Have you noticed? The two Cambridge series of commentaries are drawing closer to one another. Although at the outset the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics were rather short and direct, aimed chiefly at undergraduates—examples are Webster’s Philoctetes and Kenney’s Lucretius, Book 3—in time they have grown both taller, by an inch, and fatter, with substantial introductions, long bibliographies, and copious, detailed, wide-ranging, often ground-breaking commentaries; examples are Whitton’s Pliny, Epistulae, Book 2, and Myers’s Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 14. (Eventually, Webster’s commentary was replaced in the series by Schein’s, while Kenney reworked his own volume.) As a result, the green-and-yellows now more closely resemble the oranges, the full-scale, eight-cylinder Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries. Some differences subsist: the green-and-yellows tend to pay less attention to textual matters than their rivals, and more to literary interpretation.
The volume under review remains faithful to the goal of its series—leading the relatively inexpert to appreciate works of ancient literature—and at the same time, for that audience as well as the more advanced, it enhances our understanding of Livy’s historical and literary achievements. In the Preface the authors offer two reasons for selecting Book 22: like the other books of the third decade, it lacks a detailed commentary of the sort that Ogilvie, Oakley, and Briscoe himself provided for the rest of the history; also, “Livy is at his best when writing about Rome’s defeats” (Oakley) and 22 includes the battle of Cannae, perhaps the greatest defeat in Roman history. Yet the book offers other opportunities to commentators, other fertile material to work over. In addition to grand battle scenes (Trasimene as well as Cannae), it includes strong, arresting characters (the cautious Fabius, the plebeian Varro), stirring speeches (Fabius urges continued caution on Aemilius Paullus, Manlius dissuades the Senate from ransoming the Roman prisoners), detailed accounts of prodigies expiated and other religious observance, tales of trickery (Abelux wins Spanish support for the Romans) and of generosity (Busa, an Apulian woman, succors the survivors of Cannae), scenes of horror and pity (the battlefield on the day after Cannae, the arrival of the news at Rome), and, inevitably, the interplay between personality, domestic politics, and warfare. All of this Livy orchestrates brilliantly, and at every turn his commentators succeed in explicating his achievement.
The Introduction, which runs to nearly ninety pages, covers all the topics you expect—and several you likely don’t expect. Omitting a few that are straightforward and unremarkable (Livy’s life and work, language and style, the text), let me enumerate the several sections while adding a few remarks. The course of the war traces events from the beginning of the First Punic War to the end of the Third; in line with its aim of explaining matters fully for the inexpert, it also summarizes in one paragraph all earlier Roman history. It does not, however, set the origins of the Punic Wars within the broad context of the several Mediterranean powers that were competing with one another, no more than Livy himself does; that service Hoyos performs in the introduction to Yardley’s recent Loeb translation of Books 21-22. On the sources, of course the editors have much to say. They survey the possible sources and discuss the criteria for deciding among them. They present two charts that are clear, helpful synopses: one, of those passages which do correspond to a passage in Polybius and those which do not; the other (overlapping), of the likely origin of each segment of Livy’s narrative, in which “Annalist” appears often. Later, in the commentary proper, they argue for their conclusions. The section on structural questions analyzes acutely both the internal design of the book and the book’s place within the decade. A few high points: Fabius’s long speech of advice to Paullus is not only a retarding device before the Cannae narrative but also “a kind of suspension bridge between the peaks” (p. 14), since it not only anticipates Cannae but looks back as well to Trasimene; the four Roman defeats in 21 and 22 (Ticinus, Trebia, Trasimene, Cannae) are presented as a climactic series; 22, with its continuing themes, flows smoothly into 23, yet it finds its closest counterpart in 27, the second book of the second half of the decade. The analyses are subtle and nuanced, and persuasive.
The authors devote a long section to literary aspects, constituting perhaps the 25 most valuable pages in the volume. Without mentioning him here, this is where they come closest to the type of narrative analysis offered more than a half-century ago by Burck, Einführung in die dritte Dekade des Livius (2nd ed., 1962). They scrutinize the course of the narrative from a high vantage point and, like Burck, support their views with a host of fine observations. In part, here they read through the sections of the book in sequence. They compare Livy with Polybius and interpret the differences, especially the adaptations. They note foreshadowings and echoes. They measure the changing pace and temperature of the narrative. More keenly than any before them, they hear the echoes of inter alios Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides (a half-column of the Index is needed to record the references to the last).
