Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-14T23:59:16.938Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cato, Caesar, and the Germani*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

Kit Morrell
Kit Morrell*
Affiliation:
The University of Sydneykit.morrell@sydney.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 55 BC, Caesar massacred reportedly 400,000 Usipetes and Tencteri. When a supplicatio was proposed in the senate, M. Cato moved instead that Caesar should be surrendered to the enemy. This paper offers a technical analysis of an episode which, while well known, has not always been well understood. What Cato proposed was deditio (surrender) on the grounds that Caesar had committed a breach of fides (breach of truce and/or mistreatment of ambassadors) and thus an offence against the gods. Deditio was a means of expiation, so that Caesar alone should suffer for his crime, as in the famous case of C. Hostilius Mancinus in 136. Cato’s motivations were obviously political, but the technical and religious nature of his allegations meant they could not be ignored. Caesar, I argue, felt obliged to respond, and does so in BG 4 within particular constraints imposed by the nature of fides and deditio.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 49 , November 2015 , pp. 73 - 93
Copyright
© The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper was originally presented at the conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies in Melbourne, 2012. I am grateful to Luca Grillo, Sarah Lawrence, Sascha Morrell, Martin Stone and Kathryn Welch for commenting on written versions, and to Antichthon’s anonymous readers for their useful suggestions. The text of Caesar used throughout is Seel’s 1961 Teubner edition. All translations are my own.

