VOL. XII

The Thirteenth Annual Meeting of The Classical Association of the Atlantic States will be held at Haverford College, on Friday and Saturday, April 4-5, during the spring recess of the College. A copy of the completed programme of the meeting will be mailed to each member of the Association on or about March 15. Accommodations will be obtainable in the dormitories of the College for Friday night, April 4.

CAESAR, B. G. 2.8, AGAIN

In THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY I10.161 I discussed Caesar B.G. 2.8. taking as my starting-point a suggestion made by Mr. C. R. Jeffords, of the Boys' High School, Brooklyn. It was made clear that twenty years ago Dittenberger had taken issue squarely with Colonel Stoffel's conclusions concerning Caesar's dispositions in connection with this battle, and that Mr. T. Rice Holmes, though, twice, first in his Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, then in his annotated edition of the De Bello Gallico (Oxford University Press, 1914), he had reproduced Colonel Stoffel's map, had, in his letter press accompanying said map, both times refused to accept its conclusions.

With respect to the discussion in 10.161, Mr. Jeffords wrote to me, as follows:

I am not sure that I made clear in my letter what seems to me to be the vital point of the problemwhether the contour of the hill at Berry-au-Bac in Caesar's time was such as to make possible what Caesar's language seems to indicate every exactly, that his battle line was drawn up at right angles to the Aisne, instead of parallel to the river, as the maps have it.

The length of the trenches and the width of the camp give a total of over 6000 feet, which, nisi fallor, would be exactly quantum loci acies instructa tenere poterat for a triple line of six legions. If the line were drawn up, as all circumstances seem to indicate that it should be, parallel to the trenches and the camp, with its right flank resting on the Miette and the left on the Aisne, Caesar's description would seem perfectly clear and exact. I should be very much obliged to you if you could find time to let me know whether this interpretation appears in the books published since I looked into the matter several years ago.

I laid Mr. Jeffords's letter aside, to wait for a more convenient season. The matter came back forcibly to my mind last summer, when, looking through Professor Kelsey's latest book, Caesar's Commentaries: The Gallic War, Books I-IV, with Selections from Books V-VII and from the Civil War (Allyn and Bacon, 1918), I found that Professor Kelsey had given, between pages 144 and 145, Colonel Stoffel's map, the map discredited, as stated above, so long ago by

No. 18

a German and an English scholar. At the beginning of his explanation of the map he wrote thus:

Caesar, marching from the South, encamped on the north or right bank of the Aisne, on a long hill. As the camp was well protected by the streams and the low ground on the west, in order to secure the east side, he ran entrenchments from the corners to both the Aisne and the Miette. The widely extended Belgian camp was on the opposite side of the Miette (chapter 7, lines 11-12).

Repeated reading of De Bello Gallico 2 shows, more and more, that it is impossible to fit the Stoffel map to Caesar's description. I can make nothing whatever of the words "west" and "east side" in the passage quoted above from Professor Kelsey. Again, Caesar does not mention either the Miette or the Axona in connection with the fossae (see below)!

Now, if one will take the pains to read De Bello Gallico 2.8 half a dozen times, without looking at any map at all, and will then look at the Stoffel map, he will see clearly that, according to the map, Caesar took extraordinary precautions to guard the right flank of his fighting line, but took no precautions whatever to guard his left flank. To be sure, as everybody knows, the ancients, in attempting to outflank an enemy, tried to go round, for manifest reasons, his right flank; hence the right flank required and received, when possible, special protection. But it seems after all incredible that Caesar should do so much to guard his right flank and nothing at all to guard his left flank. Furthermore, if he had taken all these pains to guard the right flank alone, why should he say that he did all this work ne, cum aciem instruxisset, hostes, quod tantum multitudine poterant, ab lateribus pugnantis suos circumvenire possent? Why, if he had in mind only one latus, should he take the pains to write lateribus?

On the other hand, if we leave the position of the camp and of the fossae exactly as it is in Colonel Stoffel's map, and then make Caesar's army face West', as Mr. Jeffords suggests, instead of North, as Colonel Stoffel's plan has it, Caesar's description of his own elaborate precautions begins to appear sensible. Of course it will be necessary to make the Belgians face East, instead of South (as Colonel Stoffel's map makes them face).

Here we must note carefully the fact, mentioned above, that, in his description of the fossae, Caesar says not a word about the two streams that figure so largely in Stoffel's map. It is proper here to ask what

Mr. Hodges seems to have had this idea (see THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 10.161).

right any one has ever had to bring the brook Miette into the account of this battle. Caesar mentions the flumen Axona and a palus; that is all. But even the Axona he does not connect with the fossae.

