even by Cilicia and Cyprus *. Appian asserts that Cæsar, in pursuit of Pompey, arrived at Alexandria, from Rhodes, which was more distant than Cyprus, on the third day after his departure, which took place at evening; having consequently been only two days and three nights complete, on the roada. Lucan, likewise, describes his motions to the same effect, beginning with the Hellespont. Sic fatus, repetit classes, et tota secundis Prævehitur, pelagoque Rhodon spumante relinquit. Lib. ix. 1000-1005. which supposes that he was only six days and seven nights at the utmost, in sailing from the Hellespont to Egypt. Even this is too liberal an allowance, if the statement of Appian be true. It must be remembered, however, that after August 9, the Etesian winds would be blowing; as Lucan indeed supposes, by the allusion to the Cori; and would facilitate both the escape of Pompey, and the pursuit of Cæsar. If the former, therefore, had left Mitylene on the evening of September 25 or 26, he might still be at Pelusium in Egypt, on or before October 1. Authorities, as we saw before, are divided as to the exact date of the day of his death; some placing it on his birthday, some the day before, and some the day after. It is observable, however, that Cicero, often * Evagrius, E. H. ii. v. 295. D. mentions an instance, in which a band of two thousand soldiers, dispatched from Constantinople to Alexandria, in the reign of the emperor Marcian, z Diodorus Sic. iii. 33: Strabo, xiv. 4. peius, 76. a Bell. Civil. ii. 89. not long after the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 452. arrived at their destination on the sixth day after they set sail. This discrepancy might be occasioned by the difference in §. 2. 672: 6. §. 3. 746: Plutarch, Pom as he alludes to the fact of his death, is silent about any such coincidence as that of his perishing on his birthday. The same is true of Lucan. We may conclude, then, that he died sometime about his birthday, or when he was fifty-eight complete, which was certainly the case; though not necessarily upon the identical day. The true date of his death might thus be October 1: which would also be the day of his arrival; for it is agreed that he perished on the same day that he came *. The Etesian winds were still blowing after Cæsar's arrival at Alexandriad: and as they were commonly supposed to blow forty or forty-five days from the middle of July, they would continue to blow until the end of August. When the Alexandrine war had been sometime going on, the Etesian winds were blowing no longer, but instead of them an east wind e; yet not a south, by which they were frequently succeeded. Not long after the beginning of the war it is said f; Namque eum, interclusum tempestatibus propter anni tempus, recipere transmarina auxilia non posse: which implies that the sea was considered to be shut; and therefore that the autumnal equinox, at least, was the length of the month of September in the year of Numa, and in that of Julius Cæsar, respectively: which was one day. If Pompey was born pridie Kal. Oct. in the year of Numa, his birthday was September 29. But this might be confounded with pridie Kalendas Oct. in the year of Cæsar; and that was Šeptember 30. * Ad Atticum, xi. 6. Cicero had heard of the death of Pompey, while he was still at Brundisium, iv Kal. Dec. from Diochares, as it seems, Cæsar's freedman, who might have been sent to carry the news of it officially to Rome. And if he had left Egypt about the beginning of October, then at the usual rate of travelling, it might take him six weeks or two months to arrive in Italy. Cf. Dio, xlii. 18-20. b Vide De Divinatione, ii. 9. in particular. 86. Plutarch, Pompeius, 64. d B. Civ. iii. 107. c Dio, xlii. 5. Appian, B. C. ii. past. The annual inundation of the Nile too was over; and this would not be the case before the same period in general. The Alexandrine war, then, appears to have been begun towards the end of the Julian September, U. C. 706. The submission of Alexandria, itself, which would be virtually the close of the contest, is dated by the calendars March 6, U. C. 707 *. But the entire duration of Cæsar's residence in Egypt is estimated by Appian at not less than nine months h: and that this computation bears date from the time of his arrival, appears from the context of Appian; and also from the fact that Cleopatra, with whom he became acquainted soon after his arrival, was delivered of a son by him soon after his departure. Though he might have arrived therefore, about the middle of August, and reduced Alexandria to submission by the sixth of March; it is nothing incredible that he should still have prolonged his residence in Egypt, for the sake of the society of Cleopatra, to the middle of May. It