In part, the same section examines the narrative in a non-linear way. Perceptive pages trace themes that are threaded through the book, like fama (good and bad), Carthaginian fraus, and the contrast between temeritas and prudentia among the Roman leaders. Speeches receive a thorough treatment, not just their range but also their functions within the narrative: characterization of speaker, varied viewpoints on the action, retardation of narrative. Narratology features in the introduction as well as the commentary itself (hostes referring to the Romans, at 44.4, obliges the reader to momentarily adopt Hannibal’s point of view). A page-long footnote (p. 53, n. 132) considers to what extent Livy knew Greek authors at first hand. Two sub-sections address topics you likely do not expect, because they both deal with events that are not narrated and they are not regularly treated in commentaries, and so are particularly valuable: counterfactual history, and future knowledge (prolepseis, that is, references or hints about what is going to happen after the events currently being narrated: the unanticipated thanking of the defeated Varro (!) at the end of the book looks forward to ultimate Roman success in the war).
In line with the series’ intended audience, Hornblower and Briscoe start their section on chronology with a concise explanation of how the Republican calendar worked. Similarly, the section on Roman religion, long because of the relevance of the subject to Book 22, opens with a description of both its abiding nature (“embedded” in society, and “not something separate and occasional,” p. 58) and its history in the third century, which seems to have witnessed a turning point. The authors draw attention to the number of new gods, cults, and temples introduced during this period and recorded by Livy, also to his dwelling on the people’s emotional responses to the crises. Other sections of the Introduction treat Roman politics and the question of manpower. Everything is explained concisely, clearly, and with ample bibliographical references.
Two further signs of the authors’ concern for their less expert readers are their care to define all terms that might be unfamiliar and their inclination to sketch the history of scholarship on certain points, some surprising. They gloss “annalistic” (p. 12), “scholia” (p. 33), “antonyms” (7.12), cum inversum (19.8), cursus honorum (26.3), “apostrophe” (60.5-27). They trace the origin of “the binocular approach” to analyzing episodes or characters (to Syme, p. 16), of the metaphor in “the tide begins to turn for Roman fortunes” (to Stadter, p. 17), of the division of Livy’s books into chapters (to Gruter’s edition of 1607-1608, p. 14). They are so deeply immersed in the relevant scholarship that they can helpfully contrast their own views not only with Goodyear’s stance towards Tacitus (p. 15) but even with the Penguin translation of Books 31-45 (ibid.).
Briscoe and Hornblower see farther than their predecessors in part because they stand on the shoulders of giants. In addition to reference works like CAH2, MRR, OLD, OCD4, Barringer, Richardson, and FRHist, they are able to draw on notable studies that bear particularly on Livy and his third decade: Oakley’s four-volume commentary on the second pentad (1997-2005), which constitutes a virtual Encyclopaedia Liviana, vel potius Encyclopaedia Scriptae Historiae Romanae; Walbank’s three volumes of commentary on Polybius (1957-1979); Kraus’s pioneering commentary on Book 6 in the same series; Levene’s Livy on the Hannibalic War (2010); and the volume edited by Van Gils, De Jong, and Kroon, Textual Strategies in Ancient War Narrative: Thermopylae, Cannae and Beyond (2019). Not that they are uncritical of their predecessors: Levene they repeatedly criticize, and they leave me wondering what is to be inferred from their oft-repeated phrase “Oakley, in a long note, . . .”. They are aware that the third decade, the most brilliantly executed sequence in Livy’s history, still lacks large-scale commentary. To be sure, an Italian series of commentaries has begun to appear, one volume dedicated to each book of the decade, the project housed in Livy’s home town, but the volume I’ve seen, Beltramini’s commentary on Book 26, which appeared last year, achieves much less than Briscoe and Hornblower’s.
