The Classical Quarterly (2022) 72.

2 630–639 630
doi:10.1017/S000983882200060X

BLOOD ON HIS WORDS, BARLEY ON HIS MIND. TRUE

NAMES IN CAESAR’S SPEECH FOR THE LEGENDARY
‘BARLEY-MUNCHER’ (BGALL. 7.77)*

ABSTRACT
Critognatus’ speech has long been recognized as heavily by Caesar’s hand, although few
have questioned whether any speech was delivered by the Arvernian noble at all; and it
has long puzzled readers with its contradictory manner and fierce criticism of Rome.
But the etymologizing wordplay across several languages demonstrated below (along
with other distinctly comical elements) renders it more than likely that both the speech
and the speaker are products of the author’s imagination. In its Nabokovian mode, it
offers a glimpse of Caesar the linguist and introduces a playfulness into the dire situation
before Alesia that suggests that the ‘Barley-Muncher’ and his speech should be reconsidered
in a different, more humorous light.
Keywords: Caesar; Critognatus; true names; etymological wordplay; Gallic War

One author, however, has never been mentioned in this connection—the only author whom I
must gratefully recognize as an influence upon me at a time of writing this book; namely,
the melancholy, extravagant, wise, witty, magical, and altogether delightful Pierre Delalande,
whom I invented. (V. Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading [New York, 1989], 6)

In honour of the Herculean Thesaurists in Munich; with fond memories.

Vladimir Nabokov repeatedly acknowledges the influence Delalande’s Discours sur les
ombres had exerted on his own writing—only then to admit, in the just-quoted foreword
to his Invitation to a Beheading, that he had ‘invented’ him. No surprise: across his
œuvre he evokes from the shadowlands many a character whose whispering name he
fashioned from the expansive histories of the several languages he roamed so enviably,
nimbly; his paronomatic Humbert Humbert, most noticeably when ‘pronounced with a
French accent’ (Humbert [ɛb̃ ɛʁ] and ombre [ɔb̃ ʁ]), is merely its most notorious denizen.1
Caesar is rarely ever associated with the author of Lolita; but his Critognatus, who, amidst
the Gauls’ ghastly situation in and around Alesia, famously roars that they should rather
eat their own than cede to Rome, hails, as will appear, from the same shadowy lands.

* An early version of this argument was delivered in German to a numerous, welcoming and acute
audience at the University of Dresden, and I should like to thank Professors Dennis Pausch and Martin
Jehne for their kind invitation. It had advanced somewhat when it was presented at the highly successful
‘Caesar Workshop’ organized by Clara Brilke (Kiel) and Matthias Heinemann (Mainz), and I should like
to thank them too for their invitation to deliver the keynote address and all participants for their lively
and helpful questions and comments. Lastly, I happily acknowledge comments on drafts and other help
from my colleagues and friends near and far: Hans Bork, Sinead Brennan-McMahon, Richard Martin
and Grant Parker (all Stanford University); Luca Grillo (Notre Dame), Christina Kraus (Yale) and
Tony Woodman (formerly UVA)
1
Appel, notes to page 3, in V. Nabokov, Lolita (New York, 1991 [orig. 1955]), 320; ibid. for
further references to Delalande.

© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association. This is
an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creative-
commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.

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 B LO O D O N H I S WO R D S , B A R L E Y O N H I S M I N D 631

From there he arrives at a crucial moment in Caesar’s (narrative of his) campaign. It is

the final phase of the final year, not of the war in Gaul, of course, which would rage on
for two more years,2 but of the Gallic War: Vercingetorix and his Gallic coalition
(including Rome’s longest-standing ally, the Aedui) had been battling Caesar and his
legions since the winter of 53/2 (at least);3 then, in the early fall, he withdrew his troops
to Alesia, a major stronghold of the Mandubii (Alesiam, quod est oppidum
Mandubiorum, 7.68.1); on the verge of encirclement by Caesar’s troops, siegeworks
and fortifications, he dispatched his cavalry to request from his Gallic allies additional
troops, to arrive within thirty days, which is when supplies would run out. It is then—the
deadline passed, ‘all grain consumed’ (consumpto omni frumento, 77.1), succour still
out of sight—that a man ‘of the highest lineage amongst the Arverni and regarded as
of great authority’ (summo in Aruernis ortus loco et magnae habitus auctoritatis, 77.3)
rises to address his beleaguered fellow Gauls: appealing to their uirtus, recalling their
ancestors’ savage endurance, he suggests euphemistically that they too subsist on
human flesh rather than sortie or surrender (eorum corporibus qui aetate ad bellum
inutiles uidebantur uitam tolerauerunt neque se hostibus tradiderunt, 77.12); rapacious
Rome, he concludes, knew but one condition for other peoples: perpetua seruitus (77.16).
Critognatus’ speech, rousing and unsettling and the longest by far in all of the Gallic
War, has long been recognized as pulcherrimum Caesarianae eloquentiae monumentum,
as Philippe Fabia phrased it about one hundred and thirty years ago;4 opinions differ,
however, on whether any speech was delivered at all: as recently as 2017 Kurt
Raaflaub asserted that ‘it [was] hardly completely fictitious. Caesar probably collected
information from captives and some of the leaders who surrendered in the end.’5
Regardless, Caesar’s inclusion of Critognatus’ fiery criticism of Rome has met with
surprise amongst his critics,6 as has the taut tension between, on the one hand, the
speaker’s elevated language and dignified notions of true virtue, freedom and respect
of one’s ancestors and, on the other hand, the crude cannibalistic proposal. It is,
Sherwin-White summarized it memorably, as though ‘[w]e are bidden admire Gauls for