Now part of Mr. Jeffords's view, the idea that Caesar's army faced West, was suggested by Dr. Rutherford, long ago, in his edition of the Gallic War, Books II and III, in the Preface, and on pages 55-56. Rutherford's view was discussed by Mr. T. Rice Holmes, on pages 74-75 of his annotated edition of the De Bello Gallico. Mr. Holmes had no difficulty in finding a serious flaw in Rutherford's explanation, because, curiously enough, Rutherford had supposed that the enemy was drawn up parallel to the river Axona, in a line running East and West (and so facing South), instead of at right angles to the river, in a line running North and South (and so facing East), as Mr. Jeffords supposes. In Rutherford's view, then, the two acies would have been at right angles to each other!!

Several further points occur to me in connection with Mr. Jeffords's view.

(1) What is the meaning of post eum quae erant in 2.5.5? This phrase, I should suppose, is of wider meaning than post castra quae erant normally would be, so that the difficulties raised by Mr. Holmes in connection with Rutherford's interpretation of pro castris in 2.8.2 are without effect. Caesar had crossed the Axona from the South (and East); post eum would naturally mean, therefore, 'to the South (and East)', and would cover Caesar's entire line of communications back to his starting-point, to the South (and East) of the site of this battle. In the same way, we must interpret post castra in 2.9.3; for there Caesar refers back specifically to 2.5.5, in the words quod esse post nostra castra demonstratum est.

(2) 2.5.5 suggests another question. I cite the section entire:

Quae res et latus unum castrorum ripis fluminis muniebat et post eum quae erant tuta ab hostibus reddebat et commeatus ab Remis reliquisque civitatibus ut sine periculo ad eum portari possent efficiebat.

How can the words latus unum castrorum ripis fluminis muniebat be made to square with Colonel Stoffel's view of the location of the castra2? Would not these words naturally imply, to one who reads them by themselves alone, that one side of the camp was on the very bank of the stream? If so, what justification is there for Colonel Stoffel's map, reproduced by Professor Kelsey? The map shows a camp at a distance from the river, and a trench running off from the camp to the North, to the Miette, and another trench running from the camp to the South, to the Axona.

If, however, we set the camp with one side of it on the river bank, and remove from our map entirely the trenches running to the North and the South from the camp, we shall be able to get a simple and natural explanation of 2.5.5.

Mr. Jeffords does not say, in either of his letters, where he puts

the castra.

We shall then think of a hill pro castris Caesaris, that is, a hill running East and West toward the enemy, who were themselves facing East. Now, look at 2.8.3, ab utroque latere eius collis transversam fossam obduxit, and notice that the genitive dependent upon latere is not castrorum, but collis. Colonel Stoffel's map makes the fossae run from the latera of the castra! Our view thus gives us a situation very different from that set forth in Colonel Stoffel's map.

Once more we must speak of the fossae. These, I confess, give me difficulty. How would they have accomplished the purpose Caesar had in mind in constructing them (the defence of both his flanks)? Well, they would on each side have kept the foe 400 paces away from Caesar's forces, plus the distance the weapons flung by the tormenta would carry. This suggestion does not satisfy me, I admit. This is the blindest part of Caesar's description. But two things at least may be said positively: (I) if these fossae really ran to the Miette and the Axona, Caesar was guilty of extraordinary carelessness when he failed to mention the two streams in connection with them; (2) since Caesar did not mention either Axona or Miette, the modern investigator is without warrant for injecting them into his descriptions, oral or graphic, of the battle.

(3) I cannot reconcile with common sense, and with my layman's notions of military strategy, the relation of the bridge and the camp to each other, as that relation is given in the Stoffel map; the bridge and the camp seem quite too far apart. Had the bridge been so far off, and had the enemy really possessed the great forces that Caesar ascribes to them, they would certainly have found it easy to detach enough troops to overcome the relatively small force left by Caesar at the bridge, and in altera parte fluminis.