Of course our authors are no slouches themselves: far from it. Virtually all of Briscoe’s career has been devoted to Livy, to producing editions (in both the Teubner and OCT series), textual studies, and commentaries on the author; he has also contributed to the relevant sections of the CAH2. As a result the present commentary often refers to those earlier ones, which cover Books 31-45. His immediately prior book was Liviana: Studies on Livy (2018), where he both defends and changes readings he’d formerly adopted and collects addenda et corrigenda for previous volumes. Hornblower, by contrast, until recently was known chiefly for his work on Greek historiography; perhaps his most remarkable product was the three-volume commentary on Thucydides (1991-2008) that manages to serve the Greekless hardly less well than scholars. Yet, with his works on Lycophron’s Alexandra (2015, 2018), written in the early third century, which may contain clues about Roman history, he has made a transition to that field.
The historical commentary itself on Book 22 is comprehensive. I know of nothing that ought to be added or altered. Every person, event, site, date, institution, monument, and cultural practice is identified. Still, the commentary might have accepted less guardedly the notion that Livy represents Minucius as deliberately altering the facts (14.7); such a stance would be in line with today’s bent towards seeing Livy as an artful reporter (very much Levene’s stance; but cf. their own comment on 34.4-11). Not that our commentators are shy of criticizing Livy himself, and indeed not solely for his historical account (his chronology, for instance, p. 27), but even for his writing: the logic of it is criticized (17.4 and 17.6), as is its clarity (57.9), and the authors forthrightly describe a passage dealing with confused place names as a “ridiculous muddle” (chs. 12-18).
Several more of the commentary’s admirable general characteristics, with illustrations. It translates the Latin infrequently, but regularly explains the structure of especially complex sentences: at 24.6 it untangles a difficult sentence for the less experienced, and adds a subtle and persuasive explanation of Livy’s syntactic/rhetorical choices. It identifies forms and constructions that may be unfamiliar: faxit (10.4), quod with subjunctive expressing an explanation that belongs to a character rather than the author himself (12.5). It often supplements what might have remained a simple textual citation with a phrase indicating its content, which helps the reader grasp the relevance: at 53.5 it expands “cf. 5.49.8-55“ with “(proposal to move the capital to Veii).” It brightens and enlightens its subject with apt references to modern life, including several American references: Mark Twain (13.6), the U. S. Congress (7.14), and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (3.8).
Occasionally the commentary would have done well to take account of interpretations it fails to mention. The section 10.2-6, treated on pages 181-83, purports to quote the proclamation of a ver sacrum in the aftermath of Trasimene. On account of the somewhat difficult pseudo-archaic language, our commentators, unusually, translate the entire passage. But they slip up in a couple of spots. The verb facere they translate as “do (it)”: qui faciet, quando uolet quaque lege uolet facito “let he who does it do it when he wishes and with whatever procedure he wishes.” In context, however, facere more likely has the specific meaning, “to sacrifice,” which fits far better (OLD 24b; in this sense the verb is used absolutely, and fieri, which also occurs here, accordingly = “to be sacrificed”). Furthermore, neque scelus esto is rendered “let it not be an offence.” Instead, scelus here is better translated “curse” (OLD 1), which may be its earliest sense and which in any case conveys more clearly the associated notion of retribution anticipated from the divine sphere. In commenting on a later passage, chs. 23-30, the authors discuss invidia, which, they say, Fabius manages to turn into praise; they translate the word “unpopularity.” The discussion of invidia might have been made more nuanced through use of Chapter 4 of Kaster’s Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome (2005).
The literary aspects of the commentary are also of a high order. The reader is offered informative, insightful notes on language (syntax, diction, word order), style, rhetoric, allusions, narrative techniques, other literary features, and more. Here follows a small sampling of these varied riches: The editors identify the dative of advantage (1.10). They clarify the difficulties entailed by oratio obliqua (37.4-8). They also show how by writing oratio obliqua Livy artfully avoids deciding between the two interpretations of Minucius’s success (24.14). They point out the symmetrical arrangement of four infinitive phrases and then interpret the contrast between the active and the passive infinitives (60.16). They identify a gladiatorial image (35.4) and show that Livy’s use of a medical simile is richer than Polybius’s at the same point (8.3-5). They not only note the echoes both within the book (58.1) and of other authors, like Ennius (25.2 and 18), but also suggest the effects of the echoes. They identify an “audacious” narrative technique, an unusual prolepsis (23.3). They deploy narratological concepts like narrative seed (1.1) and focalization (16.8). They draw attention to Livy’s typical concerns and methods: his interest in the innate characteristics of peoples (22.6) and in moral ambiguity (ibid.), his fondness for crowd scenes (7.6-13), his use of a gnomic generalization to end a speech (14.14) and of cum inversum to introduce a peripeteia (19.8). (But they are wrong to say that the uninverted cum version of the book’s famous opening phrase would be cum ver appetebat: it would be cum ver appeteret.) Of the many subtle analyses of particular passages, I single out one, in Manlius’s speech (60.26), where our commentators well bring out the implications of the singular redimam and the telling contrast with the singular verbs used by the prisoners’ spokesman.
