Chapter VIII: The Results of Caesar’s Invasions of Britain (31)

[3561] It may be well to give the proof. Cicero (_Att._, v, 13, § 1) tells us that the period from the 18th of January, 702, the day on which Clodius was murdered, to the 22nd of July, 703, reckoning inclusively, comprised 560 days; and the reader may satisfy himself that this statement is untrue if there was an intercalary month in 703, and true if there was not. From these data and from the further statement made by Cicero in his speech _Pro Milone_, 98, that the day on which he delivered the speech, namely the 8th of April, 702, was the 101st day since the murder of Clodius, it follows that the intercalary month in 702 amounted to 23 days. It is stated by Curio in a letter to Cicero (_Fam._, viii, 6, § 5) and by Dion Cassius (xl, 62, §§ 1-2) that there was no intercalary month in 704. It can be proved from the chronological statements which have come down to us regarding the movements of Caesar and Pompey in 705 that there was no intercalary month in that year. Plutarch (_Caesar_, 35, § 1) tells us that Caesar made himself master of Italy in 60 days. Shortly before the 17th of January, 705, the day on which Pompey fled from Rome, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (_Att._, ix, 10, § 4; Caesar, _B. C._, i, 14, § 3); and it has been proved (Stoffel, _Guerre civile_, i, 202-3; O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, 1893, p. 104, n. 2) that the exact date was either January 10 or January 11. On the 18th of March he took Brundisium (_Att._, ix, 15, § 6),--65 days, reckoning inclusively, after his passage of the Rubicon, if there was no intercalary month, but 87 or 88 if there was one. Again, he took Corfinium on the 21st of February, quitted it the same day (_ib._, viii, 14, § 1), and marched direct to Brundisium, where he arrived on the 9th of March (_ib._, ix, 13, § 13A). The distance between the two places, measured along the route which Colonel Stoffel believes Caesar to have followed, is 465 kilometres, or about 289 miles. O. E. Schmidt (_Der Briefwechsel des M. T. Cicero_, pp. 385-9) decides for another route; but the difference of opinion between him and Colonel Stoffel does not affect my argument. If there was an intercalary month in 705, Caesar occupied 39 or 40 days on the march, which, considering the notorious rapidity of his movements, is incredible: if there was not, he occupied 17 days (see Stoffel, _Guerre civile_, i, 196-7). That there was no intercalary month either in 706 or in 707 is evident from a statement in one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus (x, 17, § 3), written on the 16th of May, 705,--‘At present the equinox is delaying us, which has been very stormy’ (_Nunc quidem aequinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat_). The equinox actually occurred on the 24th of March. If there was no intercalary month either in 706 or in 707, the 16th of May, 705, fell on the 24th or the 25th of March, 49 B.C. of the Julian calendar. If there was an intercalary month in either of those years, it fell on the 2nd or the 3rd of March. [Le Verrier, who also holds that there was no intercalation in 706 or 707, says that May 16, 705, fell on April 16, 49 B.C.; but Le Verrier assumed, wrongly, as we shall see, that ‘the year of confusion’ contained only 422, not 445 days.]

[3562] _De die natali_, xx, 4, §§ 8-10.--[adeo aberratum est] ut C. Caesar ... duos menses intercalarios dierum LXVII in mensem Novembrem et Decembrem interponeret, cum iam mense Februario dies III et XX intercalasset, faceretque eum annum dierum CCCCXLV, &c.

[3563] Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 521-3; or Stoffel, _Hist. de Jules César,--Guerre civile_, ii, 387-9.

[3564] _B. G._, v, 23, § 5.

[3565] Cicero, _Att._, iv, 18, § 5.

[3566] On the theory of Ideler the sixth day before the Kalends of October, 700, corresponded with the 29th of August, 54 B.C. See his _Handbuch der ... Chron._, ii, 1826, pp. 115-7, &c.

[3567] _Divus Iulius_, 40.

[3568] _De die natali_, xx, 4, § 8. According to Macrobius (_Sat._, i, 14, § 3), the year 708 contained 443 days; according to Solinus (i, 45) 344. These figures are obviously incorrect.

[3569] xliii, 26, §§ 1-2.--Τὰς ἡμέρας τῶν ἐτῶν οὐ πάντῃ ὁμολογούσας σφίσι ... κατεστήσατο ἐς τὸν νῦν τρόπον ἑπτὰ καὶ ἑξήκοντα ἡμέρας ἐμβαλών, ὅσαιπερ ἐς τὴν ἀπαρτιλογίαν παρέφερον. ἤδη μὲν γάρ τινες καὶ πλείους ἔφασαν ἐμβληθῆναι, τὸ δ’ ἀληθὲς οὕτως ἔχει.