On the theory of the battle-formation we have been considering, the right flank of the Belgian host rested on the river Axona. At the outset of the battle neither combatant planned to cross the Axona. There was no need to do so. In 2.9.1-2 the object of transirent and of transeundi is paludem, a marsh to the North of the Axona3. It was not till Caesar suos in castra reduxit that the enemy, the chance of a decisive battle now gone, made for the Axona; their purpose was, not to attack Caesar's main force or his castra, but (1) to destroy the bridge, and (2), if they should fail in that, to try the effect of Schrecklichkeit on the Remi and to shut off Caesar's supplies. According to Stoffel's map Caesar's main force was at least as far from the bridge as the enemy were. But in 2.10.1 Caesar tells us that his cavalry and light infantry, wholly unhampered, crossed the bridge and ad eos contendil. The Romans were able even to reach the point on the South bank of the Axona for which the enemy were aiming, before the enemy could cross: see 2.10.2-4. Clearly, the bridge was closer to Caesar's

The reluctance of the two armies to cross this palus could be abundantly illustrated from accounts of the World War.

camp than to the place where the enemy's line of battle had stood. If stress be laid on equitatum in 2.10.1, we may note that the enemy too had equites (2.9.2), who would probably have been among those that ad flumen Axonam contenderunt (2.9.3).

Let us sum up. We may never be able to draw a true plan of this battle, since there is in Caesar's account one grievous weakness; he has not said enough about the fossae. But that Colonel Stoffel's plan cannot be right we may be absolutely sure, for at least two reasons: (1) Caesar says nothing of the Miette, or of any second stream; hence, the modern investigator has no right to inject the Miette into his picture: this second stream is of the very essence of Stoffel's plan. (2) The pons can not have been located where Stoffel put it.

C. K.

THE FUNCTIONS OF REPETITION IN LATIN

POETRY

On page eight of my dissertation1 I expressed the hope that I should some day be able to take up the study of the rhetorical tropes which depend for their effectiveness upon the repetition of a word (or a phrase). This article is submitted as a preliminary step toward the realization of that hope. The dissertation concerned itself, first, with a discussion of the device of conscious iteration as handled by some twenty representative Latin poets, and, secondly, with an inquiry into the metrical treatment of repeated words. I am attempting here to show, by citation from the poets, the remarkably varied and effective use made of repetition. It is manifestly inexpedient to quote voluminously. I therefore present, in extenso, only three or four examples in illustration of each of the several points; where it seems worth while, I give references to other passages in which the type of iteration under discussion occurs. These references are selected from a large number of passages which I have collected and classified.

The functions of repetition in poetry may be divided into three classes:

(b) To express pathos.

(c) To express humor.

(d) To express love.

(e) To express quiet, repose, and dignity.

(f) To express movement and action.

(g) To express rage and derision.

(h) To express tragic tone.

(i) Miscellaneous effects.

(j) In conversation.

(k) In certain rhetorical figures:

(1) Gemination (epizeuxis).

(2) Anadiplosis (anastrophe, epanas

trophe, epiploce).

(3) Epanadiplosis (symploce).

(4) Anaphora (epibole).

(5) Antistrophe (epistrophe, homoeo

teleuton).

(6) Epanalepsis.

(7) Antimetabole.

(8) Chiasmus.

(9) Traductio.

(10) Tautology. (11) Paronomasia. (12) Polyptoton.

(13) Polysyndeton.

(14) Parechesis.

(15) Adnominatio. (16) Alliteration.

III Repetition for Metrical Expediency:

(a) To bind together different lines, parts of lines or stanzas.

(b) Repetition of a refrain.

Having discussed and illustrated these several points, I shall proceed to consider

IV Unusual Forms of Repetition, in the following order:

(a) The parody of repetition.

(b) Freak repetition.

(c) Careless and inartistic repetition.
(d) Unconscious repetition.

1 Repetition for Emphasis

(a) Manifestly there can be no better way of emphasizing an important word, or group of words, than by repeating the word or the group. In the oral delivery of an oration or a poem the speaker may impart emphasis by tone or by gesture; but in written or printed literature, aside from position in the line or the inherent character of the word in question, repetition is the only effective device for emphasis. When a word or a phrase is repeated in the same place

The term 'express' is used here for convenience. Often, if not always, the exultation or the humor, etc., is expressed by the actual words employed in the passage, even without the repetition. But the repetition emphasizes the pathos, humor, etc., and brings it out into sharper relief.

See Cicero, De Oratore 3.206-208 (with Wilkins's notes) and Orator 135 (with Sandys's notes). Quintilian 9.3 is interesting in this connection. Compare, also, Baehrens, Poetae Latini Minores IV, pages 273-285.

Compare Professor F. F. Abbott, in University of Chicago Studies in Classical Philology 3.67-68.