Gibbon and Julian
One of the things I most enjoy about reading Gibbon is discovering authors I had forgotten, ignorantly dismissed, or (more often) never known. Today I encountered two such while reading Ch. 22, which concerns the rise of Julian the Apostate and his conflict with Constantius.
These last several chapters have sent me back to Ammianus Marcellinus, the last great ancient historian. In graduate school I remember reading or being told that 1) as a Greek, Latin was his second language, 2) he is important and 2) his Latin is difficult ("eine Qual seiner Leser" was the memorable verdict of one German scholastic).
Reading him now I find his Latin challenging but no more so than Tacitus'; at times it is even artful. As an example I point to the passage wherein Julian's troops proclaim him Augustus (i.e. equal to the reigning emperor Constantius). Julian has artfully arranged that Constantius' arrogant letter to him be read aloud to the assembled troops:
Replicatoque volumine edicti, quod missum est, et legi ab exordio coepto, cum ventum fuisset ad locum id continentem, quod gesta omnia Constantius inprobans Caesaris potestatem sufficere Iuliano censebat, exclamabatur undique vocum terribilium sonu: "Auguste Iuliane." (20.9.6-7)
Replicatoque volumine edicti, quod missum est, et legi ab exordio coepto, cum ventum fuisset ad locum id continentem, quod gesta omnia Constantius inprobans Caesaris potestatem sufficere Iuliano censebat, exclamabatur undique vocum terribilium sonu: "Auguste Iuliane." (20.9.6-7)
Which passages the Loeb translates:
"And after unrolling the scroll of the edict which had been sent, he began to read it from the beginning. And when he had come to the place where Constantius, rejecting all that had been done, declared that the power of Caesar (i.e. subordinate to Augustus) was enough for Julian, on all sides terrifying shouts arose: "Julianus Augustus!"
Not bad for a non-native speaker of Latin.
The second work to which Gibbon today introduced me is the Architrenius of John de Hauteville. (The title means "The Arch-Weeper" or maybe "Prince of Tears"). It is a lengthy satirical poem from the 12th century, in which, according to the blurb from Harvard UP, de Hauteville "uses his stylistic virtuosity and the many resources of Latin poetry to condemn a secular world where wealth and preferment were all-consuming." Now there's a work of timeless topicality.
But Gibbon's use of the poem deserves quotation. The proclamation of Julian as Augustus occurred at a "palace" at Paris (ancient Lutetiae) in 360 AD, but the exact location is uncertain. Gibbon tries to shed light on the matter by opting for the palace of the baths, which in his day was where the halls of a university stood (and where, I believe, at least part of the Sorbonne still stands). Then, in an apparent attempt to summarize and juxtapose the various uses to which that space has been put in the intervening centuries, Gibbon cites some lines from the Architrenius* that he essentially summarizes in this excellent sentence, so characteristic of his prose and his famous use of footnotes:
"By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins, whose dark recesses were the scenes of licentious love."
*Here are the lines, as quoted by Gibbon:
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis;
Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem.
----pereuntis saepe pudoris
celatura nefas, venerisque accommoda furtis.
Sounds like a fun place. Of course, this poem is now on my "to read" list. Gratias tibi, Mr. Gibbon.
"And after unrolling the scroll of the edict which had been sent, he began to read it from the beginning. And when he had come to the place where Constantius, rejecting all that had been done, declared that the power of Caesar (i.e. subordinate to Augustus) was enough for Julian, on all sides terrifying shouts arose: "Julianus Augustus!"
Not bad for a non-native speaker of Latin.
The second work to which Gibbon today introduced me is the Architrenius of John de Hauteville. (The title means "The Arch-Weeper" or maybe "Prince of Tears"). It is a lengthy satirical poem from the 12th century, in which, according to the blurb from Harvard UP, de Hauteville "uses his stylistic virtuosity and the many resources of Latin poetry to condemn a secular world where wealth and preferment were all-consuming." Now there's a work of timeless topicality.
But Gibbon's use of the poem deserves quotation. The proclamation of Julian as Augustus occurred at a "palace" at Paris (ancient Lutetiae) in 360 AD, but the exact location is uncertain. Gibbon tries to shed light on the matter by opting for the palace of the baths, which in his day was where the halls of a university stood (and where, I believe, at least part of the Sorbonne still stands). Then, in an apparent attempt to summarize and juxtapose the various uses to which that space has been put in the intervening centuries, Gibbon cites some lines from the Architrenius* that he essentially summarizes in this excellent sentence, so characteristic of his prose and his famous use of footnotes:
"By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins, whose dark recesses were the scenes of licentious love."
*Here are the lines, as quoted by Gibbon:
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis;
Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem.
----pereuntis saepe pudoris
celatura nefas, venerisque accommoda furtis.
Sounds like a fun place. Of course, this poem is now on my "to read" list. Gratias tibi, Mr. Gibbon.
It's the Emperor Julian. Using the Apostate title reveals a bias.
ReplyDeleteFair point. He was my special author for PhD exams, so I feel he and I have a special relationship, and that he would be cool with me calling him whatever, including, in informal moments, "Jules".
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