A Companion to Late Antique Literature

by Scott McGill

  Here I consider a text that in its very title proclaims its derivative quality: the so‐called Medicina Plini. This text, probably composed in the fourth century, is typical of its genre in many respects, both in form and content. As is well known (Fischer 1988; Nutton 2004; Temkin 2006), late ancient medical literature progressively abandoned the highly theoretical stance that had characterized the Greek medical discourse from Hippocrates to Galen. Late medical texts instead emphasized therapeutic practices and easily obtainable natural cures and insisted on the necessity of rendering medical knowledge accessible in plain language and an intelligible style of presentation, such as the almost ubiquitous a capite ad calcem (from head to toe), so as to allow for easy consultation and application by these texts’ “non‐specialist” readers, including those suffering from illness, without the intermediary of a doctor. The Medicina Plinii illustrates this broader tendency, together with other texts from the same period (fourth and fifth centuries), such as Oribasius’s Epitome, Marcellus Empiricus’s De medicamentis, Theodorus Priscianus’s Euporista, and Pseudo‐Apuleius’s Herbarius.

  As its title suggests, most of the content of this treatise in three books directly derives from the medical section of Pliny’s Natural History (books 20–32); interestingly enough, the manuscripts refer to the author as Plinius Secundus Iunior, as if he were a younger version of the elder Pliny, a point to which we will return. Already in the text’s preface we find the expression of a Plinian attitude toward Greek doctors (NH 29.14), which in turn derives from Cato’s encyclopedic Libri ad Marcum filium.

  Often it has happened that while traveling (in peregrinationibus) I have been cheated by doctors in various ways because of my own illness or that of my family: Some doctors sell very cheap remedies for huge prices, others out of greed take on cases that they do not know how to cure. I have also known certain doctors to act dishonestly in this way: They drag out the length of mild illness which could be dispelled in a few days, if not hours, and they consider it profitable for their own patients to be sick for a long time, and are more cruel than the diseases themselves. And so it seemed necessary to me to bring together aids to health from many places and collect them like in a book of extracts (ut undique valetudinis auxilia contraherem et velut breviario colligerem), so that I could avoid these sorts of traps wherever I happened to go. And from that time I have embarked on journeys in confidence, knowing that, if I do catch some illness, they will not make a profit out of me or assess the value of the opportunity.

  (trans. Doody 2009, adapted)

  This passage illustrates several important and interrelated points. The frequent journeys of the author, which might appear to be a personal touch, embedded as they are in a first‐person narrative, are actually a topos that recurs in other medical texts of the same period (e.g. Marcellus Empiricus and Pseudo‐Apuleius). More generally, themes of travel and displacement heavily characterize late Latin textuality at large. Poems such as Ausonius’s Mosella, Rutilius Namatianus’s De reditu suo or Sidonius Apollinaris’s Propempticon ad libellum, as well as Ammianus Marcellinus’s Res Gestae among other works, are centrally based on the experiences of travel – true or fictional – of their authors (Formisano 2017b). Another topos is the bad faith of the doctors, interested in material profit rather than in the good health of their patients. Here it receives a further layer of meaning, being cited as the reason why the author decided to record in writing his collection of remedies. The idea is that, by recurring to the booklet, the author, his family members, and friends will not only stay healthy while traveling but will also be able to economize their resources.

  Regarding the intricate relationship of the Medicina Plinii with its famous early imperial model, Aude Doody observes, “While the Medicina Plinii is dependent on Pliny’s name and Pliny’s text for some of its authority, its radical reworking of the Natural History’s approach to medicine could be seen as an implicit critique of Pliny’s organising strategies: the book of extracts aims both to co‐opt and to supplant the authority of the source‐text” (Doody 2009, p. 95).

