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.
Gefälschte Daten
I Das zweite Kapitel des I. Buches von Caesars bellum Gallicum schließt mit dem Satz, § 5: (Helvetii) pro muüitudine hominum et pro gloria beüi atque fortitudinis angustos sefines habere arbitrabantur, qui in longitudinem tnilia passum CCXL, in latitudinem CLXXX patebant. Den letzten Relativsatz (qui . . . patebant) hat Meusel (Krit. Anh. S. 348) verdächtigt, E. Norden, German. Urgeschichte (1920) 474 A. 4 athetiert); ich habe mich in einem früheren Aufsatz „Caesartext und Caesarinterpolation", Rhein. Mus. 89 (1940) 173 A. 18 (im folgenden als „Caes.-Text" zitiert), der Athetese angeschlossen und eine Behandlung dieses Zusatzes in Aussicht gestellt, in welcher er unter den gehörigen Gesichtspunkt gestellt würde. Sie soll hier gegeben werden. Vorab über die Unechtheit der Stelle selbst. Sie steht außer Zweifel, nicht sowohl wegen der übergroßen Stadienzahl für die Breitenausdehnung, die ließe sich zur Not korrigieren; aber auch bei Einsetzung richtiger Zahlen behält das Gebiet der Helvetier für den Leser eine recht stattliche Ausdehnung. Überhaupt ist ein Land zu klein oder zu groß immer nur im Verhältnis zur Menge seiner Bewohner. Da Caesar jedoch über die Bevölkerungszahl hier keine Angabe macht, so kann er auch über das Territorium keine Größenangabe gemacht haben, wofern er sinnvoll verfahren ist — was ich ihm immer noch zutrauen möchte. Um weiter zu kommen: eine andere unmögliche Zahlangabe begegnet Gall. VI 29, 4 (Caesar) ad bellum Ambiorigis profectus per
Medieval Modal Theories and Modal Logic Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic
1The translation of the Categories is edited by L. Minio-Paluello in Aristoteles Latinus 1.1-5 (Bruges-Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1961) and the translation of the De interpretatione by L. Minio-Paluello in Aristoteles Latinus II.1-2 (Bruges-Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1965). The translation of Porphyry's Isagoge is edited by L. Minio-Paluello and B.G. Dod in Aristoteles Latinus 1.6-7 (Bruges-Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1966). Boethius's commentary on Aristotle's Categories is found in Patrologia Latina (ed. J.-P. Migne), 64, 159-294, De syllogismis categoricis in Patrologia Latina 64, 793-832, In Ciceronis Topica in Patrologia Latina 64, 1039-1169; an English translation with notes and an introduction by E. Stump, and De differentiis topicis in Patrologia Latina 64, 1174-1216; an English translation with notes and essays by E. Stump, Boethius's De topicis differentiis (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978), Boethius's In Ciceronis Topica (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988). Boethius's two commentaries on De interpretatione are edited by C. Meiser (Leipzig: Teubner, 1877-1880), his two commentaries on Porphyry's Isagoge by S. Brandt, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 48 (Leipzig: G. Freytag, Vienna: F.Tempsky, 1906), De hypotheticis syllogismis by L. Obertello (Brescia: Paideia, 1969) and De divisione by J. Magee, with a translation and commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1998). Some other ancient works were also used, such as Apuleius's Peri hermeneias (ed. C. Moreschini in Opera III (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1991), Augustine's Dialectica, trans, with notes by B.D. Jackson from the text edited by J. Pinborg, Synthese Historical Library 16 (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975), and pseudo-Augustinean De decern categoriis, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, in Aristoteles Latinus 1.1-5, 133-75. For the sources of eleventh and twelfth century logic, see J. Marenbon, 'Medieval Latin Commentaries and Glosses on Aristotelian Logical Texts, Before c. 1150 AD' in Ch. Burnett (ed.), Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Tezts (Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 23), (London: Warburg Institute, 1993), 77-127, republished and revised in J. Marenbon, Aristotelian Logic, Platonism, and the Contezt of Early Medieval Philosophy in the West, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). 2Analytica priora, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Aristoteles Latinus III.l-4 (Bruges-Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1962), Analytica posteriora, ed. L. Minio-Paluello and B.G. Dod, Aristoteles Latinns IV.l-4 (Bruges-Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1968), Topica, ed. L. Minio-Paluello and B.G.