Nonetheless, in the realm of language their readers, especially the inexpert, might have been taught more. It’s true, omnia enim non possumus omnes, neque debemus. And yet, revealing certain features of the Latin language and Livy’s language would be both engaging and useful instruction. Readers might well be curious about Livy’s deployment of the historic present and the historic infinitive: opportunities to discuss them are offered by the text (4.1, 8.2-4)—and considerable scholarship has been devoted to those topics—but they are allowed to pass. Readers might wish more uses of the subjunctive were explained, as at 2.7 (ubi . . . procubuisset in a generalizing clause, a grammatical feature that becomes frequent only with Livy), or might wish to learn that the perfect subjunctive in a result clause, as at 5.8, indicates actual result, not mere tendency, as with the imperfect. Other information likely to be welcome: haud secus quam (17.3), though not rare in Livy, is chiefly poetic, and epic in particular, which adds to the special effects of that remarkable scene where the oxen’s horns are set alight; is can have the force of talis or tantus and so can readily introduce a result clause (28.14; OLD 3); the ablative of a gerund like uastando (3.10), which cannot be an ablative of means, looks forward to the development of that form into the present participle of the Romance languages.
Finally, with the indulgence of the editors of BMCR, I add a few words about certain types of remark that often figure in commentaries, not just this one. Can someone explain to me the worth of remarks like “L. writes both urbs Roma and urbs Romana, the latter more frequently except in the nominative” (9.2), or “L. combines pergit and ire on seventeen occasions, sometimes as pergit ire, sometimes separated by other words, with either pergit or ire preceding” (19.4)? They strike me as utterly, irredeemably inert. Were such removed from the volume, room might be found for comments that are in some way enlightening and helpful for readers of Latin, maybe intrinsically interesting as well; as sketches of samples of such comments, I offer the following:
· 22.5 “liberum: genitive plural. Both liberum and liberorum are attested from early Latin onwards, the former more frequently” (thus the editors). Replace the second part with “liberum is the original form, as can be seen from the fact that, outside of poetry, -um is the regular ending in deum, socium, nummum, fabrum, and other nouns rooted in old, formulaic language; -orum was adopted by analogy with the first declension.” This makes intelligible that which otherwise is presented as merely arbitrary.
· 47.8 “dedit ‘produced’. cf. Tarrant . . . on dant cuneum at Virg. Aen. 12.575” (the editors). One could add “This dare, identical in form with dare ‘to give,’ comes from a different root, not IE. *dō- (cognate with δίδωμι), but IE. *dhē- “put, place, make” (cognate with τίθημι), the meaning of which shows through clearly in compounds like condere ‘to put together,’ circumdare ‘to put around, surround,’ vendere ‘put out for sale, sell.’” This makes sense of many otherwise puzzling phrases in Latin.
· 49.9 no comment offered. My comment: “tu quidem . . . macte uirtute esto; sed caue . . .: quidem marks the first half of a contrast; as often happens, the particle is attracted to a pronoun even though the pronoun is not the contrasted word.” Similarly, at 12.6, where there is no comment: “et prudentiam quidem dictatoris extemplo timuit; constantiam hauddum expertus . . .: quidem marks the first half of a contrast, though no adversative is found with the second half.” The particle, though common in Latin, is often misunderstood.[1]
To end on the positive note the book deserves, let me simply say that it will be an excellent introduction to Livy for the newcomer, indeed nearly an advanced textbook, and that it makes an outstanding contribution to Livian studies. The authors deserve no less than our heartiest congratulations and warmest thanks.
Notes
[1] Perhaps I may be permitted to point out here that, due to the negligence of the original publisher, the American Philological Association, my 1978 monograph on the particle has gone all but unnoticed.