2
In its entirety, the Gallic War covers Caesar’s campaigns from the spring of 58 to December 50;
but Caesar himself concluded his narrative with the seventh season (58–52); Hirtius added the final
two years when he assembled the Corpus Caesarianum soon after Caesar’s death (Hirt. 8 pr. 2; cf.
Suet. Iul. 56.1; for discussion of both testimonia, see J.F. Gärtner and B.C. Hausburg, Caesar and
the Bellum Alexandrinum. An Analysis of Style, Narrative Technique, and the Reception of Greek
Historiography [Göttingen, 2013], 21–30).
3
Caesar’s supposition of a subitum bellum at the beginning of Bellum Gallicum Book 7
notwithstanding (quieta Gallia … hac impulsi occasione … de bello consilia inire incipiunt
[sc. Galli], 7.1.1–3), the war of 52 actually commenced in 54: C. Jullian, Vercingétorix (Paris,
1977 [orig. 1901]), 88–90. All translations of the Latin and Greek passages are my own, unless
otherwise indicated. All references to the Bellum Gallicum are by numbers only.
4
P. Fabia, ‘De orationibus quae sunt in commentariis Caesaris de Bello Gallico’ (Diss., Paris,
1889), 70. L.J.M. Holtz, ‘C. Iulius Caesar quo usus sit in orationibus dicendi genere’ (Diss., Jena,
1913) offers fine observations on clausulae, D. Rasmussen, Stil und Stilwandel am Beispiel der
direkten Rede (Göttingen, 1963), 55 a comparison of the lengths of all the speeches in the Bellum
Gallicum. Critognatus’ speech has very recently been discussed in R. Brown, ‘The expulsion of
the Mandubii and Caesar’s subversion of the speech of Critognatus (De Bello Gallico 7.77–8)’,
CW 112 (2019), 283–307; he includes a comprehensive bibliography.
5
K.A. Raaflaub, The Landmark Julius Caesar (New York, 2017), 258, 7.77c.
6
Romani uero quid petunt aliud aut quid uolunt, nisi inuidia adducti, quos fama nobiles
potentesque bello cognouerunt, horum in agris ciuitatibusque considere atque his aeternam iniungere
seruitutem? neque enim ulla alia condicione bella gesserunt. quod si ea quae in longinquis nationibus
geruntur ignoratis, respicite finitimam Galliam, quae in prouinciam redacta iure et legibus
commutatis securibus subiecta perpetua premitur seruitute (7.77.15–16). Cf. next note.

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 632 C H R I S TO P H E R B . K R E B S

their resolution, and at the same time we are meant to shudder at the darker side of
barbarism.’7 The following observations are not intended to resolve these issues; they
will, however, cast on them a wholly different and lighter light.
This light radiates through and (mostly) from Caesar’s atypically emphatic preamble:
non praetereunda oratio Critognati uidetur propter eius singularem et nefariam
crudelitatem (‘it is impossible, clearly, to pass over Critognatus’ speech, given its
singular and abominable cruelty’, 77.2). The ponderous pentasyllable, tellingly saved
up until the end for emphasis, is—as is well known—doubly noteworthy:8 it appears
no more than twice within all of the Gallic War; and it is highlighted as being the very
reason for the inclusion of the entire speech.9 Its choice is, then, choicely unfortunate:
crudelis hoc crudus, quem Graeci ὠμόν appellant per translationem, quasi non coctus
nec esui habilis (‘cruel, meaning crude, which the Greeks translate as ὠμός, as in
uncooked and inedible’, Isid. Etym. 10.48).10 The etymology is not, as far as I know,
attested before Isidore; and it does not matter much that it passes modern muster (as
Caesar’s contemporaries may well have entertained their own etymology, as is so often
the case: see below).11 There are, however, some more contemporary and revealing
synonymous uses of crudelis, including crudus;12 and it may well be the association of
‘raw meat’ that accounts for the frequent syntagms of crudelitas with alere, cruenta,
insatiabilis, pascere, satiare, or saturare (especially when blood is explicitly mentioned
nearby).13 A different kind of support would seem to come from Polybius when he reports

