Re: Ariovistus again

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
> There are plenty of problems with your reconstruction, Torsten.
> I'll just mention a few.

I was counting on you to do that. Thank you very much.

> --- On Sat, 6/21/08, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- On Thu, 6/19/08, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@ ...> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > The Senate called the Aedui 'brothers' of the Roman people
> > > http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html 33
> > > no later than 60 BCE
> > > http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letters_to_ Atticus/1.19
> > >
> > GK: What's your date for the battle of Magetobriga?
> >
> > Later than that, obviously, I would have said 58 BCE.
> > But going back to the sources, something bothers me.
>
> ****GK: The letter from Cicero to Atticus which you refer to was
> written in March, 60 BCE. Cicero says that "Haedui fratres nostri
> pugnam nuper malam pugnaverunt." "Nuper" would take us back to the
> previous year for Magetobriga (the "pugna mala"). Fall of 61 BCE at
> the latest.****

I don't think the 'pugna mala' was Magetobriga. Here's the English text:
'Well then, in public affairs for the moment the chief subject of
interest is the disturbance in Gaul. For the Aedui — "our brethren" —
have recently fought a losing battle, and the Helvetii are undoubtedly
in arms and making raids upon our province.[2] The senate has decreed
that the two Consuls should draw lots for the Gauls, that a levy
should be held, all exemptions from service be suspended, and legates
with full powers be sent to visit the states in Gaul, and see that
they do not join the Helvetii.'

"atque in re publica nunc quidem maxime Gallici belli versatur metus.
nam Haedui fratres nostri pugnam nuper malam pugnarunt et Helvetii
sine dubio sunt in armis excursionesque in provinciam faciunt. senatus
decrevit ut consules duas Gallias sortirentur, dilectus haberetur,
vacationes ne valerent, legati cum auctoritate mitterentur qui adirent
Galliae civitates darentque operam ne eae se cum Helvetiis coniungerent."

'Gallici belli metus', ie. "fear of the Gallic War".
Note: 'war', not 'wars'.
And it involves the Aedui and Helvetii, no one else.
So the Helvetii are trying to get through already in 60 BCE.

> http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html 31
>
> 'And that broken by such engagements and calamities, although they
> had formerly been very powerful in Gaul, both from their own valor
> and from the Roman people's hospitality and friendship, they were
> now compelled to give the chief nobles of their state, as hostages
> to the Sequani, and to bind their state by an oath, that they would
> neither demand hostages in return, nor supplicate aid from the
> Roman people, nor refuse to be forever under their sway and empire.
> That he was the only one out of all the state of the Aedui, who
> could not be prevailed upon to take the oath or to give his
> children as hostages. On that account he had fled from his state
> and had gone to the senate at Rome to beseech aid, as he alone was
> bound neither by oath nor hostages.'
>
> This seems to fix his visit to Rome after Magetobriga.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariovistus, see Magetobriga
>
> ****GK: I quite agree. And it is then, during the winter of 61-60
> BCE that Cicero would have met Divitiacus, as he says in De
> divinatione.****

In 58 BCE.

> Looking at how Ariovistus explains it (1.44), this is what happened
> (and I think C. had a secretary write down the things A. said and
> later copied it into his book; they are not flattering for C. and
> accordingly become Dio Cassius' best evidence against Caesar's
> proclaimed peaceful intentions):
> The 15.000 had been given space to settle by the Arverni and
> Sequani. After the victory over the Aedui, those two tribes tried
> to drive out Ariovistus' people, cf. 'that he had not made war upon
> the Gauls, but the Gauls upon him; that all the states of Gaul came
> to attack him, and had encamped against him; that all their forces
> had been routed and beaten by him in a single battle;'.
>
> All the states of Gaul?
>
> ****GK: Polemic overemphasis. He meant the Aedui and their many
> confederates.

That makes no sense.
Why would he be incensed, or even pretend to be, at being attacked by
the people he was hired to fight?

> And they did attack him,since Magetobriga was in Sequani territory.

Of course he was in Sequani territory. They hired him.

> It was a massive Aeduan-led invasion, which ended badly for the
> invaders.

