book. In ii. 34 it is said that Crassus was sent with a legion to Brittany. When, we are not told, but it seems to have been before the Nervian battle. In iii. 7 the legion under Crassus' command is said to be the seventh, which took part in the Nervian battle and suffered so severely that it can scarcely have been sent north after the battle. Again, in ii. 35 it would seem that Caesar left for Italy and Illyricum before the report of Galba reached him. In iii. 7 he seems to have left after receiving it. These are in themselves slight matters, but they are of confirmatory value.

Just as there is a cleavage between Books ii and iii, so there is one between vi and vii. For that there is a single indication, but one that seems to me conclusive.

The last words of Book vi are: "frumento exercitui proviso, ut instituerat, in Italiam ad conventus agendos profectus est." The first words of Book vii are, "Quieta Gallia, Caesar, ut constituerat in Italiam ad conventus agendos proficiscitur." Since we start with the definite information that, whenever Caesar wrote, he wrote rapidly, we must assume that the second of these two sentences was written directly after the first. It is necessary merely to place them in juxtaposition to see how extremely unlikely that assumption is. Nowhere else, either in Caesar or in other writers, do we find at the beginning of a book a sentence which almost verbally repeats the concluding sentence of the previous book. But that might very well happen if Book vii were written at a time considerably after Book vi were finished.

It may be argued that such resuming sentences would be much more common in extant writers if it were not for the careful revision that their works received before publication. But the practice of ancient writers would lead to an inference precisely contrary to that. If we assume the commentaries to have been written consecutively, we have all the more reason to be surprised at the presence of such a resuming sentence, precisely because the commentaries were in all likelihood not carefully revised before publication. We have in Cicero's treatise on the Laws an example of a work that was probably published unrevised, and here we see that the writing is in fact continuous, and the separation into books purely mechanical.1 1 Teuffel-Schwabe, Geschichte der röm. Lit., p. 342.

There is nothing remotely like the instance, noted here in Book vii, of a sentence that itself plainly indicates the end of one and the beginning of a new book. In the Commentaries, similarly, if we set together the last chapter of Book i and the first chapter of Book ii, we shall see at once that the narrative is continuous and that the only break is the mechanical one of chronology. The same is true of Books iii and iv, iv and v, v and vi. But there is a break in the narrative between ii and iii and between vi and vii.

Besides the absence of a break between the books just cited, there are other indications, both in substance and in style, that the commentaries are to be grouped as is here argued. One of them is to be found in the use of the word supra.

In such phrases as "uti supra demonstravimus," etc., the rendering of the word by the English word "above" seems a precise equivalent. Both words are properly used when we wish to refer to something stated before without exactly specifying where it has been said. Generally this thing has very recently been stated, sometimes a few lines before. So supra in v. 2 refers to something stated in v. 1; vi. 34 refers to vi. 31; vii. 83, to vii. 80. But it need not be so closely connected with the passage to which it refers. In v. 56 supra is used to refer to an incident which has not been mentioned since v. 3.

But whether the incident referred to is near or remote, it must be apparent that supra is not likely to be used except to refer to something that the writer recalls having written as part of the composition in which he was then engaged. And while such a limitation of the use of supra would be quite unconscious, it would be none the less effective.

With this fact in mind, we meet the passage (vi. 35): "Sugambri a quibus receptos ex fuga Tencteros atque Usipetes supra docuimus." But this incident has been last referred to in iv. 16, where the Sugambri deny to the Romans any jurisdiction beyond the Rhine. Accordingly, if the considerations urged above have any validity, Books iv and vi formed part of a single composition.

Similarly the phrase in ii. 1, "uti supra demonstravimus," which refers to i. 54, shows a similar connection between Books i and ii.

When Caesar wishes to refer to something he had written before which did not form part of the composition in which he was then

engaged, he seems to prefer the adverb ante or some more specific statement. We have, for example, a reference in v. 6 to Dumnorix, who has not been mentioned since Book i. He is recalled in the phrase "de quo ante dictum est." Again, Caesar has twice occasion to refer to the heroic centurion Baculus, who so distinguished himself in the Nervian battle. In iii. 5 it is said: "P. Sextius Baculus primi pili centurio quem Nervico proelio compluribus confectum vulneribus diximus," and vi. 38 we have "[Baculus] cuius mentionem superioribus proeliis fecimus." If ii and iii were written consecutively, the account of Baculus found in ii. 25 would be very close indeed to the second reference to him, in iii. 5.

