NOTES CHAPTER 1 § 1. hic status rerum, 'such was the position of affairs.' After a rather rambling history of the war in Italy and Sicily in B.C. 210 Livy had given, in the concluding chapters of Book 26 (41-51), an account of P. Scipio's brilliant capture of New Carthage ending with the despatch of C. Laelius to Rome in charge of the Carthaginian prisoners. See Introduction I. The history of the war in Spain is resumed at Chapter 17 of this book. Salapia, a small town in Apulia, north of Cannae. Hannibal selected it as his winter quarters in 214 B.C. (Bk 24. 20 hibernis placebat locus). Earlier in the present year one of the leading citizens, Blattius, plotted successfully to hand over the town and its Numidian garrison to Marcellus. See 26. 38. 6-14. Marmoreas et Meles, mentioned only here. From the large amount of provisions captured in them they were obviously important depots. § 2. ad tria milia. See n. on c. 8. 12. aliquantum, ‘a considerable quantity.' Cp. c. 15. 4. modium, genitive plural. The older form of the genitive plural in -um remained in use alongside the ordinary -orum form in a number of words, chiefly technical terms of law, religion, or commerce (e.g. socium, triumvirum, deum, talentum). In most of these the form in -orum also occurs. For the retention of archaic forms we may compare the diction of the English Law Courts and Church Service. § 3. ceterum, a favourite word in Livy and affected also by Sallust, but not by Cicero or Caesar. Originally an accusative of respect as to the rest,' it easily passed into its use (1) as resumptive conjunction after a parenthesis or digression, like Greek d'ouv, 'be that as it may,' 'however' (cp. French du reste); (2) with adversative force =sed (cp. the development of Greek ảλλá). That some feeling of the original meaning of ceterum remained even when it became a fully developed conjunction, is seen from the fact that in the vast majority of cases it stands at the beginning of the sentence, and examples of the type longius ceterum commodius (22. 2. 2) are comparatively rare. tantum quanta, 'the joy caused by this success was more than counterbalanced (by the gloom occasioned) by a serious disaster to the Roman arms....' gaudium is compared, by a slight confusion of thought, not to the tristitia resulting from the clades but to the clades itself. This compressed type of comparison (comparatio compendiaria) is common in Latin and Greek. It appears in a variety of forms, the most frequent being that in which something belonging to one person or thing (an action, quality, etc.) is compared to another person or thing or vice versa: e.g. Hom. Il. 17. 51 kóμaι xapíтeσσiv òpoîal, Iuv. 3. 73 sermo promptus et Isaeo torrentior. procul, 'far from.' Earlier prose writers use procul ab. Herdonea or Herdonia, a town in Apulia, mod. Ordona. § 4. Cn. Fulvius. See Introduction I. posita...firmata agree with castra. praesidiis, entrenchments,' 'redoubts' (not 'troops'), cp. Tac. Ann. 4. 49. 2 obsidium coepit per praesidia, quae opportune iam muniebat. § 5. spes ea, this hope'=spes ex ea re. The quod clause explains the source of the hope. spes ea would more naturally mean spes de ea re or spes eius rei (i.e. recipiendae Herdoneae). Cp. for the use of the pronoun, 21. 5. 2 quo metu cuius rei metu, 2. 21. 6 eo nuntio = eius rei nuntio. It looks as though Livy had tried to cram too much into his sentence and that what he meant was augebat spem eam quod ...senserat et spes ea augebat neglegentiam. iis, dative of personal interest, lit. 'for them.' Usually it may be translated by a possessive,' their loyalty was wavering'; cp. 29. 29. 6 militanti pro Carthaginiensibus in Hispania pater ei moritur (‘he lost his father'). Similarly, infra, c. 17. 16 productae in conspectum iis, Terence, Phorm. 1053 quod tuo viro oculi doleant. adversus, 'to' (not in its more usual signification against '), cp. 28. 27. 8 sic me non solum adversus socios gesseram sed etiam adversus hostes. in Bruttios, 'to the (country of the) Bruttii.' Greek BpéTTiol. The name of the people is used for the district, for which there was not a special name in classical Latin. So Livy regularly says Lucani not Lucania. ita...ut, ita looks forward to magnis itineribus contendit. acie instructa, 'in fighting formation'; cp. c. 45. 