7
A.N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambridge, 1967), 25. Opinions on the
contradictory character of the speech are reviewed in Brown (n. 4), 286–9. For discussion of the
anti-imperialistic criticism, other instances of which include Sall. Iug. 81.1, Hist. 4.69 and Tac.
Agr. 30.5–31.4, see J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (Chapel Hill, 1979), 161–92, including
a helpful bibliography, to which add E. Adler, Valorizing the Barbarian. Enemy Speeches in
Roman Historiography (Austin, 2011).
8
Cf. M. Fontaine, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy (Oxford, 2009), 252, demonstrating that
‘[f]unny words can often be found … as (a) the final word of a line, …’, and arguing further that
such positioning is one of the ways at Plautus’ disposal to alert the audience to wordplay.
9
crudelitas is attributed to Ariovistus (1.32.4): absentisque Ariouisti crudelitatem. The adverb is
also used of him (Ariouistum … superbe et crudeliter imperare, 1.31.12), then once more of
Litaviccus (ipsos [sc. Romanos] crudeliter excruciatos interficit, 7.38.9). See Brown (n. 4), 288 for
additional literature. On crudelitas in the BCiu., see L. Grillo, The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile
(Cambridge, 2012), 111.
10
Cf. Isid. Diff. 1.529. I owe this etymology (and all the following) to R. Maltby, A Lexicon of
Ancient Etymologies (Leeds, 1991).
11
A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (Paris, 1967), 152. In
Proto-Celtic, *krū- signifies ‘blood’ too: R. Matasović (ed.), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic
(Leiden, 2009) s.v.
12
Such synonymous uses include (all taken from the TLL 4.1228.11–13 [Hoppe]): auidus
sanguinis (Stat. Theb. 6.174); cruentus (Sen. Phoen. 34; Quint. Decl. 322 p. 267.13; Cassiod. In
psalm. 34.20); crudus (Amm. Marc. 26.6.8). For the use of crudus in a cannibalistic context, cf.
Juv. 15.80–3 totum [sc. mortuum] corrosis ossibus edit | uictrix turba, nec ardenti decoxit aeno |
aut ueribus, longum usque adeo tardumque putauit | expectare focos, contenta cadauere crudo.
13
Rhet. Her. 4.15.22 nepotes suo sanguine aluerunt inimicorum crudelitatem; Pan. Lat. IV(10)
31.3 furor uinctus et cruenta Crudelitas inani terrore frendebant. Cic. Phil. 11.8 ut suam insatiabilem
crudelitatem exercuerit non solum in uiuo, sed etiam in mortuo, atque in eius corpore lacerando
atque uexando, cum animum satiare non posset, oculos pauerit suos (cf. Apul. Met. 9.38 sanguine
trium fratrum insatiabilem tuam crudelitatem pasce; Sen. Ben. 7.19.8). Cic. QFr. 1.3.4 inimici,
quorum crudelitas nondum esset nostra calamitate satiata (cf. Val. Max. 7.6.4). Rhet. Her. 4.45
nullius maeror et calamitas istius explere inimicitias et nefariam crudelitatem saturare potuit; Cic.
Vat. 6 sanguinem … exsorbere, crudelitatem uestram … saturare cuperetis. Also Crass. apud Cic.
De or. 1.225 quorum crudelitas nisi nostro sanguine non potest expleri (cf. Accius, Trag. 176).
Once again, I have taken most of these from the TLL 4.1229.13–1232.35 [Hoppe].

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 B LO O D O N H I S WO R D S , B A R L E Y O N H I S M I N D 633

how the Carthaginians had discussed the question of short supplies ‘repeatedly during
council’ (πλεονάκις ἐν τῷ συνεδρίῳ); a companion of Hannibal’s, Monomachus, on
one occasion ‘expressed the opinion’ (ἀποφήνασθαι γνώμην) that it would be necessary
‘to teach the troops to eat humans’ (διδάξαι … τὰς δυνάμεις ἀνθρωποφαγεῖν). Hannibal
found the proposal bold and pragmatic but could not embrace it. Polybius concludes, in as
much an authorial voice as Caesar: τούτου δὲ τἀνδρὸς εἶναί φασιν ἔργα καὶ τὰ κατὰ τὴν
Ἰταλίαν εἰς Ἀννίβαν ἀναφερόμενα περὶ τῆς ὠμότητος, οὐχ ἧττον δὲ καὶ τῶν
περιστάσεων (‘to this man, they say, belong the acts in Italy attributed to Hannibal in
regard to his cruelty, and to circumstances no less’, 9.24.5–8). But, of course,
Polybius’ similar play on ὠμότης—both ‘crudeness’ and ‘cruelty’ (LSJ s.v.)—in another
cannibalistic context qualifies as support only if we accept that Caesar had Polybius in
mind.14 So the truest evidence that Caesar had blood on his words, that he used the
etymology’s ‘egregious narrative realism’ consciously, intentionally and effectively, lies
in the cluster of etymological and etymologizing play to which it belongs:15 so when
Critognatus expresses his concern for the Gauls’ propinqui consanguineique, an
unparalleled iunctura wherein consanguineus, a ‘word of poetic origin’, is both (strictly
speaking) superfluous and inviting of most unfortunate associations once more (especially
in light of the association of crudelitas with sanguis as detailed in n. 13).16 There are, in
fact, a total of six resonant instances: crudelitas, nefarius, oratio, consanguineus,
Mandubii and, yes, Critognatus. It seems virtually inconceivable that such a density
came of chance; let alone that it would have escaped the ear of a linguist such as Caesar.17
Of the two attributes that vivify crudelitas, one comes with connotations all too
fitting according to an alleged contemporary etymology: nefarius, ut Varro aestimat,
non dignus farre, quo primo cibi genere uita hominum sustinebatur (‘nefarius [is],
according to Varro, [derived from] not being worthy of barley, which was the kind of
food that in the early days sustained human life’, Isid. Diff. 1.423, Etym. 10.188).18