I may mention another matter, which in itself has but slight probative force, but is better understood if we assume that Books i-ii were written at a different time from the rest of the work. That is the curious disappearance of Diviciacus. Diviciacus is one of the chief characters of Books i and ii, and one can readily assume that he is intentionally made so. He was a well-known figure at Rome, where the old Druid impressed and interested society somewhat as Benjamin Franklin did the court of Louis XVI. He saves his treacherous brother Dumnorix. He secures the pardon of the Bellovaci. He is the general spokesman for all the Gauls. Now, after a complete silence since Book i, Dumnorix suddenly reappears in v. 6. To outsiders his reconciliation with Caesar is complete. His relations are apparently so intimate that he can plausibly boast that Caesar offered to make him king of the Aeduans. But of Diviciacus never a word. The latter, no doubt, died between 57 and 54, but if Caesar wrote all the commentaries in 52 and cherished the memory of Diviciacus as fondly as he seems to do in Books i-ii, surely we might expect some brief reference to him when his troublemaking brother is killed; whereas, if Books i-ii were written in 57, during Diviciacus' lifetime, and Books iii-vi in 53, we can readily understand the importance of Diviciacus in the first part and the practically complete silence about him thereafter.

A further consideration is the striking and vivid detail with which every move of the Helvetian and German campaigns is given. The embassies back and forth, every abortive move, hesitations

1i. 20, 31, 32, 41; ii. 14.

over a swamp, are fully set forth. In Books iii-vi, however, it may be noted that wherever full returns are given it is of a campaign, not of Caesar himself, but of one of his lieutenants. That is true of the escape of Galba, of the expedition of Crassus, of the massacre at Aduatuca. In all these cases Caesar in 53-52 had at his command full reports from the men who conducted the campaigns. In the case of Aduatuca, refugees had reached Labienus, and it is doubtless his report to Caesar that is communicated to us.

In sharp contrast with his fulness of detail in the campaigns of his lieutenants is the short and summary way in which his own campaigns are treated. Caesar may or may not have kept an actual diary, but there is no evidence that he transcribed it or did more than refer to it for the sequence of events. It is particularly the campaign of 56 that is described in this summary way. And yet this campaign was one that might naturally be supposed to need a detailed narration. It was unique in Caesar's career. It was his first naval battle, and it was fought under conditions that made it different from any other battle that the Romans fought. In spite of that, this bizarre struggle, involving the lively chase of the enemy from one fortified place to another, is related in three short chapters.

All this is easy to understand if the campaign of 56 was the most remote in time when Caesar wrote about it. It is much harder to understand if it was less remote than that of 58, in the narration of which apparently no detail has been omitted.

So far we have been noticing discrepancies in substance. It remains to be seen whether we can detect those slight differences in style that may be expected under the theory suggested here. Are there such differences?

No one can have failed to observe one very striking stylistic peculiarity of Books i and ii. That is the use of oratio obliqua or "indirect discourse." This construction, to be sure, is one of the commonest in Latin, but it is generally used casually and in short sentences. In the books mentioned, particularly in the first, we have long chapters wholly in that construction, especially where the practice of historical narrative would have demanded a set speech.

1 v. 38. Caesar learned of the massacre directly from Gallic captives (v. 52), but the first reports from Roman survivors had been brought to Labienus (v. 47).

Professor Sihler has suggested that Caesar's use of oratio obliqua is due to his haste in composition. But is oratio obliqua really easier to write than oratio recta? That seems decidedly unlikely. Caesar does not shrink from the use of oratio recta, not only in such a case as the long speech of Critognatus (vii. 77), but on several other occasions.2

Now, it is important to insist upon the fact that no other writer of Caesar's time, or before him, as far as we can judge, uses oratio obliqua as Caesar uses it. Chapter after chapter is wholly or almost wholly so written, e.g., i. 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45; and ii. 1, 3, 4, 14, 31, and, in part, 32. And just as characteristic as it is of Books i and ii, just so little characteristic is it of Books iii-vi. In those books nearly twice as great an amount of text is found as in Books i-ii, and here only two chapters, v. 27, 29, contain oratio obliqua on anything like the scale attempted in i-ii. Nor is that wholly due to difference of subject-matter, as is shown by the fact that oratio recta, i.e., the actual quotation of another's words, does occur not infrequently. In many of these passages the practice of Books i-ii would almost certainly have demanded oratio obliqua.

In Book vii, again, there is a certain amount of oratio obliqua. This amount, it is true, is much less than Books i-ii show. Not only that, but oratio obliqua in Book vii is combined with oratio recta in a way that produces a definite effect. A long chapter mostly in oratio obliqua (vii. 20) is closed with a sentence in oratio recta, and immediately thereafter another passage follows in oratio recta. Similarly chapters 37 and 38 of the seventh book have very similar matter, the former in oratio obliqua, the latter in oratio recta. There is, in other words, an apparently deliberate mixing of the two ways reporting thought which may well be called a stylistic peculiarity.

of

It may be asked whether we can gain any hint as to what caused Caesar to adopt and to abandon the marked use of oratio obliqua that is found in Books i-ii.

1 Classical Review (1890), pp. 1999-2000.

iv. 25; v. 30; v. 44; vi. 8; vi. 35; vii. 20; vii. 38; vii. 50. In Books i-ii there is not a single instance of oratio recta, although there is ample occasion for it.