3 instructiores. § 7. sinistra ala. ala means here' contingent of socii.' Originally designed to guard the flanks of the legion, the divisions of the allied troops were hence called 'right and left wings.' For the same reason ala is also the name applied to the cavalry of the legion. Fabius kept half his army in reserve, the sixth legion and the dextra ala forming the second line (§ 11). Instead of the earlier practice of forming the different lines within the legion (hastati, principes, triarii), whole legions now formed the first or second line. Cp. c. 2. 7, c. 12. 14, c. 42. 2 prima legio et dextra ala proelium inibat, 25. 21.6 prima legio et sinistra ala in primo instructae. § 8. signo dato ut. usually implies an order, imperare; cp. c. 27. 2. ut in c. 20. I. signum dare, 'give a signal (for action),' hence it is followed by an ut clause like Similarly auctor est ut on analogy of suadet pugnantium. The text is doubtful. For variant readings see Notes on the Text. From § 7 and § 11 it is clear that when Hannibal gave the order the 5th legion and the left wing were engaged, and that the 6th legion and the right wing were in reserve. The latter would lie between the rear of the fighters (terga pugnantium) and the cavalry who rode round. Therefore if Livy wrote pugnantium we must suppose that his description-as so frequently with battles--is confused, and that by pedestres acies he means the whole of the infantry (as opposed to the cavalry) and in pugnantium includes the reserve infantry on the Roman side as well as those he has told us were already engaged. Then cum occupassent, etc., would mean when the infantry had their attention entirely occupied with the conflict they were actually engaged in,' i.e. oculos animosque refer to the subject of occupassent. To express this we should rather expect oculi animique occupati (cp. 26. 46. 4 intenti omnium non animi solum fuere, sed etiam oculi auresque pugnantium spectantiumque). Of the various conjectures, Gronov's terga trepidantium best explains the MS. reading oppidantium, since tergatrepidantium would readily become tergapidantium. spectantium would make Livy's account consistent and is supported by the parallel passage 26. 46. 4, but it is difficult to see why a scribe should have altered it. I am inclined to think that Livy wrote certamine (omnium) oculos animosque, circumvecti pars castra hostium, pars terga pugnantium invaderent. § 9. in Fulviis, 'remarking scornfully on the similarity of name in the case of the two Fulvii.' See Notes on the Text. As the regular construction with increpare is accusative of the person or thing inveighed against, in Fulviis seems the best reading. in Cn. Fulvi, however, would also be Latin, in spite of Madvig, cp. I. 51. I in regem... increpans. For in=in the case of, cp. c. 34. 10, 5. 36. 9 in tantae nobilitatis viris. Cn. Fulvium praetorem. In 212 B.C., in the third consulship of Q. Fulvius Flaccus, Cn. Fulvius Flaccus was praetor in Apulia and sustained, according to the account given in Livy, a severe defeat near Herdonea. See Bk 25. c. 21, where Livy remarks on his stultitia and temeritas. devicerat. Livy says that out of 18,000 soldiers only 2000 escaped. Fulvius made off on horseback with a band of cavalry, leaving his army to its fate. Suspicion has been cast on the story of the first defeat of Herdonea. The account of the impeachment of Cn. Fulvius for his conduct (26. 2. 7) gives a materially different story, and the battle is not mentioned in other historians. It is therefore supposed that it is a 'doublet' invented to match the defeat in 210 B.C. § 10. comminus acie, 'in hand to hand fight.' et peditum certamine is explanatory of comminus acie, cp. Virg. Aen. 12. 516 Lycia missos et Apollinis agris. Comminus, an adverb derived from com-manus, probably a nominative case originally like rursus (=revorsus), is here used attributively with the substantive acie. This use of adverbs or adverbial phrases with a substantive is a favourite construction in Livy, cp. 21. 36. 4 per invia circa. The adverb is usually placed between an adjective and substantive, e.g. c. 30. 3 tutas circa stationes, c. 40. I duo pariter bella, 6. 39. 6 nullo publice emolumento, 5. 20. I omnibus ante bellis. Livy's free use of this construction may perhaps be due to the influence of the Greek use of an adverb or prepositional phrase with the article, ὁ τότε, οἱ ἐν τῇ πόλει, τὰ ἔξω, etc. Cicero has occasional instances; cp. Pro Caecin. 43 neque conflictu corporum neque ictu comminus neque coniectione telorum. PAGE 3 ordines signaque, 'the maniples and their standards stood fast,' i.e. the ranks were unbroken; cp. c. 14. 7. The signa served to mark out the divisions of the companies in the legion and were thus of importance for the preservation of the formation in carrying out any |