[3570] Colonel Stoffel (_Guerre civile_, ii, 299-304), while agreeing with Le Verrier’s conclusion, argues that the statement of Suetonius is in perfect accord with that of Dion; for, he remarks, Suetonius tells us that three months were intercalated in 708, namely, the ordinary month which should have been intercalated in that year, and two others between November and December; and, says Colonel Stoffel, three intercalary, months of 22, 23, and 22 days respectively would have amounted to 67 days.

[3571] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 588.

[3572] _Cäsars gall. Krieg und Theile seines Bürgerkriegs_, ii, 1880, p. 199. See also A. W. Zumpt (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, vii. Supplementband, 1873-5, p. 556), who, in my opinion, proves his point. Mommsen (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, p. 277) maintains that the mere fact that the two extraordinary intercalary months were called _prior_ and _posterior_ respectively, not _secundus_ and _tertius_, proves that the intercalary month inserted before March, 708, was not regarded as belonging to the calendar year 708 at all, but only to the consular year; in other words, that the calendar year began on the 1st of January in 709 for the first time. This view is severely, and I think justly, criticized by Bergk (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, pp. 631-5).

[3573] _Att._, x, 17, § 3.

[3574] Le Verrier should of course have written ‘23 jours’.

[3575] Col. Stoffel, _Guerre civile_, ii, 389.

[3576] Le Verrier overlooks or ignores the fact that in his very next letter (x, 18, § 1), also written at Cumae, Cicero described the weather as ‘an absolutely dead calm’ (_mirificae tranquillitates_).

[3577] Mr. Shuckburgh (_The Letters of Cicero_, i, 1899, p. 327) says by mistake, ‘the 26th of September,’ forgetting that in the unreformed Roman calendar there were not 30, but only 29 days in September.

[3578] _Att._, iv, 18, § 5. The MS. reading is (a litoribus Britanniae) _proximo_, which is nonsense. Dr. Vogel, however, attempts to translate the untranslatable. ‘What other meaning,’ he asks (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 283), ‘can the somewhat extraordinary expression _datas a litoribus Britanniae proximo_ have than that the letter was written in the neighbourhood of the coast of Britain, and therefore not quite at the sea?’ The words will not bear this or any other meaning; and it is obvious that Caesar would have gained nothing by writing when he was ‘not quite at the sea’; unless, indeed, in order to save a few hours’ delay in the transmission of an unimportant private letter, he had sent on a messenger to the coast with orders to embark on a special galley! For _proximo_ Boot substituted _proximis_, a conjecture which is generally accepted. Whatever Cicero may have written, it is certain that the letters which he received from his brother and from Caesar were written in Britain; but T. Bergk, to whom the conclusions which commend themselves to plain men are generally distasteful, insists (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, p. 616) that _litoribus Britanniae proximo_ means ‘the coasts nearest _to_ Britain, that is to say, Boulogne’; and he defends this interpretation by the argument that Caesar had a rooted dislike of mentioning unknown names. But, as Bergk himself maintains, Boulogne was the Portus Itius; and, as Caesar twice mentioned the Portus Itius in his _Commentaries_ (_B. G._, v, 2, § 3; 5, § 1), it is difficult to see why he should have shrunk from doing so in a letter.

Bergk’s theory leads him to the absurd conclusion that Caesar quitted Britain for Gaul on the day before he wrote this letter, that is to say, on the 29th (or 30th) of August of the Julian calendar. Absurd, because, as I show in the text (p. 713), Cicero would in that case have written, not (exercitum _e_ Britannia) _reportabant_, but _reportaverant_; and because Caesar, who had not quitted Britain in the preceding year until, at the earliest, September 11, would not have felt obliged to sail four weeks before the equinox ‘because the equinox was at hand’, and would certainly have thought it perfectly safe to wait several days longer for the return of the ships which carried the first detachment of his army back to Gaul, and which he could ill spare.

[3579] _B. G._, v, 23, § 5.

[3580] Cicero, _Att._, iv, 18, § 5; _B. G._, v, 23.

[3581] Cicero, _Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 1.

[3582] Cf. Unger (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 586), and Zumpt (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, vii Supplementband, 1873-5, p. 564).