  In other words, the fact that the author stays in the tradition of Pliny the Elder and shares his strong feeling against doctors does not prevent him from writing a new text. More specifically, “the Medicina Plinii acts on Pliny’s philosophy of self‐help by making his material accessible to patients in all circumstances” (Doody 2009, p. 98). Thus at the end of book 1 we find the author reporting a remedy for abscesses (vomicae) that he himself has successfully used on others (aliquot a me curati sunt infra praefinitum tempus compositione ea quae infra scripta est, 1.26. 5–6), whereas the earlier Pliny “rarely comments on his own experience of any of the cures he recommends.” Thus the author of the Medicina Plinii “appropriates Pliny’s authority at the same time as he subverts the basis on which the authority is established in the Natural History” (Doody 2009, pp. 99, 105).

  This feature of a little‐known medical treatise is extendable to many late antique texts, which tend to appropriate classical texts with the surprising effects of entering into a competition with them and then radically subverting their meaning. The best‐known texts that follow this pattern are the centones, which programmatically use Virgil’s or Homer’s words in order to convey completely different meanings, some of which directly conflict with the original text. Rather as Proba in her Cento Vergilianus affirms that the words she uses are the very words of the revered classical poet, so Plinius Junior, playing perhaps on his own name (or pseudonym?), tells his readers that he is giving them “Pliny’s medicine.”

  30.2 Fighting, Grafting, and Healing

  One of the most distinct recurring features of the late antique literature of knowledge, as we have just seen in the case of the Medicina Plinii, is its epitomary nature. Almost every author conceives of his work as an epitome of previous works, which for different reasons need to be rewritten. The Medicina Plinii, for example, extracts cures and formulas from Pliny’s Natural History in order to render them directly accessible. Julian’s doctor, Oribasios, composes a Synagogia iatriké, or “medical compilation,” which he later himself epitomizes with the double agenda of gathering and preserving medical texts written by previous authors (especially Galen) and selecting medical norms that are still valid and applicable. Cetius Faventinus (probably third or fourth century) epitomizes Vitruvius’s architectural treatise following a similar strategy, in this case annulling the theoretical pretenses of the Augustan predecessor by emphasizing the practicability of the norms for constructing private buildings (Meißner 1999, pp. 266–268).

  One of the most influential late antique technical works is without doubt the Epitoma rei militaris by Flavius Vegetius Renatus, who dedicated it to the emperor, probably Theodosius the Great (late fourth century), in order to propose military reform. Interestingly, although the link between the collection of past rules and norms and applicability has such a programmatic position within the treatise, Vegetius never directly quotes from or refers to specific passages of earlier authors. Vegetius’s epitomatory method does not aim at a faithful if abbreviated transmission of his sources in the way we have seen in the case of Medicina Plinii and in other texts; and he uses the military knowledge deriving from his sources (such as Cato, Sallust, Caesar, and Frontinus) in such a way that differences between various ages are silenced, giving rise to an idealized synchronic imaginary in which recent military tactics and strategy coexist with very old institutions. The Epitoma has thus been described as “not a true Art of War, but a political and strategic tract” (Milner 1996, p. xxviii), although I would argue that such a synchronization of different historical phases is a characteristic feature of the textual form of military knowledge. This aspect can be seen as the main characteristic of the art of war as literary genre.

  It is no accident that Vegetius’s work very soon became the undisputed classic in the field: Among ancient military treatises, only the Epitoma rei militaris contains the characteristic features of the genre “art of war,�
�� which became highly popular in early modern Europe (Richardot 1998; Allmand 2011; Formisano 2010, 2014; Schwager 2012). Ancient military texts and their long tradition until Carl von Clausewitz at least (1780–1831) display one recurring feature in particular: Whether or not they cite specific exempla, the past lies at their core, for they represent as ideal the organization of the army as it was. For this reason historians often show impatience and dissatisfaction when using military texts in order to reconstruct the military organization of a certain period and quickly dismiss them as confused and inaccurate sources. Yet, as we have seen, precisely this particular relationship to the past is the mark of the ancient art of war and its tradition. Vegetius’s Epitoma makes knowledge of the past the keystone of the art of war. Here, then, the concept of the “epitome” refers not only to the process of abridging specific texts but also, and more fundamentally, to the creation of a system of knowledge: The art of war cannot be anything else but an epitome of the past. And it is not coincidental that this development occurred precisely during late antiquity, when the confrontation with the past assumed a fundamental role in literary and cultural systems.