Sez George.

> Ariovistus only got his land grant from the Sequani after
> this big victory.

Why would he move to Sequani-land to fight without an agreement of a
bonus in the form of land, in particular land his army could live off
while they were there? That makes no sense.

> I too am troubled by some aspects of the account.
> I'm no longer certain that Ariovistus' claim of "rooflessness" for
> 14 years needs to be interpreted as anything more than an assertion
> that he and his troops were on a constant military footing.****

If you tell me why you changed your mind, I won't think it's just
because you realize that I'm right that you can't keep an itinerant
army going in the same conflict that long without reward, which means
he must have been waging war elsewhere for at least a decade of that
time.

> All the states of Gaul had recently been assembled.
> '(1.30) They requested that they might be allowed to proclaim an
> assembly of the whole of Gaul for a particular day, and to do that
> with Caesar's permission, [stating] that they had some things which,
> with the general consent, they wished to ask of him. This request
> having been granted, they appointed a day for the assembly, and
> ordained by an oath with each other, that no one should disclose
> [their deliberations] except those to whom this [office] should be
> assigned by the general assembly. (1.31) When that assembly was
> dismissed, the same chiefs of states, who had before been to Caesar,
> returned, and asked that they might be allowed to treat with him
> privately (in secret) concerning the safety of themselves and of
> all. That request having been obtained, they all threw themselves
> in tears at Caesar's feet,...'.
>
> You can't blame A. for turning on his old employer. I think it was
> only then he imported the 120.000 settlers.
>
> ****GK: These 120,000 may or may not have included the recently
> arrived Harudes. It's hard to say. Divitiacus implies at any rate
> that the original 15,000 are counted in. So that makes either
> 81,000 or 105,000 imports (with huge additional numbers on the way).

Either way, an enormous number, compared to the original force.

> I don't see how Caesar's text remotely justifies your
> interpretation.
> First Magetobriga, then the assembly, then the import?

That's not my interpretation. First the Helvetii war ends, then
representatives for all Gaul's tribes come to Caesar, and while there,
discuss what to do with Ariovistus, who is getting to be a problem,
and decide to attack him collectively, but only to notify Caesar if
that fails, since they suspect, now with some actual experience to
back that up, that Caesar is looking for a pretext to start a war to
take over Gaul. They can't have been less well informed of his record
as a governor (in Spain and Portugal, where made some unprovoked
conquests), of his financial troubles or of his political situation in
Rome than Ariovistus turns out to be. So they ask Caesar for a second
assembly, at which they plan to present Caesar with a fait accompli,
that A. is out of the picture and can we have some peace and quiet
now, please. Then they attack A. at Magetobriga, which was all the
Gauls against Ariovistus,
(DBG 1.31, Diviaticus says, note the acc. with inf.:
'Moreover, [as for] Ariovistus, no sooner did he defeat the forces of
the Gauls in a battle which took place at Magetobria, than [he began]
to lord it haughtily and cruelly, to demand as hostages the children
of all the principal nobles, and wreak on them every kind of cruelty,
if every thing was not done at his nod or pleasure; that he was a
savage, passionate, and reckless man, and that his commands could no
longer be borne.'
"Ariovistum autem, ut semel Gallorum copias proelio vicerit, quod
proelium factum sit ad Magetobrigam, superbe et crudeliter imperare,
obsides nobilissimi cuiusque liberos poscere et in eos omnia exempla
cruciatusque edere, si qua res non ad nutum aut ad voluntatem eius
facta sit."
Note: the forces of the Gauls, not of any particular tribe),
then they get their asses kicked, then they come to Caesar, at the
appointed day, where they had thought to present Caesar with the done
deed. Now they have no choice but to ask him to intervene.

