (n. 18), ad loc. For a sophisticated Ennian allusion, using metre in his favour, cf. Tacitus’ archaising Ennian hexameter with which he starts the Annals.
42 As he himself notes, Gaertner essentially builds here on Eden's argument about the stylistic relationship between Caesar's commentarii and the Roman late annalists: see Eden, P.T., ‘Caesar's style: inheritance versus intelligence’, Glotta 40 (1962), 74–117 Google Scholar.
43 Gaertner (n. 2), 251.
44 The fragments and testimonia are now well presented and commented upon in Cornell, T.J. et al. (edd.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar.
45 See e.g. Gries, S.T., Statistics for Linguistics with R: A Practical Introduction (Berlin, 2009), 24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who instructs: ‘it is important that you choose your sample such that it is representative and balanced with respect to the population to which you wish to generalize. Here, I call a sample representative when the different parts of the population are reflected in the sample, and I call a sample balanced when the sizes of the parts in the population are reflected in the sample’ (italics in the original).
46 Until the opposite has been shown, I remain unconvinced that they do. Rather, I would subscribe to the view that most linguistic phenomena of the BHisp. discussed by Gaertner and in the present paper, just as the archaisms in the Bellum Africum which Adams (n. 11), 79 discusses, ‘represent rather the last throes of an older way of writing. The writer need not have been consciously using archaism as stylistic adornment’.
47 See n. 3.
* This article developed out of a paper written for a seminar on the BHisp., run by Professor Gerrit Kloss. I am grateful to him and to Professor Tobias Reinhardt for their comments on an early version. My thanks also to my wife Kalina, Dr Barnaby Taylor and CQ’s anonymous reader and editorial team, Professors Bruce Gibson and Costas Panayotakis, for their help and suggestions at a later stage.