1 LVI. As far as his numbers would allow] “Pro numero militum.” He formed his men into two bodies, which he called legions, and divided each legion, as was usual, into ten cohorts, putting into each cohort as many men as he could. The cohort of a full legion consisted of three maniples, or six hundred men; the legion would then be six thousand men. But the legions were seldom so large as this; they varied at different periods, from six thousand to three thousand; in the time of Polybius they were usually four thousand two hundred. See Adam's Rom. Ant., and Lipsius de Mil. Rom Dial. iv.
2 From his confederates] “Ex sociis.” “"Understand, not only the leaders in the conspiracy, but those who, in c. 35, are said to have set out to join Catiline, though not at that time exactly implicated in the plot."” Kritzius. It is necessary to notice this, because Cortius erroneously supposes sociis to mean the allies of Rome. Dahl, Longius, Muller, Bernouf, Gerlach, and Dietsch, all interpret in the same manner as Kritzius.
3 Hoped himself shortly to find one] “Sperabat propediem sese habiturum.” Other editions, as those of Havercamp, Gerlach, Kritzius, Dietsch, and Bernouf, have the words magnas copias before sese. Cortius struck them out, observing that copiæ occurred too often in this chapter, and that in one MS. they were wanting. One manuscript, however, was insufficient authority for discarding them; and the phrase suits much better with what follows, si Romæ socii incepta patravissent, if they are retained.
4 Slaves--of whom vast numbers, etc.] “Servitia--cujus--magnæ copiæ.” "Cujus," says Priscian (xvii. 20, vol. ii., p. 81, ed. Krehl), "is referred ad rem, that is cujus rei servitiorum." Servorum or hominum genus, is, perhaps, rather what Sallust had in his mind, as the subject of his relation. Gerlach adduces as an expression most nearly approaching to Sallust's, Thucyd., iii. 92; Καὶ Δωριείζ, ἡ μητρόπολιζ τῶν &αακεδαιμονίων.
5 Impolitic] “Alienum suis rationibus.” Foreign to his views; inconsistent with his policy.
6 LVII. In his hurried march into Gaul] “In Galliam properanti.” These words Cortius inclosed in brackets, pronouncing them as a useless gloss. But all editors have retained them as genuine, except the Bipont and Bernouf; who wholly omitted them.
7 As he was pursuing, though with a large army, yet through plainer ground, and with fewer hinderances, the enemy in retreat] “Utpote qui magno exercitu, locis æquioribus, expeditus, in fugâ sequeretur.” It would be tedious to notice all that has been written upon this passage of Sallust. All the editions, before that of Cortius, had expeditos, in fugam, some joining expeditos with locis æquioribus, and some with in fugam. Expeditos in fugam was first condemned by Wasse, no negligent observer of phrases, who said that no expression parallel to it could be found in any Latin writer. Cortius, seeing that the expedition, of which Sallust is speaking, is on the part of Antonius, not of Catiline, altered expeditos, though found in all the manuscripts, into expeditus; and in fugam, at the same time, into in fugâ; and in both these emendations he has been cordially followed by the subsequent editors, Gerlach, Kritzius, and Dietsch. I have translated magno exercitu, "though with a large army," although, according to Dietsch and some others, we need not consider a large army as a cause of slowness, but may rather regard it as a cause of speed; since the more numerous were Metellus's forces, the less he would care how many he might leave behind through fatigue, or to guard the baggage; so that he might be the more expeditus, unincumbered. With sequeretur we must understand hostes. The Bipont, Bernouf's, which often follows it, and Havercamp's, are now the only editions of any note that retain expeditos in fugam.
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