Ecce Romani III

Chapter 62: Background Information

Culture/History: The Battle of Pharsalus, with more narrative from Caesar

Grammar: Passive verbs used impersonally • Genitive and dative with special verbs

About Castra Romana

A Roman army would march for most of a day and then stop to construct a camp (castra, castrorum, n. pl.) for the night or perhaps longer. Scouts sent ahead of the army looked for a site that would provide protection as well as provisions of wood and water: a hill slope from which one could see hostile forces approaching was desirable. Each soldier carried his own construction tools and participated in engineering the fortified camp. The camp site was surrounded by a ditch, or fossa, dug to a depth of 3-10 feet and width of 4-13 feet, depending on the permanency of the camp and time available. The dirt removed from this ditch created an inner earthwork rampart, the vallum, on which sharpened upright sticks formed a palisade. Between the vallum and the soldiers' tents was an empty zone, some 200 feet wide, called the intervallum. This kept the living areas and sleeping quarters well out of range of enemy missiles.

(Click image for larger view)

The camp itself was carefully set up, even if it was intended for only one night's use. An identical layout was used each time so that, no matter where they were and even in the dark of night, everyone knew where everything and everyone else was located. (Review the picture at the top of page 89 of your textbook.) Laid out as a rectangle, the camp had two major streets intersecting each other, each starting and ending in a porta in the outer wall (murus). The principal gate, located in the center of the front face of the camp, was known as the Porta Praetoria. It was usually placed to face a river, if one happened to exist in the area. From the Porta Praetoria a 100-foot-wide road called the Via Praetoria led straight to the principia or officers' quarters and the praetorium or general's quarters. The quarters of the dux or imperator and his quaestor and legati were located roughly near the center of the camp. The Via Praetoria was crossed at right angles by the Via Principalis on which the praetorium and principia fronted.

The Via Praetoria resumed behind the principia and continued straight through camp, although redubbed the Via Decumana because it ended at the Porta Decumana. The headquarters section occupied roughly a third of the camp. The remaining two thirds, behind the principia and praetorium, were occupied by legionaries, cavalry, and auxiliaries. The Via Decumana was bisected by another crosswise road, 50 feet wide, called the Via Quintana. It was so named because adjacent to the tents of the Fifth Maniple (a force of two centuries or 120-200 men) and their attached cavalry.

(Click image for larger view)

Sources:
Warfare in the Classical World, John Warry, St. Martin's Press, New York, pp. 126, 128.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 199.
http://www. roman-britain.org/places/_min.htm, accessed 10/17/03.

-- J. Jahnige

This chapter's readings demonstrate that Caesar was not only a more than competent general but also a skilled writer.

As a general --

anticipation and neutralization of Pompey's advantage in numbers (especially in cavalry)

encouraging his troops

adjusting the acies triplex to accommodate a fourth line on the exposed side or flank

As a writer --

emphatic choice of word order

use of rhetoric

Reading Notes

Passage A

1. tertiam aciem (line 1) -- notice a pattern in word order here and following. The most important words are placed first; the second most important word is placed last; and the weakest point is placed in the center.
2. recentes, integri (line 2) -- nominative substantive adjectives, i.e. with no noun, "troops" is to be understood. Another substantive adjective is the dative defessis.
3. terga verterunt (lines 3-4) -- colloquially, "turned tail."
4. ut ipse... pronuntiaverat (line 5) -- refers to the speech given in Chapter 61.
5. Caesar uses two rhetorical techniques (lines 7-8) here to enhance his writing, (a) anaphora in ab his, ab eisdem, ab eisdem and (b)ellipses by omitting esse.
6. More ellipses (line 8-9) -- omits the perfect participles pulsum and perterritam.

Passage B

1. Add the reflexive pronoun se (line 2) to refer back to Caesar as the subject of the infinitive dare after existimans.
2. uterentur (line 2) -- utor is one of several verbs that are followed by the ablative case.
3. Linking "qui" (line 3).
4. "-que" (line 6) is often used in Latin where in English we would use a comma. Is this the case here, or might "-que" mean other?
5. acie...confecti (lines 6-7) -- in this sentence are seen the ablative of Separation, the ablative of Respect, and the ablative of Cause. Identify which word fits each of these grammatical structures.
6. Emphatic placement of missis...militaribus (line 7) -- why do you think Caesar positioned the words in this clause as he did?

Passage C

1. Caesar uses perfect passive participles (lines 1-3) to describe Pompey's camp. Why?
2. Lucius Cornelius Centulus Crus (line 2) -- praetor in 58 BC, consul in 49 BC. He too fled to Egypt after this battle and died one day after Pompey died.
3. quae...designarent (lines 3-4) -- a relative clause of characteristic which 'serve to' point out.
4. ut (line 4) -- starts a result clause after nimiam.
5. eos...timuisse (line 4) -- an indirect statement after the passive infinitive existimari.
6. Caesar's troops were indeed short of supplies but the superlative forms he uses here (line 5) might be hyperbole.
7. Larisa (line 8) still exists today, about 40 kilometers from the modern city of Farsala.
8. Again an ellipse (line 12) -- missing esse with the perfect passive participle.

J. Jahnige, September 2003

Fabulae ^