Caesar’s Declensional Triptych

John W. Thomas (Xavier University)

No doubt many a teacher and student of Latin who has read the fourth book of the Gallic Wars has come upon the interesting feature of Chapter 27, where Caesar makes use of a declensional cluster:  he uses his own name five times, once in each of the five standard cases, with no intervening repeats.  It might be worth just perhaps a passing footnote in a commentary (though oddly I have found none) were it not for the fact that Caesar does this trick not just once but a total of five times, three in the Gallic Wars, and twice in the Civil Wars.   The Gallic War ‘Triptych’ is the more remarkable as it frames Caesar’s work (if regarded as the standard books 1-7), once near the beginning, once in the middle, and once at the end nearly exactly (to within less than one-tenth of one percent) as far from the end of book 7 as the first was near the beginning of book 1.   These three passages bear thematic similarities as well, which will be examined, and also serve as a roll-call of Caesar’s major adversaries: (GW 1:46-8) the Germans, (GW 4.27) Britons, and (GW 7.36-7) Gauls.   The two in the Civil Wars (1.8 and 3.79-80) also frame that work, one coming at the start of Book one, the second towards the end of Book 3.  Though less thematically striking, these two also are quite well positioned, and the first of these is perhaps the most striking of all, for Caesar emblazons his name in Civil Wars 1.8, again five times using each case once, within a single chapter, and in textbook order:  Caesar, Caesaris, Caesari, Caesarem, Caesare.

When tracing any usage of words in Caesar, one is perhaps most quickly drawn to his more than frequent use of his own cognomen:  In the course of Gallic Wars 1-7 Caesar uses his own name in one of the five cases 383 times, making the combined oblique forms of his name the 9^th most common word in his text behind in, et, ad, cum, ex, atque, quod, and se.  His name appears even more often (401 times) in the somewhat shorter Civil Wars.  The choice of any name is not a subconscious or language-specific use of a basic operand such as in or et, but clearly a deliberate one, and in the case of his own name, surely a self-aggrandizing one.

A ‘declensional’ parade such as this must be clearly defined as a pattern of use where each of the five cases appears, in any order, and over any distance of text (though arguably it should be well-confined—and all five are), with no intervening repeats of the same case.  Following this model as indicated above, Caesar declines his name five times in the Gallic and Civil Wars combined.  

Caesar is not the only name that Caesar used quite frequently; his notable groupings include those of some of his most famous adversaries:  Pompey, Ariovistus, and the infamous Vercingetorix.  Caesar’s treatment of those names will be outlined, as well as his interspersing of his own name within those groupings, such as the single instance where Pompey’s name appears in declensional order (CW 1.13-17), Caesar’s name appears twice as often within that span, highlighting Pompey if only to show him overwhelmed by Caesar’s name as well as his troops.

By blazing his name for his readers in the three Gallic War sections, Caesar calls our attention there.  In the first passage (GW 1. 46-44), a message of the German king Ariovistus is conveyed to Caesar and Caesar replies, indicating that the sovereignty of the Romans in Gaul is just; in the second passage (GW 4:27) the now defeated Britons send envoys to Caesar, who in turn chastises them for having made war unjustly; and in the third passage (7.37) we see the Gauls, who in a speech discuss whether or not Rome’s rule over them is just.   Caesar’s answer to this question is clear, not only with his military deeds, but also with his words, as he lights his name across the sections as if to say, Rome’s rule is just, and I, Caesar, have spoken.