The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World

stronghold and secured the submission of what he will have taken to be the representative forces of the whole island (cf. v. 11.9). B. might indeed have compared Tacitus' claim (Hist. i. 2. 3: perdomita Britannia; cf. Agr. 10.1) after the battle of Mons Graupius, based, as Collingwood has pointed out, on Agricola's conviction that he had decisively defeated the enemy's main armies in their own territory. Caesar's mistake was grosser, but only in proportion as his geographical knowledge was less. In the B.C. B. tries to go too far in smoothing away difficulties. His defence of iii. 48 is unconvincing; and there is little to be said for the MS. order of iii. 55 and 56, which read far better reversed. However, these points do not affect the main issue. And had his preoccupations not been so wholly philological, B. might have adduced a strong historical argument in support of an early date of composition. As Wickert has recently shown (Klio, 1937, 232 ff.), a primary purpose of the B.C. was to convey the impression that Caesar had made the utmost concessions to legality. ' Eine solche Beeinflussung der offentlichen Meinung . . . wurde unsinnig, ja sogar lacherlich, sobald er begonnen hatte in eindeutiger und alien kenntlicher Weise die Verfassung zu zerschlagen.' This is true, and strongly favours the view that the B.C. was composed and published before the trend towards permanent autocracy had become manifest. (Wickert himself perversely dates its composition to the last six months of Caesar's life; its real object (cf. B.C. i. 32.7:' sin timore defugiant... se . . . per se rem publicam administraturum') was to point the inevitability of monarchy. But in that case Caesar limited the indication of this main purpose to a single sentence!) Many points in this book invite detailed treatment. Here, however, one can only s^y that it has substantially advanced Caesarian studies by its penetrating and constructive analysis. B.'s findings are likely to receive considerable support, and in any case will form the indispensable basis for all further work on the subject.