History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

The year 708 is the last of the confusion.

The year 709 is the first of the Julian style.

Historical Data which the Concordance must Satisfy

Cicero relates that at the beginning of his consulship the planet Jupiter lighted the whole sky. (De Divin., I. 11.) Cicero entered on office on the Calends of January in the year of Rome 691; that is, on the 14th of December, 64 B.C. Jupiter had reached opposition eleven days before, on the 3rd of December.[930 - De la Nauze refers this opposition to the 17th of April following (Académie des Inscriptions, tom. XXVI. 244). His calculation is incorrect.]

In the year 691, on the 5th of the Ides of November, Cicero, in his Second Oration against Catiline, 10, asks how the effeminate companions of Catiline will support the frosts of the Appenine, especially in these nights already long (his præsertim jam noctibus).[931 - De la Nauze, influenced by his wrong calculation of the opposition of Jupiter, insists that these events took place at the approach of spring. He overlooks the particle jam. Ideler suppresses it from the German text.] We are, in fact, on the 15th of October, 63 B.C. Later, in his Oration for Sextius, speaking of the defeat of Catiline at the beginning of January, 692 (the middle of December, 63 B.C.), Cicero asserts that the result is due to Sextius, without whose activity the winter would have been allowed to intervene (datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus).

In the year 696 of Rome (58 B.C.), the Helvetii appoint their rendezvous at Geneva for a day fixed: “is dies erat a.d.v. Kal-Aprilis.” (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, I. 6.) This date corresponds with the Julian 24th of March, the day on which the spring equinox fell. The Helvetii had taken this natural period; Cæsar has referred it to the Roman calendar.[932 - According to the system of Ideler, the Helvetii only started on the Julian 16th of April. On that reckoning, we cannot find room for the numerous events which occurred before the wheat was ripe. (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, I. 16.)]

In the year 700 of Rome (54 B.C.), Cæsar, after his second campaign in Britain, re-embarks his troops “quod æquinoctium suberat.” (De Bello Gallico, V. 23.) He informs Cicero of it on the 6th of the Calends of October, the Julian 21st of September. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV. 17.) The equinox fell on the 26th of September.[933 - The system of Ideler (see Korb, in Orelli, Onomasticum Tullianum, tom. I., p. 170), according to whom the 6th of the Calends of October fell on the Julian 30th of August, is manifestly in the wrong. Cæsar, who, in the preceding year, saw no objection to pass into Britain at the end of August, would not have troubled himself about the equinox when it was still 27 days’ distant.]

In the year 702, on the 13th of the Calends of February (that is, on the 30th of December, 53 B.C.), Clodius is slain by Milo. (Cicero, Orat. pro Milone, 10.) Pompey is created consul for the third time on the 5th of the Calends of March, in the intercalary month. (Asconius.)

In the year 703, Cicero writes to Atticus (V. 13): “I have arrived at Ephesus on the 11th of the Calends of Sextilis (12th of July, 51 B.C.), 560 days after the battle of Bovillæ;” an exact computation, if we count the day of the murder of Clodius, and reckon 23 days for the intercalation of 702.[934 - General de Gœler has sought to raise a new system founded on the assumption that the Roman year had only 354 days. According to him, this reduction would have been necessary to find the 560 days of which Cicero speaks. The author commits more than one error; among others, he ascribes, by inattention, 29 days instead of the 27, to the month of February in the year 703. (De Gœler, p. 91.)]

In the year 704 the intercalation is omitted. Cæsar’s partisans demanded it in vain. (Dio Cassius, XL. 61, 62.)

In 705, Cicero, who hesitates in joining Pompey, writes to Atticus: “a.d. xvii Kal. Junii: Nunc quidem æquinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat.” It was the 16th of April; the equinox was passed 21 days before, and the atmospheric disturbances might still last. Or was it anything else than an excuse on the part of Cicero?

Cæsar embarks at Brundusium on the eve of the Nones of January, 706. (De Bello Civili, III. 6.) It is the 28th of November, 49 B.C. “Gravis autumnus in Apulio circumque Brundusium … omnem exercitum valetudine tentaverat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 2, 6.) – “Bibulus gravissima hieme in navibus excubabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 8.) – “Jamque hiems appropinquabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 9.)