Bergk (_ib._, 13 Supplementband, 1884, p. 618), remarking that Napoleon admits that Caesar quitted Britain in 55 B.C. as early as the 12th of September, says that the rise of Arcturus, which, according to Pliny (_Nat. Hist._, xviii, 31 [74], § 310), took place on that day, marked the commencement of the stormy season, and that it is therefore inconceivable that Caesar would have postponed his departure until the middle of the month. I do not attach the least importance to this argument. Caesar went by the equinox, not by the rise of Arcturus, and he waited as long as he thought safe. Moreover, Bergk apparently forgets that the date fixed by Pliny for the rise of Arcturus was borrowed from the Julian calendar, the astronomical calculations for which were not made until 46 B.C. [It should be noted that, according to Columella (_De re rust._, xi, 2), whom Bergk also quotes, the rise of Arcturus took place on the 17th of September, but the 13th presaged the approach of stormy weather (_tempestatem significat_).]

[3583] Vol. ii (3rd ed.), pp. 251-2. See also Varro, _Rerum rust._, ii, 1, and W. Soltau, _Röm. Chron._, 1889, p. 38, n. 1.

[3584] _Hist. Rom._, xl, 47, § 1.

[3585] _Ib._, xlviii, 33, § 4.

[3586] _Nat. Hist._, xviii, 25 (57), § 211.--ea ipsa ratio postea comperto errore correcta est, ita ut duodecim annis continuis non intercalaretur.

[3587] _Collect. rerum memorabilium_, i, 45-6.--vitium admissum est per sacerdotes. Nam cum praeceptum esset, anno quarto ut intercalarent unum diem, et oporteret confecto quarto anno id observari, antequam quintus auspicaretur, illi incipiente quarto intercalarunt, non desinente. Sic per annos sex et triginta cum novem dies tantummodo sufficere debuissent, duodecim sunt intercalati.

[3588] _Divus Augustus_, 31.--Annum a Divo Iulio ordinatum, sed postea neglegentia conturbatum atque confusum, rursus ad pristinam rationem redegit.

[3589] _Ib._, 40.--annumque ad cursum solis accommodavit, ut trecentorum sexaginta quinque dierum esset, et intercalario mense sublato unus dies quarto quoquo anno intercalaretur.

[3590] _De die natali_, xx, 4, § 10.--Praeterea pro quadrante diei, qui annum verum suppleturus videbatur, instituit, ut peracto quadrienni circuitu dies unus, ubi mensis quondam solebat, post Terminalia intercalaretur.

[3591] _Sat._, i, 14, §§ 6, 13.--[Caesar] statuit ut quarto quoque anno sacerdotes ... unum intercalarent diem ... sic annum civilem Caesar habitis ad lunam dimensionibus constitutum edicto palam posito publicavit et [error] huc usque stare potuisset, ni sacerdotes sibi errorem novum ex ipsa emendatione fecissent. Nam cum oporteret diem qui ex quadrantibus confit quarto quoque anno confecto antequam quintus inciperet intercalare, illi quarto non peracto sed incipiente intercalabant. Hic error sex et triginta annos permansit ... sed hunc quoque errorem ... correxit Augustus, qui annos duodecim sine intercalari die transigi iussit, ut illi tres dies ... sequentibus annis duodecim nullo die intercalato devorarentur.

[3592] See W. Soltau, _Röm. Chron._, p. 171, and L. Holzapfel in _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 67.

[3593] See p. 713, _supra_.

[3594] xl, 47, § 1.--καὶ ἡ ἀγορὰ ἡ διὰ τῶν ἐννέα ἀεὶ ἡμερῶν ἀγομένη ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ τοῦ Ἰανουαρίου νουμηνίᾳ ἤχθη.

[3595] xlviii, 33, § 4.--ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα ἐνεβλήθη, ἵνα μὴ ἡ νουμηνία τοῦ ἐχομένου ἔτους τὴν ἀγορὰν τὴν διὰ τῶν ἐννέα ἡμερῶν ἀγομένην λάβῃ &c.

[3596] Mommsen, falling into an inexplicable confusion of thought, insists (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 283-6) that the extraordinary intercalation mentioned by Dion took place not in 713 but in 714. Dion’s words, he says (_ib._, p. 283, n. 5), belong to a passage which immediately follows his description of the events of 714; which deals with the events of 713 and 714; which begins with the words ἔν τε τῷ πρὸ τούτου ἔτει (713); and which ends with the words ταῦτα μὲν ἐν τοῖς δύο ἔτεσιν (713-4) ἐγένετο. He says that Dion’s words, taken by themselves, allow us to refer the extraordinary intercalation either to 713 or to 714; but he maintains that it must be referred to 714, because otherwise the sequence of the nundinal letters would be inexplicable. But the truth is, as the simple arithmetical calculation which I have given on pp. 713-4 shows, that the sequence is perfectly explicable if the extraordinary intercalation took place in 713, hopelessly inexplicable if it took place in 714. Except Unger, all recent chronologists (see, for instance, _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 51 and n. 1) have recognized Mommsen’s blunder. Dion says that the extraordinary intercalation took place ἐν τῷ πρὸ τούτου ἔτει: Mommsen himself affirms that τὸ πρὸ τούτου ἔτος was the year 713; yet he will have it that the extraordinary intercalation took place in 714!

