University Studies 



Vol. XI OCTOBER 1911 No. 4 



THE NARRATIVE IN THE EIGHTH BOOK OF THE 



"GALLIC WAR," CHAPTERS 50-55; A STUDY 



IN CHRONOLOGY 



BY FREDERICK WARREN SANFORD 

 I 



The dispute between Caesar and the senate, the absorbing 

 topic in Roman political circles in the year 50 B.C., while possessed 

 of legal and constitutional aspects, was in large measure a political 

 question. It is therefore necessary, in order to understand the 

 dispute clearly and to see how it culminated in civil war, to estab- 

 lish the order of events with the greatest accuracy possible. In 

 consequence much laborious research has been devoted to the 

 chronology of the years 51, 50, and early 49. My purpose in this 

 paper is to determine, more accurately than seems to me to have 

 been done before, the chronology of certain related events of the 

 year 50. The topics considered will be : ( i ) the order and dates 

 of events recorded by Hirtius, B.G., VIII, 50-55, in particular the 

 movements of Caesar and his legions, (2) the date of the election 

 of M. Antonius to the augurate, (3) the date of Fam. VIII, 14, 

 the letter in which Caelius Rufus reports Antonius's victory to 

 Cicero, (4) the date at which the consul Marcellus authorized 

 Pompeius to assume command of the two legions taken from 

 Caesar and to defend the state. 



Hirtius's narrative of the movements of Caesar and his legions 

 in the year 50 begins with an account of Caesar's first journey to 



University Studies, Vol. XI, No. 4, October 1911. 