> The only import known for 58 BCE were the Harudes, before the
> assembly. The others came earlier. In the course of the "repeated" >

conflicts between the Aedui and the Arverni/Sequani, which lasted

> for years.****
>
> There is something fishy about the whole scene of the assembly of
> the highest representatives of all of Gaul throwing themselves
> bawling at Caesar's feet, in a secret meeting, no witnesses, except
> the assembly, and most of them were probably gone one way or
> another by the time DBG was published. I think the trek of the
> Helvetii was a flight, that they were all refugees from a war with
> Ariovist in S. Germania, who discovered their situation was
> untenable and fled, after using scorched-earth tactics on their
> land. Caesar drove them back, because he wanted them to stay as a
> buffer against Ariovist etc. Caesar could not write that he had
> attacked a column of refugees.
>
> ****GK: The Helvetii had planned their move before Magetobriga,

They had even tried to carry it out, see Cicero's letter to Atticus.

> when Ariovistus was just a hired mercenary with varying military
> successes on behalf of the Sequani.****

The kind of self-confidence Ariovistus displays when negotiating with
Caesar does not come from fourteen years of varying military
successes on behalf of someone else. He was in Swabia and Bavaria
beating the crap out of the Helvetii, the Rauraci, the Tulingi, the
Latobrigi and the Boii.

> Why does he arrange the story so we get the impression that he only
> discovered how dangerous A. was when the Gauls in tears told him? He
> had had dealings with him before, enough to appoint him 'friend of
> the Roman people'.
>
> ****GK: After Magetobriga, Ariovistus did not invade the lands of

the Aedui or their confederates. The Sequani got the hostages
initially, plus the "glory" of being top dogs in Gaul. And then
Ariovistus turned on them.****

They and everyone else in Gaul turned on him. I think I'll take the
words of Diviaticus and Ariovistus over yours in this matter.

> The whole story of the Gaulish representations filling
> him in on the details of the situation in Gaul around Ariovistus
> does not hold water. Caesar never lost sight of his opposition. Dio
> Cassius suspects Caesar of ulterior motives in the Ariovistus
> incident, I think he had ulterior motives already in the Helvetii
> incident.
>
> Orgetorix was actually tried for high treason '(1.4) they, according
> to their custom, compelled Orgetorix to plead his cause in chains'),
> he had, in the middle of a war against Ariovist in their former
> territories, on his own initiative travelled to Gaul to negotiate
> safe passage and settlements for the Helvetii as the fled.
>
> ****GK: Orgetorix concocted his scheme in 61BCE when Messala and
> Piso were consuls. He was killed that same year, certainly before
> Magetobriga.

And?

> Ariovistus was still but a Sequani mercenary.

You're supposed to disprove he was in Swabia and Bavaria.

>Not a major factor, so the Gauls thought,in spite of growing numbers
>of imports. These numbers didn't stop the Aedui from attempting
>their massive invasion. Only Magetobriga showed them how wrong they
>were.****

This is narrative, not proof.

> For that he was executed. Later it became clear he was right and
> they had to flee. '(1.5) They [the Helvetii] persuade the Rauraci,
> and the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, their neighbors, to adopt the
> same plan, and after burning down their towns and villages, to set
> out with them: and they admit to their party and unite to
> themselves as confederates the Boii, who had dwelt on the other
> side of the Rhine, and had crossed over into the Norican territory,
> and assaulted Noreia.' So the Boii, who lived in Bohemia had
> attacked A.'s brother-in-law. That means they were at war with A.,
> by that time at the latest. They now also had to flee.
>
> The goal of the Helvetii, from where according to Caesar they wanted
> to dominate all of France, was the Santones
> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Helvetii
> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Santoni
> who lived in what is now Saintonge
> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Saintonge
> with the main city of Saintes
> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Saintes
>
> How could they threaten all of Gaul from there?
> By the look of it, they wanted to get to the sea.
> That would befit a trading people.
>
> So, yes, 58 BCE, I'd say
>
> ****GK: 61 BCE fits the evidence.****

Your scenario doesn't fit the testimony of the involved parties.
The general problem is the same here as earlier: once you appointed a
villain, there's no limit to the kind of discrepancy between their
statements and the truth you will accept. People don't work that way.
The lie by least effort, by leaving out stuff which would damage their
interests, should it come out, patching up the holes that leaves by
whichever expediency is at hand. And that goes too for all the
protagonists of our story.


Torsten