[3597] The year 702, as we have already seen, contained 378 days; each of the five years 703, 704, 705, 706, and 707 contained 355 days; the year 708 contained 445 days; one of the four years 709, 710, 711, and 712 contained _ex hypothesi_ 366 days, and the other three 365; and if there had been no intercalation in 713, that year would have contained 365 days. Then the number of days from the Kalends of January, 702, to the last day of December, 713, would have been 378 + 355 × 5 + 445 + 366 + 365 × 4 = 4,424 days, which is a multiple of 8.

[3598] _Röm. Chron._, pp. 171-3.

[3599] Holzapfel, A. Mommsen, and Unger.

[3600] See _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 88.

[3601] See p. 715, _supra_.

[3602] καὶ δῆλον ὅτι [ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος] ἀνθυφῃρέθη αὖθις, ὅπως ὁ χρόνος κατὰ τὰ τῷ Καίσαρι τῷ προτέρῳ δόξαντα συμβῇ (_Hist. Rom._, xlviii, 33, § 4).

[3603] _Röm. Chron._, i, 1883, pp. 11-8.

[3604] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 56, note.

[3605] See p. 716, _supra_.

[3606] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 85.

[3607] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 72.

[3608] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 50.

[3609] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 48.

[3610] Assuming that the pontiffs misunderstood Caesar’s regulation, and did not simply set it aside, is it possible to explain their mistake? It is often taken for granted that the Romans only used the inclusive method of reckoning. This, however, is an error: Holzapfel shows that our method was generally adopted by Cicero, except of course in the case of dates. Generally, however, in ordinary speech, when the number in question was less than ten, the tendency was to employ the inclusive method; and, as the same tendency prevailed in official phraseology, Holzapfel argues (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 74) that it would not have been unnatural for the pontiffs to interpret Caesar’s regulations in this sense. See also Th. Mommsen, _Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 162-3, 317; L. Holzapfel, _Röm. Chron._, pp. 353-4; and p. 602, n. 5, _supra_. But, apart from the question of Roman methods of reckoning, is it likely that the pontiffs should have been ignorant of the astronomical reason which led Caesar to enact that one year in every four must contain an intercalary day? Holzapfel thinks that it is. ‘We shall hardly do the pontiffs an injustice,’ he says (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 74), ‘if we assume that they knew about as much of the actual duration of the [solar] year as Censorinus, who treats the matter as not yet thoroughly ascertained.’ The passage in Censorinus (_De die natali_, xix, 2), to which Holzapfel refers, runs as follows:--_Hoc tempus quot dierum esset, ad certum nondum astrologi reperire potuerunt_. He then quotes various astronomers, all of whom agreed of course that the number of days was 365, but differed in regard to the fraction of a day by which the duration of the year exceeded 365 days. Perhaps the pontiffs did not know that Sosigenes, upon whose calculations Caesar relied, estimated that fraction at one quarter (see p. 725, _infra_). If they set aside Caesar’s regulation not from ignorance but deliberately, their motive must have been to avoid the coincidence of the Kalends of January in every third year with a nundinal day.

[3611] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 72 and n. 1.

[3612] _Sat._, i, 13, § 17.--quotiens incipiente anno dies coepit qui addictus est nundinis, omnis ille annus infaustis casibus luctuosus fuit, maximeque Lepidiano tumultu opinio ista firmata est.

[3613] To spare the reader the trouble of doing a sum, I give the proof. The 1st of January, 702, fell, as we have already seen (p. 713), on a market-day; therefore, if the 1st of January, 711, did the same, the number of days that elapsed from the 1st of January, 702, to the last day of December, 710, inclusive, must have been divisible by 8. The year 702 contained 378 days; each of the years 703-7 contained 355 days; 708 contained 445; and _ex hypothesi_ 709 and 710 each contained 365. Now 378 + 355 × 5 + 445 + 365 × 2 = 3,328, which is exactly divisible by 8.