is stated in the Paschal chronicle, that the autovouía of the city of Antioch bore date from the 20th of Artemisius, or iv Idus of May, in consequence of an edict of Julius Cæsar's, which was received and recited on that day, and followed by his proclamation as dictator or emperor, on the 23rd of the same month. Now the years of Antioch bear date from the era of this auTovoμía; the epoch of which is fixed by the concurrent testimony of coins and history, to the autumnal quarter of U. C. 705. But as Cæsar could not possibly issue any such edict in the first year of the era, the spring *The Maffæan calendar dates the reduction of Alexandria, March 27. g Ibid. 5, 6, 7. nius, 54. ́k í. 354. l. 19. h B. C. ii. 90. i Plutarch, Julius Cæsar, 49. Anto quarter of U. C. 706, it follows that it must have been issued in the next, U. C. 707, or in some later year: and that it was out of compliment to its author merely, that the epoch of the era was made to bear date from the autumnal quarter of U. C. 705, not of U. C. 706. The former was the first year of Cæsar's dictatorship; and from that time to his death, in March, U. C. 710, he was reckoned at Antioch to have reigned four years and seven months; a computation, which dated from September, U. C. 705, would be substantially correct. The receipt of this edict at Antioch, May 12, U. C. 707, would be demonstrative proof that Cæsar was still in Egypt, at the beginning of that month *. We know no more of the movements of Cæsar after this, than that he was actually at Antioch1 on or about July 18, U. C. 707, and at Ziela, in Cappadocia, on the second of August, when he defeated Pharnaces. His freedman, Philotimus, dispatched to Italy while he was still in Egypt, came to Rhodes on his way, v Kal. Juniasm; which implies that he had left Egypt * Was iv Ides of May U. C. 707, the date of this rescript of Cæsar's; that is, May 12 in the year of Numa? and was Artemisius 20 the day of the month coinciding with it in the year of Antioch? But when did Artemisius in the year of Antioch at this time begin? Subsequently, and after the Julian calendar had been adopted in Asia, Artemisius, in the year of Pergamus, is known to have begun March 25 and its 20 would coincide with April 13, which in the year of Numa would be just 28 days before May 12. This would imply that 1 Cicero, ad Atticum, xi. 20. xi. 23. the difference between a certain date in the rectified year, and a corresponding one in that of Numa, U. C. 707, was but 28 days; which is so improbable, as almost necessarily to require us to suppose that May 12 was not the date of Cæsar's rescript merely, but the actual date in the Roman rectified year corresponding to the same in the year of Antioch as adapted to it. In this case, Artemisius 1 coincided with April 23; as it might do, if it was the eighth month in the civil year of Antioch, though the seventh in that of Pergamus. Cicero, Oratio pro Ligario, 3. Ad Atticum, three or four days before: all which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that Cæsar did not leave Egypt before the end of May. There is no alternative in short, except to suppose either that the ancient calendars referred to formerly, have misrepresented the date of the battle, or that the date which they exhibit is the rectified date; as September 22 or 23 may be the nominal. That great uncertainty hung over the date of this celebrated battle, within an hundred years after the event, is indeed implied by Lucan: Cedant feralia nomina Cannæ, Et damnata diu Romanis Allia fastis. Tempora signavit leviorum Roma malorum: vii. 408. We find Velleius Paterculus complaining of a similar uncertainty, within less than that time, about the age of Pompey himself at the period of his death", of which Plutarch, in Vita, furnishes an instance". It would be absurd, however, to suppose the true date was never known; and little less so to assume that it might have been forgotten too early to be noted in the Kalendaria in question; which appear to have been contemporary, and to belong in common to the reign of Augustus or Tiberius, especially the Antiatine and the Amiter nine. The confusion of the times, from the breaking out of the civil war to the year of the rectification of the calendar, may, perhaps, render it doubtful, whether the usual intercalation would be observed in U. C. 706. But Cæsar himself was the pontifex maximus at that n Lib. ii. 53. o Capp. 6. 7. Pompey is said to be 23. U. C. 671, Consule Scipione, which is correct. Hence he would be 24. U. C. 672. (12.) yet, 46, it is said he was 40 only at his Triumph; when he was in reality 45 for U. C. 693 -648-45: cap. 64. Plutarch makes him 58. U.C. 706, which is correct, yet (79) fifty-nine complete at his death, the same year. |