  Some other texts that are today classified (and often dismissed) as “technical” illustrate a further fascinating aspect of this epitomatory function. They are epitomes not only in terms of content but also in terms of form: They programmatically include a poetical insertion. Palladius’s Opus agri culturae (probably fifth century) and Marcellus Empiricus’s De medicamentis (early fifth century), lengthy prose treatises, both end with a didactic poem (Formisano 2005). The former is an agricultural text in 15 books, the last one of which consists of a preface in epistolary form followed by 85 elegiac couplets on the topic of grafting, bearing the title De insitione (Martin 1976); Marcellus’s pharmacological treatise of 37 books concludes with a didactic poem of 78 hexameters devoted to the preparation of remedies (Carmen de speciebus). In both cases, the subject matter of the poem has already been treated in the preceding prose text, so that the content of these poems does not have a structural function in terms of the transmission of knowledge. One might suppose that their function is purely “aesthetic,” yet there is more to it than that: The specific subject of the two brief poems suggests a metaliterary reading. The techniques of grafting (Palladius) and of putting together or “composing” remedies (Marcellus) are transparent metaphors for their own texts.

  Palladius refers to this aspect at the beginning of the poem:

  Pasiphilus, ornament of my trust, I rightly tell you whatever the shadows of my mind conceal. Twice seven books, a work on tilling fields (opus agricolare), my hand has written, but the feet are silent; they are not arranged in rhythms nor flowing with Apollo’s river, but simple in their pure rusticity (sed pura tantum rusticitate rudes). You praise, value and love them, and you cherish these humble words with the affectionate concern of a friend. And so my growing confidence, which will delight (laetificanda) thanks to your judgment, has offered you this modest poem. (15.1–10)

  The phrase opus agricolare (3) suggests both the subject matter and the simple, nonpoetical style of the previous 14, while laetificanda (10) suggests both “will delight” and “will be made fertile.” A few couplets later, Palladius describes the process of grafting, using the language of marriage and copulation (13–18): thalami, iungere, mixtus, gemina, confundere, duplicis, and this, too, can be interpreted in a double way: The language describes the agricultural technique of grafting, but it also performs a grafting of poetry on to prose, thereby having the entire text culminate in a metaphor for the text itself taken from its own subject matter.

  For his part, Marcellus Empiricus in the preface to his pharmacological treatise emphasizes the epitomatory quality of his work and then, similarly to Palladius, recurs to a poetic image which impressively fits the medical content of his book:

  I have composed this book on practical remedies with as much care and attention as I could, filling it with prescriptions for natural or man‐made remedies which I gathered from many different places (fartum undeunde collectis). If there is anything suited to human health or healing which I have learned from others, or have successfully used myself, or have become acquainted with by reading, I took it from its scattered and hidden origins and brought it together, arranging it into a single body as Asclepius did with Virbius’ scattered and wounded limbs (id sparsum inconditumque collegi et in unum corpus quasi disiecta et lacera Asclepius Virbii membra composui). (pr. 1)

  The text becomes like the body of Hippolytus/Virbius reassembled by the primordial mythic doctor Asclepius (cf. Ovid, Met. 15, 479–551), not only because it stems from different sources but, more importantly, because the book itself is the remedy (compare the discussion of the Medicinia Plinii above).

