Falling Masts, Rising Masters: The Ethnography of Virtue in Caesar's Account of the Veneti
����� �� CAESAR’S ACCOUNT OF THE REVOLT of the Veneti and neighboring tribes along the northwest coast of Gaul (BGall. 3.8‐15) contains a clear assertion of Rome’s superiority in virtus over her foes. While the account of the Veneti has sparked considerable debate over Caesar’s political motivations and Venetic topography, 1 the passage’s literary themes merit study in their own right. This paper examines the respective roles of technology and virtus in Caesar’s presentation of the Venetic defeat. The first section establishes that Caesar conceived of the sea battle fought against the Veneti as a contest about virtus. The next section argues that the technology of enemy boat design detailed in an ethnographic passage is represented by Caesar as a source of Venetic strength in place of true fighting spirit. This naval ethnography, dismissed by several commentators as an afterthought awkwardly inserted into the text, 2 is, on the contrary, the cornerstone of a sophisticated exposition on the theme of native technological strength failing to compensate for a lack of virtus. Caesar’s presentation of the final defeat of the Veneti at sea, the subject of the third section, exposes native weakness in a remarkable scene wherein falling masts and sudden calm metaphorically cast enemy failure within a gendered opposition of hard and soft.
Caesar’s Description of Bridging the Rhine (Bellum Gallicum 4.16–19): A Literary Analysis
Book 4 of the Bellum Gallicum revolves around two spectacular and pioneering achievements: the bridging of the Rhine and the crossing of the English Channel. The former has received far less attention than the latter, and most of it has focused either on the details of the bridge’s location and construction 1 or on Caesar’s strategic aims. 2 Few have approached the passage as a work of literature to examine its narrative structure and verbal texture or to pose the question of what Caesar hoped to achieve through his description of building the bridge as opposed to building the bridge itself. 3 The most notable contributions are those of Peter Dodington, Giuseppe Micunco, and Debra Nousek. In his study of the engineering passages in Caesar’s Commentaries, Dodington argues that Caesar presents the crossing of the Rhine as “the implied turning point of the whole German war.” 4 The description of the bridge has the role of introducing this important campaign and, like other long descriptions of engineering feats in the Bellum Gallicum, “it . . . strongly emphasizes the intelligence and industry of Caesar just before he recounts the events of a major operation.” 5 Noting the special emphasis of the passage and its central position in the Bellum Gallicum, Micunco argues that the construction of the bridge was intended as a “sign” more for the Romans than for the barbarians. 6 In crossing the natural limits of the Rhine and the Ocean into regions beyond the known world Caesar was imitating Alexander the Great 7 but takes care to avoid the impression of hybris in relating his exploits. 8 Along similar lines, Robert Sablayrolles detects emulation of Pompey and contrasts the failed attempt of Crassus
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of