14
Rasmussen (n. 4), 48 alludes to the significance of the episode for Caesar, as does G. Cipriani,
Cesare e la retorica dell’assedio (Amsterdam, 1986), 12; neither offers arguments. But Polybius’
presences elsewhere in Bellum Gallicum Book 7 increase the likelihood of Caesar’s having the
Greek historian in mind. For one such presence, see C.B. Krebs, ‘“Making history”: constructive
wonder (aka Quellenforschung) and the composition of Caesar’s Gallic War (thanks to Labienus
and Polybius)’, in A.D. Poulsen and A. Jönsson (edd.), Usages of the Past in Roman
Historiography (Leiden, 2021), 91–114. More generally on Polybius and Bellum Gallicum Book 7,
see C.B. Krebs, C. Julius Caesar: Bellum Gallicum Book VII (Cambridge, 2023), index s.v.
‘Polybius’.
15
N. Struever, ‘Fables of power’, Representations 4 (1983), 108–27, at 108. For discussion of such
etymological clusters elsewhere, cf. J.J. O’Hara, True Names. Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of
Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 2017 [orig. 1996]), 92–4. Cf. the ‘remarkable … density of
polemical etymologizing’ at the beginning of the first Eclogue (N. Adkin, ‘Etymologizing in
Virgil, Eclogue I, 11–15’, LAC 80 [2011], 163–6, at 166). J. Farrell, ‘Intention and intertext’,
Phoenix 59 (2005), 98–111, at 104 discusses this ‘principle of reinforcement’ in the context of
intertextuality.
16
But there are late Christian instances that merit mention: Dracontius, Laud. dei 3.265 consanguineos
… iugulare propinquos, Jer. Ep. 118.4 consanuineis … propinquis; Gudeman’s TLL entry also refers to
the Vulgate, Leu. 21.2, Oros. 7.29.18 (TLL 4.360.9–10). The quoted characterization is by D.O. Ross,
Style and Tradition in Catullus (Cambridge, 1969), 62.
17
On De analogia and Caesar’s linguistic doctrine, see G. Pezzini, ‘Caesar the linguist: the debate
about the Latin language’, in L. Grillo and C.B. Krebs (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to the
Writings of Julius Caesar (Cambridge, 2018), 173–92.
18
Cf. Non. 59.5M (GRF 253, 199), referring to Varro once more: a farre; quod adoreum est, id
quo scelerati uti non debeant, non triticum sed far. It matters little that, in reality, nefarius is derived
from fas (Ernout and Meillet [n. 11], 217 s.v. fas). crudelitas nefaria is attested repeatedly in Caesar’s
time: e.g. Rhet. Her. 4.45 (quoted in n. 13 above), Cic. Verr. 6.146 and 6.159, Phil. 5.42.

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 634 C H R I S TO P H E R B . K R E B S

Caesar’s contemporary readers would have been all the more likely to associate far, if in
its more general sense of ‘grain’ (for example Verg. G. 1.73 flaua farra; cf. Vitr. De
arch. 10.5.2 subministrat molis frumentum et eadem uersatione subigitur farina), as
they had just been reminded that ‘all the grain had been used up’ (consumpto omni
frumento, 77.1); Critognatus’ audience was literally barred from cereals.19
The etymological connotation of oratio, meanwhile, is all too well known: oro ab
ore et perorat et exorat et oratio et orator et osculum dictum (‘I ask is derived from
mouth and [so is] he begs and he implores and speech and speaker and kiss’, Varro,
Ling. 6.96); it would not register under normal circumstances, surely, except here it is
‘awoken’ by its vicinity to similarly minded words, including the two outstanding.20
First, the Mandubii: introduced as the inhabitants of Alesia (Alesiam, quod est oppidum
Mandubiorum, 7.68.1), they contribute, voluntarily or involuntarily, to Vercingetorix’s
efforts to secure nourishment for thirty days, as ‘a great number of [cattle] had been
gathered by [or: wrested from] them’ ( pecus, cuius magna erat copia a Mandubiis
compulsa, 7.71.7). The last we hear of them is that they were forced to leave Alesia
when supplies had run out, and Critognatus’ proposal had failed to carry; but Caesar
held them at the Roman fortification and denied them food and shelter (Mandubii,
qui eos oppido receperant, cum liberis atque uxoribus exire coguntur. hi, cum ad
munitiones Romanorum accessissent, flentes omnibus precibus orabant ut se in
seruitutem receptos cibo iuuarent. at Caesar dispositis in uallo custodibus recipi
prohibebat, 7.78.3). An elusive tribe, they are attested nowhere else but once in
Strabo, who almost certainly copied them from the Bellum Gallicum.21 But their
name’s vibrant strands seamlessly blend in with the rest of Caesar’s canvas: it is not
only, as Christina Kraus has pointed out to me, that manducare, ‘to chew, to eat’
(OLD 1, 2), would spring to a Roman’s mind rather naturally in this context; but also
that Manducus, ‘Gnasher’, was a gluttonous stock character of the famously popular
fabula Atellana whose masks featured sizeable jaws with ‘enormous chattering teeth’.22
That stock character, along with others, found a second home in Plautus’ fabula
palliata where it caused the Parasite—a stock character of Greek New Comedy—to
take on a more Roman complexion and to be defined primarily by hunger.23