[3614] Cf. Th. Mommsen, _Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 25, 286. Unger remarks (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 760) that the outburst of 676 [or rather 677] was too insignificant to have been selected by Macrobius as an illustration. Moreover, says Holzapfel, the particular _tumultus_ owing to which the superstitious dread of the coincidence of _nundinae_ with the Kalends of January was intensified must have been preceded by other calamities associated with the same coincidence. In the earlier part of 702, when the Kalends of January fell on a market-day, there were no consuls, which might well awaken apprehensions. In 705, when the same coincidence occurred, the Civil War broke out. The _Lepidianus tumultus_ of 711 was accompanied by proscriptions; therefore the superstition would have been confirmed, as Macrobius says, by that _tumultus_.

Undoubtedly,--if, as Holzapfel maintains, it is true that in 711 the Kalends of January fell upon a market-day. But this is the very point at issue; and Holzapfel seems to ignore the possibility that the _Lepidianus tumultus_ of 677 may also ‘have been preceded by other calamities associated with the same coincidence’. Moreover, Matzat objects that of the events of 711 the outbreak of Lepidus was the least important, and that if Macrobius had intended to refer to that year, he would have said _tumultus Antonianus_. Holzapfel replies that when Lepidus joined Antony, the war which the latter had begun assumed a new phase, and Lepidus became commander-in-chief of the united armies (Velleius Paterculus, ii, 63, § 1; Appian, _B. C._, iii, 84), a fact which justifies the phrase, _Lepidianus tumultus_. Further, to show how flagitious the conduct of Lepidus appeared to contemporaries, he refers to Cicero, _Fam._, xii, 8, § 1 (_Scelus adfinis tui Lepidi ... cognosse te arbitror_), 9, § 2 (_Nos, confectum bellum quom putaremus, repente a Lepido tuo in summam sollicitudinem sumus adducti_), and 10, § 3 (_Praeclare viceramus, nisi spoliatum, inermem, fugientem Lepidus recepisset Antonium. Itaque numquam tanto odio civitati Antonius fuit quanto est Lepidus; ille enim ex turbulenta re p., hic ex pace et victoria bellum excitavit_).

[3615] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 760.

[3616] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 60-1.

[3617] _Pharsalia_, viii, 808.

[3618] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 69.

[3619] Matzat’s theory, Holzapfel insists (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, pp. 71-2), forces him to contradict himself. First, he argues (_Röm. Chron._, i, 1883, p. 17) that Caesar fixed the time of his first intercalation _simply_ with the object of preventing the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day; in other words, he holds that the intercalary day contemplated by Caesar was a movable one. But if so, we must disregard the testimony of Dion, who says that the intercalation of 713 was ‘contrary to the regulations’ (παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα). Accordingly in _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 51, Matzat silently abandons his earlier view, and assumes that Caesar intended to intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c. But if this cycle had been observed, the 1st of January, 714, 717, 720, and so on, would have fallen on a market-day; and therefore Matzat’s revised theory is obviously irreconcilable with his original view, that Caesar intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day.

Matzat has not, so far as I can discover, made any rejoinder to Holzapfel’s article; but it is not impossible to answer this argument. Supposing that Caesar intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day, why should we disregard the testimony of Dion? Caesar’s regulation was that the intercalation should take place every four years. If, no matter for what reason, the first intercalation took place in 710, the second would fall due in 714. By transferring it to 713, Caesar’s regulation would be contravened. Nor is the theory that Caesar intended to intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c., necessarily inconsistent with the view that he intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day; for, as I have remarked in the text, he may perhaps have failed to look ahead.

[3620] _Röm. Chron._, pp. 328-9; _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, pp. 77-8.

[3621] The writers of the article CALENDARIUM in Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ (i, 344), who assume that Caesar’s calendar came into operation on the 1st of January, 45 B.C., argue that his motive for making the year begin on that day ‘was probably the desire to gratify the superstition of the Romans by causing the first year (_sic_) of the reformed calendar to fall on the day of the new moon ... the mean new moon occurred at Rome on the 1st of January, 45 B.C., at 6^h 16′ p.m. In this way alone can be explained the phrase used by Macrobius (_Sat._, i, 14, 13): _annum civilem Caesar habitis ad lunam dimensionibus constitutum edicto palam posito publicavit_.’ Holzapfel, on the other hand, shows (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 87) that ‘Macrobius’s words, if one considers the context, only imply that Caesar made no alteration in the place of Kalends, Nones, and Ides, which originally had reference to the lunar phases’. See also Th. Mommsen (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, p. 277, n. 2) and Matzat (_Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 61-3). Matzat’s arguments were directed against A. Mommsen, who assumed (_Philologus_, xlv, 1886, pp. 411-38) that the new moon had occurred on the 2nd of January 45 B.C., and accordingly argued that Caesar’s calendar began on that day. Mr. J. K. Fotheringham (_Journal of Philology_, No. 57, 1903, pp. 98-9) affirms that ‘there was a new moon on the 2nd of January, 45 B.C., which Caesar may have calculated for the 1st, and there was another new moon on the 1st of March’. I have myself calculated the date of the new moon in question, first by reckoning back the number of lunations from the new moon of January 6, 1856, which occurred at 11.17 p.m., taking the length of a lunation to be 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2·84 seconds, and allowing 2 hours for the secular acceleration of the moon’s mean motion; and, secondly, by the method explained in Augustus De Morgan’s _Book of Almanacs_, 1851, pp. xiv-xv. Both methods have led me to the same result, namely, that there was a new moon on January 2, 45 B.C.

