duces? duas receptas provincias? haec acta diebus XL, quibus in conspectum adversariorum venerit Caesar? The associations of the phrase in these passages are military, except in so far as the allusion to the recovery of the two provinces may imply civil reorganization. More clear is the extension of res gestae to civil administration in various passages of Cicero, as in Pis. 72 res gestas consulatus mei; in the Marcellus, res tuae gestae, spoken in the laudation of Caesar, and including not only his military successes (4, 5) but also his plans for the rehabilitation of the state (25 omnium salutem civium cunctamque rem publicam res tuae gestae complexae sunt; tantum abes a perfectione maximorum operum, ut fundamenta nondum quae cogitas ieceris), seems almost like an echo from the title of his work, a play upon words by no means unpleasing to him to whom the speech was addressed; still Cicero uses the phrase frequently elsewhere, and none was more fitting. How Gallici belli came to be added to the title after Caesar's time involves the consideration of the formation and history of the Corpus Caesarianum, a subject that will be touched upon later.

In the quotation from Curio's address in the last paragraph the field of Caesar's operations is designated by in Hispania. Does Galliae in Hirtius's Caesaris commentarios rerum gestarum Galliae reflect a geographical designation in the original title? I think not; for if Caesar had added in Gallia to his title it would have been more natural for Hirtius to use this than the difficult Galliae, the authenticity of which has been questioned, though on insufficient grounds (cf. viii, 48, 10 res Galliae gestas). When the Gallic War was published no word was needed to indicate the field of operations, known to all and besides defined in the opening sentences of the first book; and Caesar was not the man to waste words, least of all in a title. Hirtius, having completed a supplement to the Gallic War and bridged the gap between it and the Civil War, was obliged in some way to distinguish the books of the former from those of the latter.

In the fragments of the work of Sempronius Asellio preserved by Aulus Gellius (v, 18) the difference is pointed out

between annales and res gestae as species of historical composition; and it is probable that res gestae appeared in the title of his work, at least in the copy from which Gellius made excerpts (cf. Gell. ii, 13, 2; iv, 9, 12; xiii, 22, 8), though he is cited a few times by the grammarians with the title historiae. In Caesar's youth then the distinction was already made that in the composition of res gestae it was not enough to tell what was done, sed etiam quo consilio quaque ratione gesta essent. It is a fair inference from the words of Gellius (ii, 13, 3 Is Asellio sub P. Scipione Africano tribunus militum ad Numantiam fuit resque eas, quibus gerendis ipse interfuit, conscripsit), that the res gestae of Asellio, dealing with events of which he had personal knowledge, contained an autobiographical element. The forerunner of Caesar in this species of composition, however, was not Asellio but Sulla. The title of Sulla's memoirs has been restored by Peter with good reason as commentarii rerum gestarum (Hist. Rom. Rel. p. cclxxviii); and Plutarch at least believed that Sulla intended the work to be a source book rather than a history, as is indicated by the surprising statement in his Lucullus (i): Ὁ δὲ Λούκουλλος ἤσκητο καὶ λέγειν ἱκανῶς ἑκατέραν γλῶτταν, ὥστε καὶ Σύλλας τὰς αὑτοῦ πράξεις ἀναγράφων ἐκείνῳ προσε φώνησαν ὡς συνταξομένῳ καὶ διαθήσοντι τὴν ἱστορίαν ἄμεινον.

The designation of Caesar's books relating to the Gallic War as commentarii rerum gestarum was not only appropriate but had the support of literary precedent. From the brevity and directness with which he was wont to express himself, it might be inferred that in the title of the exemplar prepared for the copyists he would have given his own name as Caesaris rather than in full. Outside the circle of personal friends however, such a use of the name might have seemed to smack of presumption; it is safer to conclude that the original title was:

C. IVLI CAESARIS COMMENTARII RERVM GESTARVM

There yet remain the questions of the designation of the individual books; of the loss of the original title and the origin of those found in the manuscripts, as well as of

the secondary titles used by Suetonius; and as bearing upon the choice of a title, the point of view of both Greek and Roman writers with reference to the place of personal narrative in relation to other forms of historical composition. The limitations of this paper make it impracticable to follow out these or other lines of inquiry here; but it may be worth while to outline what may be considered as on the whole a not improbable explanation of the way in which the titles of both the Gallic and the Civil Wars came to be as they are.