19
Tony Woodman draws my attention to Tac. Ann. 4.13.2 reus tamquam frumento hostem
Tacfarinatem iuuisset. In his commentary (A.J. Woodman, The Annals of Tacitus, Book 4
[Cambridge, 2018], ad loc.), he remarks: ‘one hopes that the prosecution made something of the
fact that grain would be needed by a leader who had flour inscribed in his name.’
20
Cf. W. Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (London, 1949), 25 on sleeping metaphors.
21
καὶ περὶ Ἀλησίαν πόλιν Μανδουβίων, ἔθνους ὁμόρου τοῖς Ἀρουέρνοις, 4.2.3; cf. A. Falileyev,
A.E. Gohil and N. Ward, Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-Names. A Celtic Companion to the
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Aberystwyth, 2010), s.v. The archaeological
evidence around Alesia is discussed in P. Barral, J.P. Guillaumet and P. Nouvel, ‘Les territoires de
la fin de l’âge du fer entre Loire et Saône: les Éduens et leurs voisins. Problématique et éléments
de réponse’, in D. Garcia and F. Verdin (edd.), Territoires celtiques. Espaces ethniques et territoires
des agglomérations protohistoriques d’Europe occidentale (Paris, 2002), 271–6.
22
M. Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (Princeton, 1961 [orig. 1939]), 248
(with figs. 546–8). Too little is known about the effigy called Manducus that was carried around in
festive processions (Paul. Fest. 115L); nor is the related passage in Plaut. Rud. 535 (quid si aliquo
ad ludos me pro manduco locem?) at all clear; cf. J. Pieczonka, ‘Stock characters from Atellana in
Plautus’ palliata – the connections between Dossennus-Manducus and the Plautine parasites
reconsidered’, Graeco-Latina Brunensia 24 (2019), 193–210, especially 195–7. It will not matter
much to my argument.
23
On the appearance of the Bucco in Plaut. Bacch. 1088, see E. Lefèvre, ‘Atellana e palliata: gli
influssi reciproci’, in R. Raffaelli, A. Tontini (edd.), L’Atellana letteraria (Urbino, 2010), 16–36,

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 B LO O D O N H I S WO R D S , B A R L E Y O N H I S M I N D 635

Gelasimus boils this down beautifully, when he ventures that hunger must have been his
mother, as never since his birth has he ever felt full ( famem ego fuisse suspicor matrem
mihi, | nam postquam natus sum, satur numquam fui, Stich. 155–6). Elsewhere,
the parasite Saturio reproaches Toxilus, who had welcomed his opportune arrival
(O Saturio, opportune aduenisti mihi), with a pointed quip on his name: nam essurio
uenio, non aduenio saturio (‘For it is Mr Starvurio who arrives, not Mr Sat(ed)urio’,
Persa 101–3).24 Such wordplay is common, of course, but particularly noticeably
developed in the famous passage in the Captiui (158–65): the parasite Ergasilus, barely
more than ‘skin and bones’ (ossa atque pellis sum, 135), complains about the absence of
Philopolemus, ‘since [thereby] the companies of banqueteers have now been disbanded’
(quia nunc remissus est edendi exercitus, 153).25 Since the latter’s capture, he continues,
‘everyone has shirked this “assignment”’ ( fugitant omnes hanc prouinciam, 156);
Philopolemus’ father is not surprised (158–65 [translation by Wolfgang de Melo]):

non pol mirandum est fugitare hanc prouinciam.

multis et multigeneribus opus est tibi
militibus: primumdum opus est Pistorensibus;
eorum sunt aliquot genera Pistorensium:
opus Panicis est, opus Placentinis quoque;
opus Turdetanis, opust Ficedulensibus;
iam maritumi omnes milites opus sunt tibi.

Well, it’s not strange that they’ve been shying away from this task. You need many soldiers of
different kinds: first you need the ones from Bakerville. There are several types of soldiers from
Bakerville: you need those from Breading and you also need those from the Cake District. You
need soldiers from Thrushia and you need soldiers from Puerto Fico. Then you also need all the
soldiers from the coast.