[3622] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 57-8.

[3623] _Sat._, i, 13, § 19.--dies ille quo abundare annum diximus eorum est permissus arbitrio qui fastis praeerant, uti, cum vellent, intercalaretur, dum modo eam in medio Terminaliorum vel mensis intercalaris ita locarent ut a suspecto die celebritatem averteret nundinarum. Atque hoc est quod quidam veterum retulerunt non solum mensem apud Romanos verum etiam diem intercalarem fuisse.

[3624] _Ueber die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten_, 1863, p. 1.

[3625] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 56.

[3626] _Röm. Chron._, p. 328; _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, pp. 66-7, 72, 77.

[3627] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 57.

[3628] _Hist. Rom._, xlviii, 33, § 4.

[3629] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 76.

[3630] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 57.

[3631] See p. 714, _supra_.

[3632] See pp. 719-21, _supra_.

[3633] _Sat._, i, 14, § 15.--post hoc unum diem secundum ordinationem Caesaris quinto quoque anno incipiente intercalari iussit, &c.

[3634] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 52-3.

[3635] See p. 719, _supra_.

[3636] A. Mommsen, a brother of the great historian, has devised a singular theory of the working of the Julian calendar (_Philologus_, xlv, 1886, pp. 411-38), which Holzapfel (_ib._, xlix, 1890, pp. 85-7) as well as Matzat (_Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 61 ff.) has conclusively refuted.

[3637] See p. 327, _supra_.

[3638] Rice Holmes, _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, 1899, pp. 490-1.

[3639] _B. G._, v, 1-8.

[3640] _Q. fr._, ii, 13, § 1.

[3641] Napoleon (_Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 195, n. 4) arbitrarily identifies Blandeno with Lodi.

[3642] _Q. fr._, ii, 13, § 1.

[3643] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 199.

[3644] _Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, pp. 615, 620.

[3645] See O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, pp. 201-5, 378-9. The distance from Placentia to Rome _via_ Luca was 378 miles, _via_ Ariminum 403. See _Itin. Ant._, ed. Wesseling, pp. 124-7, 284, 287-8.

[3646] _Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, pp. 615-20; Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 199.

[3647] See O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, pp. 378-80. Caesar did occasionally, as Schmidt admits, travel at the rate of 100 Roman miles a day (Plutarch, _Caesar_, 17; Suetonius, _Divus Iulius_, 57. Cf. Caesar, _B. C._, i, 3, § 6). In 1852, Lord Dalhousie rode and drove from Benares to Barrackpore, a distance of 400 miles, in 80 hours, including stoppages; and in the same year General Godwin travelled from Meerut to Calcutta--over 950 miles--in 11 days (Sir W. Lee-Warner’s _Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie_, i, 1904, pp. 403, 422).

[3648] See p. 730, _infra_.

[3649] _Att._, iv, 15, § 10.

[3650] _Q. fr._, ii, 15, § 4.

[3651] _Att._, iv, 15, § 9.

[3652] _Q. fr._, ii, 15, § 3.

[3653] Asconius, _in Scaurianum_, p. 18 (_M. Tullii Ciceronis opera_, ed. Orelli and Baiter, vol. v, pars ii, 1833).--Summus iudicii dies fuit a. d. IIII Non. Septembr.

[3654] ‘Caesar,’ writes Cicero, ‘wrote me a letter from Britain on the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th’ (_Ex Britannia Caesar ad me K. Septembr. dedit litteras, quas ego accepi a. d. IIII K. Octobr._ [_Q. fr._, iii, 1, § 25]). ‘Your fourth letter,’ he tells Quintus, ‘reached me on the 13th of September, dated on the 10th of August from Britain’ (_Quarta epistola mihi reddita est Idibus Sept., quam a.d. IIII Idus Sext. ex Britannia dederas_ [_ib._, 1, § 13]). And, as we have already seen, letters from Caesar and Quintus, written on the British coast on the 25th of September, reached Cicero on the 24th of October. The extraordinarily long time--33 days--which Quintus’s ‘fourth letter’ took to reach his brother may easily be accounted for: Cicero was not at Rome when he received it, but at Laterium, near Arpinum, about 70 Roman miles E. by S. of Rome (_ib._, in, 1, § 4).