References

Afzelius, A. (1941), ‘Die Politische Bedeutung des Jüngeren Cato’, C&M 4, 100–203.Google Scholar
Ando, C. (2008), ‘Aliens, Ambassadors and the Integrity of the Empire’, Law and History Review 26, 491–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badian, E. (1968), Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic. Oxford.Google Scholar
Barton, C.A. (2001), Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones. Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, R.A. (1967), The Crimen Maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate. Johannesburg.Google Scholar
Beard, M. (2012), ‘Cicero’s ‘Response of the Haruspices’ and the Voice of the Gods’, JRS 102, 20–39.Google Scholar
Bellemore, J. (2012), ‘The Roman Concept of Massacre: Julius Caesar in Gaul’, in P.G. Dwyer and L. Ryan (eds), Theatres of Violence. Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History. 38–49. New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, T.C. (2004), ‘Power and Process under the Republican ‘Constitution’’, in H.I. Flower (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. 31–65. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, T.C. (2009), ‘Embassies Gone Wrong: Roman Diplomacy in the Constantinian Excerpta de Legationibus’, in C. Eilers (ed.), Diplomats and Diplomacy in the Roman World. 171–192. Leiden.Google Scholar
Broughton, T.R.S. (1987), ‘Mistreatment of Foreign Legates and the Fetial Priests: Three Roman Cases’, Phoenix 41, 50–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunt, P.A. (1978), ‘Laus imperii’, in P.D.A. Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker (eds), Imperialism in the Ancient World. 151–191. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Brunt, P.A. (1986), ‘Cicero’s Officium in the Civil War’, JRS 76, 12–32.Google Scholar
Collins, J.H. (1972), ‘Caesar as Political Propagandist’, ANRW I 1, 922–966.Google Scholar
Cornell, T. (ed.) (2013), Fragments of the Roman Historians. 3 vols. Oxford.Google Scholar
Crawford, M.H. (1973), ‘Foedus and Sponsio’, PBSR 41, 1–7.Google Scholar
Dyck, A.R. (1996), A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Ehrhardt, C.T.H.R. (1995), ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, Antichthon 29, 30–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fantham, E. (2004), The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehrle, R. (1983), Cato Uticensis. Darmstadt.Google Scholar
Feldherr, A. (1998), Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Gelzer, M. (1961), ‘Der Antrag des Cato Uticensis, Caesar den Germanen auszuliefern’, in E. Kaufmann (ed.), Festgabe für Paul Kirn. 46–53. Berlin.Google Scholar
Gelzer, M. (1963), Kleine Schriften, vol. 2. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Gelzer, M. (1968), Caesar. Politician and Statesman, trans. P. Needham. Oxford.Google Scholar
Görler, W. (1976), ‘Die Veränderung des Erzählerstandpunktes in Caesars Bellum Gallicum’, Poetica 8, 95–119.Google Scholar
Griffin, M.T. (2008), ‘Iure Plectimur. The Roman Critique of Roman Imperialism’, in T. Corey Brennan and H.I. Flower (eds), East & West: Papers in Ancient History Presented to Glen W. Bowersock. 85–111. Cambridge MA.Google Scholar
Grillo, L. (2012), The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruen, E.S. (1982), ‘Greek πίστις and Roman fides’, Athenaeum 60, 50–68.Google Scholar
Halkin, L. (1953), La supplication d’action de grâces chez les Romains. Paris.Google Scholar
Hall, L.G.H (1998), ‘Ratio and Romanitas in the Bellum Gallicum’, in K. Welch and A. Powell (eds), Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter. 11–43. London.Google Scholar
Hall, L.G.H (2000), ‘Caesar’s Fides’, CR 50, 78–81.Google Scholar
Hickson-Hahn, F. (2000), ‘Pompey’s Supplicatio Duplicata: A Novel Form of Thanksgiving’, Phoenix 54, 244–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, B. (2000), ‘Speech, Authority, and Experience in Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.39-41’, Hermes 128, 54–64.Google Scholar
Kraus, C. (2009), ‘Bellum Gallicum’, in M. Griffin (ed.), A Companion to Julius Caesar. 159–174. Chichester.Google Scholar
Kremer, B. (1994), Das Bild der Kelten bis in augusteische Zeit. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Lee, K.H. (1969), ‘Caesar’s Encounter with the Usipetes and the Tencteri’, Greece & Rome 16, 100–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberg, G. (2006), ‘De pugna Caesaris cum Usipetibus et Tencteris in Bello Gallico IV 6-15’, Acta Ant. Hung 46, 421–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lintott, A. (2008), Cicero as Evidence. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, B.A. (1975), ‘The Date of Delivery of Cicero’s In Pisonem’, CQ 25, 88–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michel, J.-H. (1980), ‘L’extradition du général en droit romain’, Latomus 39, 675–693.Google Scholar
Mommsen, T. (1871), The History of Rome, vol. 4, trans. W.P. Dickson. New York.Google Scholar
Morstein-Marx, R. (2007), ‘Caesar’s Alleged Fear of Prosecution and his Ratio Absentis in the Approach to the Civil War’, Historia 56, 159–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Münzer, F. (1932), ‘Tanusius (2) Geminus’, RE 4A, 2231–2233.Google Scholar
Murphy, P.R. (1977), ‘Themes of Caesar’s Gallic War’, CJ 72, 234–243.Google Scholar
Muth, R. (1978), ‘Vom wesen römischer ‚religio‘’, ANRW II.16.1, 290–354.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. (1980), ‘Plutarch’s Adaptation of his Source Material’, JHS 100, 127–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. (2011), Plutarch. Caesar. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pittenger, M.R.P. (2008), Contested Triumphs. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Powell, A. (1998), ‘Julius Caesar and the Presentation of Massacre’, in K. Welch and A. Powell (eds), Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter. 111–137. London.Google Scholar
Radin, M. (1916), ‘The International Law of the Gallic Campaigns’, CJ 12, 8–33.Google Scholar
Rambaud, M. (1966), L’art de la deformation historique dans les commentaires de César. 2nd edn. Paris.Google Scholar
Ramsey, J.T. (2009), ‘The Proconsular Years: Politics at a Distance’, in M. Griffin (ed.), A Companion to Julius Caesar. 37–56. Chichester.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice Holmes, T. (1911), Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. 2nd edn. Oxford.Google Scholar
Rich, J. (2011), ‘The Fetiales and Roman International Relations’, in J.H. Richardson and F. Santangelo (eds), Priests and State in the Roman World. 187-242. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Riggsby, A.M. (2006), Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words. Austin.Google Scholar
Rosenstein, N.S. (1986), ‘Imperatores Victi: The Case of C. Hostilius Mancinus’, Classical Antiquity 5, 230–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstein, N.S. (1990), Imperatores Victi. Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Ryan, F.X. (1998), Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Santangelo, F. (2008), ‘The Fetials and their Ius’, BICS 51, 63–93.Google Scholar
Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (1965), Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, vol. 1. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Siani-Davies, M. (2001), Cicero’s Speech Pro Rabirio Postumo. Oxford.Google Scholar
Stanton, G.R. (2003), ‘Why did Caesar Cross the Rubicon?’, Historia 52, 67–94.Google Scholar
Stein, P. (1930), Die Senatssitzungen der Ciceronischen Zeit (68-43). Münster.Google Scholar
Stem, S.R. (1999), Cicero and the Legacy of Cato Uticensis. Diss: University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Szidat, J. (1970), Caesars diplomatische Tätigkeit im gallischen Krieg. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Taylor, L.R. (1949), Party Politics in the Age of Caesar. Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, E.L. (1988), Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiedemann, T. (1986), ‘The Fetiales: A Reconsideration’, CQ 36, 478–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiseman, T.P. (1992), ‘Caesar, Pompey and Rome, 59-50 B.C.’, in J.A. Crook, A. Lintott and E. Rawson (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, 2nd edn. 368–423. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wiseman, T.P. (1998), ‘The Publication of De Bello Gallico’, in K. Welch and A. Powell (eds), Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter. 1–9. London.Google Scholar