Every location is chosen because its name allows for the apt association of food:
Pistorium is a town in Etruria, pistor ‘a pounder of far, (subsequently) a … miller/
baker’ (OLD); the Panici may evoke the Punici or refer to the town Panna in
Samnium—it certainly puns on panis, ‘bread’; the Placentini inhabit Placentia and
pun on placenta, ‘a kind of flat cake’ (OLD); turdus is the ‘thrush’, just as the
Turdetani are a Spanish tribe; and while the location hidden in the Ficedulenses has
not been established, their name puns on ficedula, ‘a small bird esteemed a delicacy
…, beccafico’ (OLD).26 In light of these (and many other) passages, it is easy to see
why Horace would single out the hungry parasite as one of the memorable parts in

especially 16–22. On the hungry Roman parasite, see J.C.B. Lowe, ‘Plautus’ parasites and the
Atellana’, in G. Vogt-Spira (ed.), Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode im frühen Rom (Tübingen,
1989), 164–5. C. Panayotakis, ‘Native Italian drama and its influence on Plautus’, in M.T. Dinter
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2019), 32–46 is too sceptical. In
fact, the arguments in favour of a stronger presence of Manducus (in particular) in Plautus—as
presented by Pieczonka (n. 22)—to me seem stronger even than the author herself appears ready to
vouch for; the many references to the parasite’s teeth are particularly germane ([n. 22], 201–6).
24
Fontaine’s ‘Starvurio’ ([n. 8], 70) works beautifully; my ‘Sat(ed)urio’ follows the same lines.
25
H.C. Elmer’s translation ‘companies of banqueteers’ (H.C. Elmer, T. Macci Plauti Captiui
[Boston, 1900], ad loc.) nicely captures the sense of Plautus’ playful metaphor (exercitum remittere
= to dismiss the military assembly); he adds: ‘So long as Philopolemus was present, there was
someone to muster the troops, i.e. someone to give dinner parties.’
26
Cf. W. de Melo, Plautus: Amphitryon; The Comedy of Asses; The Pot of Gold; The Two
Bacchises; The Captives (Cambridge, MA, 2011), 523 n. 7. But Panna in Samnium is proposed by
Elmer (n. 25), ad loc.

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Plautus’ œuvre (Epist. 2.1.173): aspice, Plautus, … | quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in
parasitis, which Brink translates: ‘[look …] how much of a (primitive Atellan)
Dossennus Plautus is among (that is, when he represents) gluttonous spongers’.27 In
identifying this part, Horace associates Plautus with a(nother) ‘type figure of the
Atellanae’, the sibling, perhaps even identical twin, of the Manducus mentioned
above.28
Given this prominence of the hungry part on the Roman stage and its embodiment by
the stock character Manducus with his frightening mask—who in Rome would not
associate the Mandubii in starving Alesia with the chomping Manduci? In fact, with
such masks on the Alesian stage, who could challenge the wayward logic of Caesar’s
tale wherein the ever-hungry ‘Gnashers’ are singled out for expulsion from their (!)
starving town? By the same token, their desperate plea to be helped with food (OLD
iuuo 1) reads like a twisted gloss on their culinary cravings (cf. OLD iuuo 5 ‘to give
pleasure to, delight’).
‘But wait! Who is coming our way? Oh why! It is Gnatho, the … parasite’ (sed quis
hic est qui huc pergit? attat! hicquidemst parasitus Gnatho, Ter. Eun. 228). By now we
know which way the wind is blowing, Crito(-)gnat(h)e! For Gnatho(n/s), as predestined
by name (γνάθος, ‘jaw’), was in his role as an often gluttonous parasite just as much of a
stock character as the Manducus.29 In point of fact, Caesar’s part has a nonce-name that
befits the context all too well—and twice over to boot.30 Firstly, its Greek constituents
suggest ‘high-born’, comprising both κριτός, ‘chosen, choice’, and *γνητος, ‘born’
(γενέσθαι, cf. γνήσιος), comparable to κασίγνητος, ‘brother’ (for example Hom. Od.
8.585); the name Mr ‘High-Born’ joins the company of many a Plautine name of similar
significance, such as the just-mentioned Ergasilos, who may reasonably be identified as
‘Ἐργάσ-ιλος, “Mr Energetic” or “Mr Strenuous”’.31 In the case of Mr ‘High-Born’, his
name bespeaks the high standing that Caesar attributes him in his description as summo
in Aruernis ortus loco (77.3, translated above). This rather blatant gloss on the Greek
name may serve as a signpost of sorts to alert the reader to the name’s further linguistic
dynamics at play in the context.32 For, secondly, Caesar’s parasitic part suffers peculiar
cravings, perhaps, but such as are all too understandable in his situation: for another
ready association in this context is κριθή, ‘barleycorns’, which joins γνάθος, ‘jaw’,
to identify this man who disappears as suddenly as he arrived without leaving a trace
anywhere inside or out of the Gallic War as the ‘Barley-Muncher’—as such, too, he

27
C.O. Brink, Horace on Poetry. Epistles Book II: The Letters to Augustus and Florus (Cambridge,
1982), 213.
28
On the possibility that Dossennus was an alternative name for Manducus, see Pieczonka (n. 22),
198–9.
29
For Gnatho(n) and New Comedy and the novel, see R.L. Hunter, A Study of Daphnis and Chloe
(Cambridge, 1983), especially 69–70. It must be noted, even if it is of little consequence to my
argument, that Terence’s Gnatho is the exception, however, in that he ‘is purely a flatterer, as is
indicated by the fact that the play of Menander from which Terence borrowed him was entitled
Colax’: Lowe (n. 23), 163.
30
TLL Onomasticon 2.726.76–8 [Reisch]. On the importance of ‘context and linguistic analogy’,
cf. Fontaine (n. 8), 4 and passim.
31
Fontaine (n. 8), 64.
32
Caesar glosses elsewhere, for example when with 75.4 quae Oceanum attingunt he comments on
the Celtic etymology are-mori = ‘along the sea’ (DLG 53) of the name of the Aremoricae (Krebs
[n. 14 (2023)], ad loc.). On Caesar’s signposting his engagement with Plato’s Phaedrus, see C.B.
Krebs, ‘Greetings Cicero! Caesar and Plato on writing and memory’, CQ 63 (2018), 517–22, at
518 n. 5, where I also suggest a further instance.