Napoleon insists (_Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 196, n, 3) that, in favourable circumstances, letters only required 20 days for transmission from Britain to Rome. This view is based upon a passage in one of Cicero’s letters (_Q. fr._ iii, 1, § 17) which, in the MSS., runs as follows:--_tabellarii a vobis venerunt a. d. XI K. Septembr. vicesimo die_ (‘letter-carriers arrived from you and Caesar on the 22nd of August after a journey of 20 days’). It is obvious, and is universally admitted, that (unless Cicero made a slip) _Septembr._ is wrong, and that Cicero meant ‘the eleventh day before the Kalends of October’, that is to say, September 20. It is equally obvious that he did not write _vicesimo_, or that, if he did, he made a mistake. For, at the end of the letter, he says (as we have already seen), ‘Caesar wrote me a letter from Britain on the 1st of September’; and, as the letter from Quintus reached him on the 20th of September, it must have been dispatched, if it really arrived _vicesimo die_, on the 1st of September, that is to say, on the same day as the letter from Caesar. But this, as Dr. Vogel remarks (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, pp. 273-4), is disproved by the fact that Caesar, in this very letter, begged Cicero not to be alarmed at not having received a letter from Quintus by the same messenger, as Quintus was not with him when he reached the coast (_Ex Britannia Caesar ad me K. Septembr. dedit litteras ... quibus, ne admirer, quod a te nullas acceperim, scribit se sine te fuisse, cum ad mare accesserit_). As it is clear, therefore, that _vicesimo_ is wrong, various attempts have been made to amend the MS. reading. Bergk (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, p. 622) arbitrarily changes _vicesimo_ to _tricesimo_. The most satisfactory conjecture, in my opinion, is that of C. Bardt (_Quaest. Tullianae_, 1866, p. 32). He believes that what Cicero wrote was _a. d. XI Kal., septimo vicesimo die_; that a copyist abbreviated this into _a. d. XI Kal., sept. vicesimo die_; and that this was corrupted into _a. d. XI Kal. Sept., vicesimo die_.

If Professor Tyrrell, who reads _a. d. XI Kal._ [_Sept._] _vicensimo die_ (_Correspondence_, ii, 1886, p. 150), reads this note, I am confident that he will allow his text to be emended in the next edition of his and Dr. Purser’s great work.

[3655] There can, I think, be little doubt that Quintus wrote and dispatched this letter on the very day of his arrival, or, at the latest, before the storm which totally wrecked 40 of Caesar’s ships on the next night but one after his arrival. If the storm had occurred when he wrote, he would surely have mentioned it; and there is not a word in Marcus Cicero’s reply which would lead us to suppose that he had done so. Moreover, Quintus knew that Marcus was waiting impatiently for news; and Caesar would naturally have desired to communicate at once with Labienus whom he had left in command in Gaul.

[3656] _B. G._, v, 8, § 2.--longius delatus aestu orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit. Tum rursus aestus commutationem secutus, &c.

[3657] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 198.

[3658] _Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 205.

[3659] See pp. 600-3, _supra_.

[3660] See pp. 706-7, _supra_.

[3661] _Norman Conquest_, iii, 399.

[3662] Dr. F. Vogel, who rightly concludes that Caesar could not have sailed on the 20th of July, has recourse to an unsatisfactory argument to prove his case. We know, he says (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 275), what misfortunes Caesar had met with in the preceding year owing to the high tide which was raised by the full moon: how then can we believe that he would have chosen the day of full moon for his second expedition? But Dr. Vogel himself argues that Caesar sailed about the 8th of July, the day after new moon. Did not the doctor forget that the tidal phenomena at full and new moon are nearly identical, and that the 8th of July was the very day on which a springtide occurred? If Caesar was himself unaware of these facts, his Gallic seamen could have enlightened him. Moreover, he must have known that at least one full moon would occur while he remained in Britain.

[3663] _B. G._, v, 9-10; 11, §§ 1-7.

[3664] _Q. fr._, iii, i, § 25.

[3665] See pp. 712-3, 726, _supra_.

[3666] _B. G._, v. 22, §§ 3-4.

[3667] _Ib._, 23, § 1.

[3668] _Ib._, 23, § 2.