After his arrival at Rome towards the end of the year 707, Cæsar started again for the African war. It was only on his return towards the middle of the year 708, that he could devote himself to the re-organisation of the Republic and the reform of the calendar. According to Dio Cassius (XLIII. 26), “as the days of the year did not concord well together, Cæsar introduced the present manner of reckoning, by intercalating 67 days necessary to restore the concordance. Some authors have pretended that he intercalated more; but this is the truth.”[935 - Suetonius had written: “Cæsar placed, for this time, two more months between November and December, so that the year had fifteen months, including the one to be intercalated, which, following the usage, had fallen in this same year.” Censorinus, adopting this view, finds that Cæsar intercalated 90 days in the year 708. But Suetonius has bequeathed us other errors. Dio Cassius, consul for the second time in the year 229 after Christ, had drawn from authentic sources; it is better to hold to his system, which restores the astronomical concordance for the equinox in the year 700, whereas, with the system of Censorinus, it has been sought in vain what Cæsar’s intention could have been.]

What concordance was it that required to be established thus? The 67 days necessary were exactly what required to be added that, in the secular year of Rome 700, the Julian month of March should coincide with the ancient Roman month of March. The month of March of the year 700 of Rome is the true starting-point of the Julian style.

APPENDIX B.

CONCORDANCE OF ROMAN AND MODERN HOURS,

For the Year of Rome 699 (55 B.C.) and for the Latitude of Paris

The dates are referred to the Julian style.

The Roman hours are reckoned from sunset and sunrise.

The modern hours are given in true solar time.

The Roman hours are given at the head of the columns, in Roman numerals. The modern hours are in ordinary numerals. Two examples will explain the use of the Table.

Division of the Night on the 16th of August.– To obtain it, we seek the date in the indicating column on the left, entitled Nights. We conclude from the line opposite: at 7h. 11m., sunset, beginning of the first hour and of the first watch; at 9h. 36m., end of the first watch and beginning of the second; at 12h. 0m. it is midnight, the second watch ends, the third begins; at 2h. 24m., end of the third watch, beginning of the fourth; at 4h. 49m. the sun rises, and the fourth watch ends.

Division of the Day on the 16th of August.– We seek the date in the indicating column to the right, entitled Days. We conclude from the line opposite: at 4h, 49m., sunrise, beginning of the first hour; the third hour ends at 8h. 25m.; the sixth, hour at noon; the ninth at 3h. 35m.; at 7h. 11m, the sun sets.

At the summer solstice, each watch embraces two of our hours; in the winter solstice, it embraces four.

APPENDIX C.

NOTE ON THE ANCIENT COINS COLLECTED IN THE EXCAVATIONS AT ALISE

THE result of the excavations made round Alise-Sainte-Reine would be sufficient to establish the identity of that locality with the Alesia of Cæsar; but the abundance of proofs can do no injury to the argument, and there is one the value of which cannot be disputed: we mean that furnished by the ancient coins found in the fosses of Camp D. (See Plate 23.) Lost in a combat, and falling into a fosse full of water, they thus escaped discovery in the immediate search made usually on a battle-field.

To establish the date of an event which has occasioned the burial of certain coins, we must first show that these coins have been struck at a period anterior to that event. Thus the coins lost at Alesia must naturally belong to a period anterior to the siege of that town.

The coins collected are in number 619; they may be divided into two distinct groups: some bear the impression of the Roman Mint, others are of the Gaulish Mint.

This being understood, let us examine separately the age of the two groups. M. le Comte de Salis and M. de Saulcy have kindly undertaken the classification.

All the Roman coins, without exception, have been struck by order and under the direction of the monetary magistrates, appointed by the government of the Republic: they belong to the republican period, and appertain to the class of coins called consular. Thanks to the labours of men like Morell, Borghesi, Cavedoni, Cohen, Mommsen, and, above all, the Comte de Salis, the age of the coins of this class is now pretty clearly determined. On the date of their emission, in general, it would be, so to say, impossible to commit an error of several years. The series of denarii and quinarii offers us the names of eighty-two magistrates, and the club, the symbol of an eighty-third; four of these denarii present neither name nor symbol; it is the same case with an as in copper, of the type of Janus with the prow of a ship, which has probably borne no other legend but the word ROMA. The most recent of these coins belong to the year 700 of Rome, or 54 B.C. The year in which the siege of Alesia took place was 702. This fact alone would serve, if needed, to demonstrate that Alise and Alesia are the same place.