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would fit right in with Plautus’ food-punning company. Once again, then, the wayward
logic of Caesar’s drama is not to be denied: for what is a ‘Barley-Muncher’ to do when
he lacks barley ( far) desperately? If, lastly, ‘Critognatus’ would have translated into
Celtic as ‘fils de la terreur’, as has been suggested, it would have made the name all
the more palatable to Caesar, who had learned some Celtic (at least).33
But there are two further twists, one of which—as Richard Martin has suggested to
me—mines the fine phonetic difference between Critognatus and Crithognathos, while
allowing for both very different ‘translations’.34 The inability to pronounce aspirated
consonants in Greek was a stereotypical linguistic marker of the ‘barbarian’ as represented
most famously by the Scythian archer in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (for example
1120 ἐπτόνησα instead of ἐφθόνησα).35 At Caesar’s time, proper aspiration (uocalis
aspiratio, Cic. Orat. 150) as a marker of sound education was de rigueur: rusticus fit
sermo, inquit [sc. P. Nigidius Figulus], si adspires perperam (‘Speech becomes rustic,
Nigidius says, if you aspirate wrongly’, Gell. NA 13.6.3); not for nothing is it parodied
in Catullus’ taunt of Harrius (chommoda dicebat, 84.1).36 With that ideologically
charged (in)ability in mind, Critognatus, Mr ‘High-Born’, becomes Crithognathus,
Mr ‘Barley-Muncher’, to Caesar’s Roman audience who knew how to pronounce
Greek properly and to listen for true names.
For the second—and final and possibly most ingenuous—twist, we first need to
bring M. Caelius Rufus, Cicero’s keenly witty, naughty protégé, into the conversation.37
In his defence speech de ui in that cause célèbre of 56, he ‘called the rhetor’ L. Plotius
Gallus [sic], who had penned the speech for Caelius’ accuser L. Sempronius Atratinus,
‘a barley-fed speaker; and he taunted him as puffy, trifling and sordid’ (hordearium
eum rhetorem appellat, deridens ut inflatum ac leuem et sordidum, Cael. Or. frg.
21M, apud Suet. Gram. et rhet. 26).38 The precise meaning of the sobriquet has not
been established;39 but there is agreement that Caelius reused what would appear to
have been a well-known nickname (and criticism) of Dinarchus, the last of the canonical
ten Attic orators, whom ‘some, by way of a joke, called rather disarmingly “the
barley-fed Demosthenes”’ (τινὲς καὶ προσπαίζοντες αὐτὸν οὐκ ἀχαρίτως κρίθινον

33
X. Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Paris, 2003), 129. On Caesar’s Celtic,
cf. n. 32 above. One might then say that the whole speech, intended to inspire terror in its Roman
audience, is the performative calque on the speaker’s name.
34
Cf. Fontaine (n. 8), 70–1 for evidence of phonetic alteration, and O’Hara (n. 15), 61–2 on the
(limited) effects of differing vowel quantities on etymologizing.
35
See S. Colvin, Dialect in Aristophanes. The Politics of Language in Ancient Greek Literature
(Oxford, 1999), 290–1 (with n. 38). For epigraphic evidence, see L. Threatte, The Grammar of
Attic Inscriptions, I. Phonology (Berlin, 1980), 453–5.
36
Cf. J.N. Adams, The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 B.C. – A.D. 600 (Cambridge, 2007),
174, to whom I owe both the quotation from Gellius and the translation. Cf. Adams’s fascinating
interpretation of the error that occurred during Cerialis’ dictation ([this note], 634–5). Further on
Catullus: E.S. Ramage, ‘Note on Catullus’ Arrius’, Philologus 54 (1959), 44–5.
37
His reference to Clodia as quadrantaria Clytaemestra (Quint. Inst. 8.6.53) inspired Cicero (Cael.
62, 69; no stranger to barbed jokes, he [Plut. Cic. 5.6]); and his polysemous quip in triclinio Coam, in
cubiculo Nolam was not forgotten by Quintilian’s time either (Inst. 8.6.53): see S. Saylor, The Venus
Throw (New York, 1995), 328–9.
38
I translate hordearius as ‘barley-fed’ as this was the meaning of the term in reference to a group
of gladiators (Plin. HN 18.72): antiquissimum in cibis hordeum, sicut … apparet … gladiatorum
cognomine, qui hordearii uocabantur. I see no reason why Caelius’ application should differ (on
the contrary, in fact; see below).
39
See A. Cavarzere, ‘Hordearium rhetorem’, Atti e memorie dell’Academica Patavina 85 (1972/3),
209–18, especially 210–12. Cf. next note.