[3669] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 280.

[3670] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 194, 199.

[3671] _Ib._, pp. 198-9.

[3672] Trebonius defeated Cassivellaunus about the 20th of July of the Julian calendar; and we may assume that Caesar did not begin to march towards the territories of Cassivellaunus until the following day. By the 5th of August he had returned to his naval camp. In those 17 days he marched to the Thames; crossed it at or near Brentford; marched on through the territory of Cassivellaunus into that of the Trinovantes (Essex); marched thence to the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, which was not far off; captured it in a single day; and marched back to the coast. Altogether the distance that he marched cannot have been less than about 200 miles. Evidently, therefore, he would not have had time enough to negotiate with Cassivellaunus and to receive the hostages whom he demanded before he returned to the coast.

Bergk insists (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, pp. 616-8) that the campaign must have been finished at the beginning of August of the Julian calendar, because Caesar (_B. G._, v, 22, § 4) tells us that when it was finished the summer was nearly at an end, and, according to Caesar himself, autumn began on the 11th of August. But when Bergk says that, according to Caesar, autumn began on the 11th of August he seems to forget that this date was fixed in the Julian calendar, eight years after the invasion of Britain. He also forgets that the word _aestas_, in the _Commentaries_, denotes, not a season which ended on a fixed date, but the period during which campaigning was practicable; and two passages prove that it extended at least as far as the middle of September. In the last chapter of his First Book Caesar remarks that in a single ‘summer’ he had finished two important campaigns (_una aestate duobus maximis bellis confectis_); and it has been proved that the decisive battle of the second campaign was fought about the 14th of September (Rice Holmes, _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, p. 642). In the 20th chapter of the Fourth Book he says that he determined to invade Britain (in 55 B.C.), although only a small part of the ‘summer’ remained, and in this part of the world ‘winter’ set in early (_Exigua parte aestatis reliqua Caesar, etsi in his locis ... maturae sunt hiemes, tamen in Britanniam proficisci contendit_); and we know that he did not land in Britain until the 26th of August (see pp. 600-3, _supra_). The second passage, moreover, is one of many which prove that Caesar generally took no account of spring and autumn, but (like Thucydides) divided the year into two seasons,--_aestas_, the season in which campaigning was practicable, and _hiems_. He only once uses the word _ver_ (spring), namely, in _B. G._, vi, 3, § 4; and only three times--once only in the _Gallic War_ (vii, 35, § 1), twice in the _Civil War_ (iii, 2, § 3; 87, § 3)--uses the word _autumnus_; and in none of these four passages is there any reference to campaigning. The Latin word for ‘winter’, properly so called, is not _hiems_ but _bruma_.

[3673] _B. G._, v, 17, § 5--18, § 1.--Ex hac fuga protinus quae undique convenerant auxilia discesserunt, neque post id tempus umquam summis nobiscum copiis hostes contenderunt. Caesar cognito consilio eorum ad flumen Tamesim in fines Cassivellauni exercitum duxit.

[3674] About the 20th of October Cicero wrote to his brother (_Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 1), ‘for more than fifty days I have heard nothing from you or from Caesar’ (_dierum iam amplius quinquaginta intervallo nihil a te, nihil a Caesare ... adfluxit_). The last letter which he had received was the one written by Caesar on the 1st of September.

[3675] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 194.

[3676] _B. G._, v, 22, §§ 1-3.

[3677] See p. 726, _supra_.

[3678] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 284.

[3679] _Ib._, pp. 284-5.

[3680] _Q. fr._, iii, 8, § 1.--Superiori epistolae quod respondeam, nihil est; quae plena stomachi et querelarum est, quo in genere alteram quoque te scribis pridie Labieno dedisse, qui adhuc non venerat. Delevit enim mihi omnem molestiam recentior epistola.

[3681] _B. G._, v, 8, § 1; 23, § 4.

[3682] _Q. fr._, iii, 8, § 2.

[3683] _B. G._, v, 24, § 2.

[3684] _Ib._, 24, § 1; 46; 47, § 1.

[3685] _Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 4.

[3686] See p. 728, n. 6, _supra_.

[3687] Of course I do not mean that he would not have attempted to do so in any conceivable circumstances; but that Volusenus would never have advised him to undertake such an operation when there was the alternative of landing between Walmer and Sandwich. 5.10.06.

[3688] See pp. 613-4, _supra_.

[Transcriber’s Note:

Page 389, Extra footnote “See p. 61, _supra_.” combined with duplicate number (FN 1605).

Page 568, Footnote anchor 2773 added at the end of first paragraph.

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]