Re: IACTA ALEA EST questions

My curiosity got the better of me.

Daniel Levine asked:
>>A colleague in the Law School asks me:
>>
>>Why did Caesar (as reported by Suetonius *Caesar 32) use the singular
>>in his famous aleatory remark?  Is there a significance to the sort of
>>game that was played with one die, as opposed to more than one?

Perhaps Plutarch is responsible for the impression that "iacta alea est" is
all that Caesar said on this occasion, but the words do have a context.
Appian (BC 2.35) has him say first (in Horace White's translation) "My
friends, to leave this stream uncrossed will breed manifold distress for
me; to cross it, for all mankind." Perhaps more plausibly, Suetonius (and,
by the way, in both Plutarch's and Suetonius' biography the words are
quoted in what modern editions number as section 32) has him say "Eatur quo
deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas uocat. Iacta alea est" ("Let's go"
-- an inadequate rendering, unfortunately, of eatur -- "where the portents
of gods and the iniquity of enemies summons. IAE").

And I previously replied
>As far as I can see (haven't combed through the PHI results yet), *alea* is
>never used at all in the plural, because it designates the game, not the
>token used in it. A better question might be, why did he use *alea* at all
>instead of *tali* or *tesserae*?

The basic meaning of alea is clearly "gamble," "gambling," "risk,"
"hazard," not "die," whatever one might think on the basis of the use of
ku/bos by Greek writers.
>
>And it seems he might have said "Iacta alea esto" rather than *est*; at
>least that's what Erasmus apparently thought, on the basis of the relevant
>passages of Appian and Plutarch, which do involve an imperative.

To which I now add:
Plutarch has a)nerri/fqw ku/bos, Appian o( ku/bos a)nerri/fqw.  I don't
know where Erasmus proposed his correction of Suetonius; could there be an
illuminating discussion in the Adagia somewhere?


And Prof. Levine also asked
>>Plutarch's *Life of Caesar says that this is a proverbial expression.  Was
>>it proverbial before Caesar, or did it become proverbial between the time
>>of Caesar and Plutarch?\

Appian refers to it as to\ koino\n, which is just "common(place)," while
Plutarch has it as to\ koino\n "for those who embark upon helpless chance
and daring." LSJ s.v. a)narri/ptw says that the phrase can be found in the
Sententiae of Menander (which I gather doesn't guarantee that it appeared
in Menander), and notes something similar in a fragment of Aristophanes,
but there is no significant resemblance. In Latin, there is no example of
it as a proverbial expression, though this doesn't necessarily establish
that it was not a proverbial expression already (we don't have enough early
Latin literature to say with certainty); however, it would be easier to
defend the position that it became proverbial after Caesar than the
position that it was already proverbial. The absence of any other
occurrence of alea = talus, tessera is striking.

Until, that is, we reach imperial literature. The OLD cites one other
example of what they call Caesar's figurative use of alea, in Petronius'
Satyricon (122, l. 174, iudice Fortuna cadat alea). And guess what?  These
are words put into Caesar's mouth, as he surveys the plains of Italy from
the Alps, just before crossing the Rubicon. Less obvious, Lucan twice uses
alea [fati] in reference to events of the Civil War; in the second
occurrence, Sex. Pompeius consults Erictho about "quo tanti praeponderet
alea fati," which (despite referring primarily to weight) seems to be about
how the dice will fall in this gamble. When Manilius, surveying the career
of Octavian, refers to "repetitaque rerum / alea" (1.915f.), he surely has
the Rubicon remark in mind (cf. 913 perque patris pater Augustus uestigia
uicit), though I don't see Housman or Gould making this point; Caesar took
the gamble once, Octavian many times.

My guess is that JC deliberately used alea in the (apparently) unexampled
sense of talus or tessera; the ordinary meaning of "gamble" doesn't seem
possible with "iacta est" (or might someone in English say "The gamble has
been rolled"?). That usage is paralleled only in Petronius' use of alea
with "cadat" ("throw" and "fall" are words normally used of dicing) and, I
suspect, Lucan's use of it with "praeponderet." The TLL turns up a single
other use of figurative alea with the notion of throwing, perhaps the most
explicit parallel with Caesar's words in fact, Sidonius Apollinaris, ep.
4.6.3, "intra iactum tantae aleae," "within the tossing of so great an
alea" (where alea is being used figuratively of the risk involved in a
journey). If Caesar did indeed mean to say that "The die is cast," it may
be an original act of linguistic audacity matching his personal and
political audacity at that moment. How this gesture is to be reconciled
with Caesar the linguistic analogist, I do not know, but someone who urged
avoiding rare or obsolete words ought also to have avoided such an odd
iunctura.


James L. P. Butrica
St. John's NL  A1C 5S7
(709) 753-5799 (home)
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