I.

Caesar wrote the seven books of the Gallic War rapidly, arranging the material by years and numbering the rolls (volumina) I to VII as he finished them, so as to indicate the order; referring back when necessary to preceding portions of the work by memory, and using indefinite references (as ut or ut ante or ut supra demonstravimus, ut or ut supra demonstratum est) instead of the more definite references ordinarily used by writers who make a greater labor of composition and write more deliberately. Thus Hirtius, referring to Caesar's Book vii, has superiore commentario (viii, 4, 3; 30, 1; 38, 3).

Avoiding the use of definite references, he had no occasion. to employ in his text a word referring to an individual book; had he done so, we may suppose that, consistently with his use of the plural commentarii and with the usage exemplified by Hirtius, he would have chosen commentarius instead of liber, and that this word would have been supplied by him. with the numeral adjective had he thought it necessary to designate the separate books by formal inscriptions (as commentarius tertius) instead of the simple numbers.

2.

At some time between the end of the year 48 and March of 44 (probably after July, 46), encouraged by the reception of his commentarii i-vii, and desiring for many reasons to put into circulation a summary of the events of the Civil War from his own point of view, Caesar undertook to continue the work;

though harried and worn and interrupted, he succeeded in completing (probably by dictation) two rolls, of which the first contained an account of the events of the year 49 and included Books i and ii, as the work is divided in modern editions, while the second treated the events of 48, being Book iii of the editions. It may be that he expected at some future time to write an account of the events of 51 and 50; but the battle of Pharsalus, as the fall of Alesia, marked a climax and turning-point of his fortunes, and taking up first that which was most important, he commenced the first of the new rolls with the negotiations at the beginning of January, 49, from which the course of events led rapidly and naturally to Pharsalus and Egypt; circumstances did not permit him to carry the narrative beyond the beginnings of the Alexandrian War. The two rolls that were finished may have been numbered X and XI, space being left in the enumeration for two other rolls covering the events of 51 and 50; or possibly they were numbered VIII and IX to follow immediately the first series.

After Caesar's death either his trusted friend Cornelius Balbus, to whom he had committed the charge of important interests when absent from Rome, or Aulus Hirtius, obtained possession of the two finished rolls. Balbus, desiring out of regard for Caesar's memory not to allow them to be published without a presentation, from Caesar's point of view, of the events immediately preceding and following those of 49 and 48, persuaded Hirtius to fill out the missing portions of the commentarii (B.G. viii, praef. 1, 2).

3.

Hirtius, troubled by ill health and pressed by many affairs, nevertheless found time to finish and send to Balbus, with a dedicatory preface, an account of the events of the years 51 and 50, so bridging the chasm between the old commentarii and the new; the final revision and transmission to Balbus of the latter part of his work, continuing his narrative to the death of Caesar, may have been prevented by his own death, only a year after that of the Dictator.

The commentarius covering the events of 51 and 50 was viewed by Hirtius as something interjected into the writings of Caesar (praef. 3 qui me mediis interposuerim Caesaris scriptis); either Hirtius or Balbus (probably the latter) arranged in order a copy of the first seven commentarii, the interjected roll of Hirtius, and the two new rolls left by Caesar, so as to make an orderly collection of the whole as follows:

All these were included under the general title C. Iuli Caesaris commentarii rerum gestarum; the question of the authorship and addition of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars need not be raised here. The eighth roll had a special inscription, in which the word commentarius and the name of Hirtius appeared; traces of this special inscription, in a corrupt form, are found in certain manuscripts, as are also traces of the original numbering of the books.

4.

Strabo knew Caesar's commentarii (vπoμvýμaтa) as only a single work; he refers to the Gallic War under the general title (iv, 1 οὕτω δὲ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Καῖσαρ ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνήμασιν εἴρηκεν). But the subject-matter was so sharply differentiated that the rolls composing the work naturally came to be reckoned in two groups, those relating to the Gallic War and those relating to the Civil War. Livy in his own work recognizes a similar grouping of the books relative to the Samnite Wars (x, 31, 10). To the readers of a work written in rolls the grouping of books related in subject-matter was even more a matter of convenience than with us, who use a different kind of volume.