The examination of the coins of Gaulish fabrication is equally important. They belong to twenty-four civitates, or different tribes. Military contingents, assembled from all parts of the Gaulish territory, have therefore taken part in the war in which these coins were lost and scattered in the soil. But the decisive fact is, that in this number we find 103 which are incontestably of Arvernan origin; one of them bears, distinctly inscribed, the name of Vercingetorix. Of 487 Gaulish coins, 103 belong to the Arverni.

We may add that, among the latter, 61 bear the name of Epasnactus, who became, after the capitulation of Alesia, a faithful ally of the Romans, and the chief of Arvernia. (De Bello Gallico, VIII. 44.) Now the coins of Epasnactus have been long well known; they may be subdivided into two classes: some, anterior to the submission of that personage, present pure Gaulish types; others, of later date, offer only Romanised types, if we may use the expression. In the fosses of Camp D have been found only coins of Epasnactus of the primitive type. The battle in which these coins were lost by the Arverni before Alise was, therefore, anterior to the year 51 B.C., the year of the submission of Epasnactus.

LIST OF ANCIENT COINS

FOUND IN THE EXCAVATIONS AT ALISE

COINS STRUCK IN THE MINT AT ROME.

The coins of the social war (664-665), of the time of Marias and Sylla (666-674), and of the last two years of the war of Spartacus (682-683), are extremely common, and mostly of very rude work.

COINS STRUCK IN SOUTHERN ITALY.

This series ends with the social war in 665.

COINS STRUCK OUT OF ITALY.

These coins were struck in Spain during the war of Sertorius. No provincial coins were struck during the interval between the two civil wars from 682 to 704.

GAULISH COINS (FROM CAMP D, ON THE BANKS OF THE OSE).

APPENDIX D.

NOTICE ON CÆSAR’S LIEUTENANTS

IN his campaign against Ariovistus, Cæsar had six legions; he put at the head of each either one of his lieutenants or his quæstor. (De Bello Gallico, I. 52.) His principal officers, then, were at that period six in number, namely, T. Labienus, bearing the title of legatus pro prœtore (I. 21), Publius Crassus, L. Arunculeius Cotta, Q. Titurius Sabinus, Q. Pedius, and C. Salpicius Galba.

1. T. ATTIUS LABIENUS

T. Attius Labienus had been tribune of the people in 691, and had, in this quality, been the accuser of C. Rabirius. He served Cæsar with zeal during eight years in Gaul. Although he had been loaded with his favours, and had, thanks to him, amassed a great fortune (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 7. – Cæsar, De Bello Civili, I. 15), he deserted his cause as soon as the civil war broke out, and in 706 became Pompey’s lieutenant in Greece. After the battle of Pharsalia, he went, with Afranius, to rejoin Cato at Corcyra, and passed afterwards into Africa. When Scipio was vanquished, Labienus repaired to Spain, to Cn. Pompey. He was slain at the battle of Munda. Cæsar caused a public funeral to be given to the man who had repaid his benefits by so much ingratitude. (Florus, IV. 2. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 105. – Dio Cassius, XLIII. 30, 38.)

2. PUBLIUS LICINIUS CRASSUS

Publius Licinius Crassus Dives, youngest son of the celebrated triumvir, started with Cæsar for the war in Gaul, made the conquest of Aquitaine, and was employed to conduct to Rome the soldiers who were to vote in favour of Pompey and Crassus. He quitted Cæsar’s army in 698, or at the beginning of 699. Taken by his father into Syria, he perished, in 701, in the war against the Parthians, still very young; for Cicero, attached to him by an intimate friendship (Epist. Familiar., V. 8), speaks of him as adolescens in a letter to Quintus (II. 9), written in May, 699. He was, nevertheless, already augur, and the great orator succeeded him in that dignity. (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., XV. 4. – Plutarch, Cicero, 47.)

3. L. ARUNCULEIUS COTTA