  At the end of the preface Marcellus justifies his insertion of a poem at the end of his treatise:

  We delighted with verses (versiculis quoque lusimus) composed so as to enumerate mixtures and drugs; not that the poetry contains anything worthwhile, but so that the poem may entice those who read and study this work, and a delightful expectation may win their favor. I have located this little text at the very end (in infima parte) of this manuscript, so that this work, which I have carefully (sollertia nostra) arranged, may come to its close in my own language (sermone nostro), and also so that my trifling (nugas nostras) play may be concealed by the superimposition of many pages. (pr. 7)

  The poem is thus given two functions: to delight the reader after a long and tedious treatment of the medical subject matter and to close the text with the author’s own words (sermone nostro). This very point implicitly emphasizes the fact that the text is an assemblage of parts that are in some sense not the author’s words (for the similarity with the poetics of the cento as expressed by Ausonius, see Formisano 2007, p. 284). As with Palladius’s text, De medicamentis is sealed with a piece of poetry that simultaneously reflects the content of the work and performs a textualization of the knowledge at stake.

  30.3 The Pursuit of Practicability

  In all texts discussed or briefly mentioned in this chapter, in addition to an emphasis on the epitome as a compositional method, another motif constantly emerges: the emphasis on practice as opposed to theory. In many cases theory is presented as being equivalent to eloquentia, the art of speaking well. As is well known, in the classical period, in accordance with Aristotelian and Ciceronian theorization, eloquence was thought capable of providing universal knowledge: It was the key to understanding all other disciplines or arts. To be able to talk about something well was considered equivalent to having a firm grasp and deep knowledge of it. Eloquence was not only the goal of a good education but also the means of acquiring social and political success. As Jeffrey Schnapp puts it, “Rhetoric was an institutio in the Latin sense: at once a method of organizing speech to achieve consensus within the city, an established body of customs and norms (linguistic, literary, and other), and a system for transmitting these customs from one generation to another” (1995, p. 101). During late antiquity, on the other hand, many factors contributed to a generally antirhetorical stance. Christianity played a fundamental role in this process, not only because of its inherent universalistic impulse to make knowledge available to everybody, including the uneducated and the barbarians, but also because it marked “the transition from a literary system anchored in the institution of rhetoric to one founded on the careful reading and exegesis of a written artifact,” that is, the Bible (Schnapp 1995, p. 104). The educational and cultural system of classical eloquentia was thus dismantled and superseded by an equally powerful antirhetorical rhetoric. The late antique literature of knowledge acknowledges and appropriates this shift, emphasizing its own inherent conflict between practice and theory or, better, between a plain style, presented as not rhetorically adorned, and the sophistication of eloquentia. Whereas the strategy followed by their predecessors was one of adaptation, that is, of elevating practical knowledge to the level of theory via eloquence, technical authors
now proudly declare that they are extraneous to the entire system.

  In a medical text entitled Euporista (probably late fourth century, written first in Greek and then in Latin), Theodorus Priscianus exemplifies this tendency with great clarity, on the one hand denouncing the connection traditionally established between eloquence and medicine and on the other pleading for the return to a medicine completely based on natural remedies, instead of complex medical theories (Formisano 2004). The preface of the first book, which bears the title Faenomenon, touches upon a number of significant themes:

  It is fairly well known that not long ago I wrote some books on easily procurable medicine at the urging of my colleague Olympios; I wrote them in Greek since that people has spread abroad the discipline of healing in their clear language. In the present volume, therefore, I will not aim for glory (gloria), and indeed in a scholarly work there is no need of eloquence, but of industry (neque enim in logico opere eloquentia opus est sed labore). Since the weakness of the human body demanded remedies, I decided to write them up, nature allowing me to do so with its swift cures. For not every illness permits a delay in the cure. Therefore, my dear friend, the remedies which by the agency of nature assist in the adornment of our bodies or in the obtaining or maintaining of health, I have now arranged in our language in your honor – not, I imagine, without gaining some fame (fama). After all, a work composed in both languages will have a greater number both of weaknesses and of judges. (Faen. pr. 1)