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 638 C H R I S TO P H E R B . K R E B S

Δημοσθένην εἰρήκασι, Hermog. Id. 2.11).40 What had earned him that nickname is not
clear from Hermogenes’ sketch (nor from Longinus, who appears to report it as well);41
except that Dinarchus, while variously deficient, ‘wield[ed] a style that, generally
speaking, seemed very Demosthenic, what with its harshness and vigour and vehemence’
(καθόλου τε ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐμφαινόμενον ἔχει πολὺ τὸ Δημοσθενικὸν διὰ τὸ τραχὺ καὶ
γοργὸν καὶ σφοδρόν, Hermog. Id. 2.11). Nor has all doubt been lifted as to what precisely
κρίθινος implies: is it the low-quality barley bread in opposition to the high-quality wheat
bread, or coarse beer in contrast to fine wine?42 But Max Nelson has recently brought the
Caelius fragment more forcefully into the debate about the ‘barley-fed Demosthenes’,
observing that all three Roman adjectives (inflatum ac leuem et sordidum) ‘can describe
barley bread which is insubstantial, not very nourishing, and grainy; but they also can be
suitably applied to an orator who is bombastic, ineffectual, and base. It is less plausible for
these words to refer to beer instead’.
What, then, emerges from all of this for the Caesarean ‘Barley-Muncher’, first of all?
Quite probably greater name recognition amongst his Roman audience (if Caelius’
apparently casual use is anything to go by)—but not, of course, of the good sort: for
anyone familiar with the derogatory rhetorical use of κρίθινος/hordearius in reference to
a speaker, a speaker by the name of Crit(h)ognat(h)us is at a predetermined disadvantage
(much as was Verres, say, in his way);43 and he is hardly to be taken all that seriously. This
may well have dulled the sting of his critique of Rome. Second, and now regarding the
precise significance of κρίθινος/hordearius in the rhetorical context: part of Caesar’s
joke consists in evoking the metaphorical κρίθινος/hordearius in a scene defined by the
actual absence of literal cereals. Given the significance of food (rather than drink) in
this episode, the joke works better if the notion implied by the derogatory term is one
of bread; then again, even if beer as opposed to vine is the pejorative association, what
better location could be imagined for its use than the land of the drinkers of beer
(Posidonius, fr. 67 E–K)?44
This leaves us with a town of ever-hungry Gnashers, where all grain supplies had
been consumed, and starvation was suffered by all, when the low-grade speaker
Mr ‘Barley-Muncher’, known to his own as Mr ‘High-Born’, broached his crude
proposal. This leaves us with Caesar dicti studiosus, who fashions shades across the
languages as nimbly and facetiously as Nabokov, thus contributing an especial instance
to the strong tradition of etymologizing and punning on names in historiography
(broadly conceived), and an audience back in Rome both more varied and more
‘learned’ than has often been assumed.45

40
I am quoting from H. Rabe, Hermogenis opera (Leipzig, 1913), 398–9. A.D. Booth, ‘Rhéteur
d’orge’, Glotta 60 (1982), 125–9, especially 127) is certainly right ‘que Caelius rappelle une
calomnie classique [my emphasis] que son auditoire cultivé aura reconnue sans difficulté, pour
flétrir la réputation de Plotius et par conséquent celle d’Atratinus’.
41
Longinus, fr. 54 in M. Patillon et L. Brisson, Longin, Fragments Art rhétorique; Rufus, Art
rhétorique (Paris, 2002), 217.
42
Cf. M. Nelson, ‘The Barley Demosthenes’, Glotta 92 (2016), 175–80; for the following
quotation see Nelson (this note), 178.
43
On Verres’ suffering from his name (= ‘boar’), see B.K. Krostenko, Cicero, Catullus, and the
Language of Social Performance (Chicago, 2001), 159–62.
44
For further evidence and discussion of the Greek and Roman identification of Gauls as
beer-drinkers, see M. Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe
(London, 2005), 50–1.
45
For Cicero as the intended primary audience for Caesar’s allusion to the Phaedrus, see Krebs
(n. 32). More on his varied audience and wordplay in Bellum Gallicum Book 7 in: Krebs (n. 14

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 B LO O D O N H I S WO R D S , B A R L E Y O N H I S M I N D 639

Last but not least, it leaves us with a question: if Critognatus is no more and no less
than the bloodless and ultimately comical function of Caesar’s narrative, why, then, did
the latter feel the need, at this climactic moment, to evoke and revoke him?46

Stanford University CHRISTOPHER B. KREBS

[email protected]

[2023]), index s.vv. ‘audience’ and ‘wordplay’. On names in historiography, see the note on Tac. Ann.
3.75.1 Antistium … praecellentem in A.J. Woodman and R.H. Martin, The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3
(Cambridge, 1996).
46
I am hoping to address this larger question in ‘On cannibals. Caesar, Montaigne and the anxiety
of imperialism’ (forthcoming).

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