A Companion to Late Antique Literature

by Scott McGill

  33.1 Presenting the Past

  I was persuaded to write about such things, in part, reckoning that the undertaking would secure me a lasting reputation, and, in part, that it would be both absurd and malicious to let all the hard work, as recorded by the ancients in their writings about these matters, to remain forever hidden away.

  John Lydus, On Celestial Signs 1

  In these confidently self‐regarding terms, John Lydus (“the Lydian”: from the province of Lydia on the western coast of Asia Minor) explained to his readers his decision to assemble a sizeable body of ancient data in a treatise, On Celestial Signs. Two other works by Lydus survive – On Months and On the Magistracies – all three written in Greek around the middle of the sixth century in Constantinople under the emperor Justinian (527–565). Lydus, who gives a detailed account of his own career in On the Magistracies, retired in 552, having served as the senior‐ranking administrative officer (cornicularius) on the judicial side of the Praetorian Prefecture, one of the largest and most important government departments in the East (PLRE II, 612–615; C. Kelly 2004, pp. 11–104; Caimi 1984, pp. 46–81; Maas 1992, pp. 28–37; Bjornlie 2012, pp. 113–117; Kaster 1988, pp. 306–309; Treadgold 2007, pp. 258–264; Dubuisson and Schamp 2006, I.1 pp. xvii–lii, lxxxiv–cxv).

  On Months and On Celestial Signs were both composed in the early 540 s. Neither work survives complete or in its original form – modern editions are a jigsaw of several lengthy extracts and a scatter of smaller passages and quotations. The focus of both these antiquarian projects is firmly on amassing – rather than interpreting – data. There is a clear delight in the accumulation of technical terms (Signs 10a, 44, 53; Months 1.28, 3.22, 4.1, 4.116, frag. 12), and authorities are repeatedly name‐checked (Maas 1992, pp. 119–137 offers a lengthy catalog). On Celestial Signs brings together information on the predictive value of solar and lunar phenomena, comets, thunder, lightning strikes, and earthquakes, as well as Greek translations of a range of Roman authors, including the first‐century BCE polymath Nigidius Figulus’s Latin translation of the Etruscan seer Tages’s brontoscopic calendar: a list of predictions based on the daily incidence of thunder (Signs 27–38; see Turfa 2012 for a translation and extensive discussion). On Months gathers material on the Roman calendar. Book 1 (very fragmentary) deals with the reforms of the legendary king Numa; book 2, with days of the week and their numerological significance; book 3, with the number of months and their divisions – in particular, the chief festal markers (kalends, ides, nones); book 4 discusses each month in turn, offering an impressive range of information on a wide variety of subjects – (for example) laurel, the emperor Trajan, cremation, multiple births, the ibis, beans, epilepsy, volcanoes, caterpillars – and includes (for each month) detailed descriptions of traditional Roman festivals.

  To be fascinated by the past, especially the distant past, was inescapably to be concerned with authors and events that were not, at least directly, biblical (see, particularly, Maas 1992, reading Lydus against the enforcement of theological and academic orthodoxy in mid‐sixth‐century Constantinople). Yet, as any exegesis or commentary swiftly discloses, there is a broad and ill‐defined hinterland of context, connection, and allusion that can be claimed to extend outward from any key text and arguably – with varying degrees of plausibility – is necessary for its full understanding. On Celestial Signs opens with a clear statement of the importance of portents in the Bible, citing the plagues of Egypt and quoting the apocalyptic prophecies from Joel (2:30): “I shall give signs in the heavens above and wonders on the earth below: blood, fire, and columns of smoke” (Signs 1). The implicit argument of the preface – the Bible is not referenced in the rest of the (surviving) work – is that the material on ancient religious lore that follows may properly be regarded as expansively explicating subject matter that is undeniably scriptural. On Celestial Signs thus offers its readers a capacious context in which (should they so choose) biblical portents might be more fully comprehended. It is also important to note that, for all its inconsistency (Maas 1992, pp. 105–107), Lydus’s cosmology allows ample room for the beneficent operation of Divine Providence (Signs 8, 9, 16a).

  The Christian implications of On Months are less immediate (perhaps, in part, because of the poorly preserved opening sections). Amid discussion of a vast array of quotations and authoritative opinions – drawn exclusively from nonbiblical texts – Lydus includes some recognizably Christian material (especially Months 4.47 on the Sibylline Oracles; see Kalldelis 2003, pp. 308–310). He is also clear that Greek and Roman deities are to be understood as, sometimes extended, allegories (Months 2.2, 2.8, 2.10, 4.2, 4.34, 4.71, 4.154, 4.159; so too, Signs 1, 3, 10, 45). One striking feature of the organization of book 2 is the presentation of a seven‐day week beginning with Sunday (Maas 1992, pp. 57–58). The brief discussion of origins omits any archaic alternatives, passing over both the Egyptian ten‐day and the Etruscan eight‐day week, and ignores variations in the names of the days (and which should start the week) and their association with the planets (Months 2.4). Although nowhere made explicit in the text, the attentive reader might notice that the non‐Christian past has been silently corrected and – along with Lydus’s complicated web of numerological associations (Maas 1992, pp. 58–60) – made to run on Christian time.

  Lydus also insisted on the continuing relevance of his enterprise. His researches did not signal an ivory‐tower retreat from the present (Domenici 2007, pp. 30–31). One of the inspirations for On Celestial Signs was his eyewitness sighting of a horse‐shaped comet, which he connected with the Persian sack of Antioch in 540 (Signs 1). He associates a solar eclipse and fire in the sky with the revolt of Vitalian against the emperor Anastasius in 513–515 (Signs 6, with Mass 1992, p. 109); a kite dropping an arrow from its beak while swooping over the hippodrome in Constantinople presaged the destructive Nika Riot in 532 (Signs 8). Conversely, the absence of an eclipse when the sun was in Leo was an affirmation of Justinian’s fortunate rule (Signs 9). In On Months, Lydus records that New Year’s Day in his hometown of Philadelphia was still marked by the parade of an image of a double‐faced Janus, a local custom “which preserves the imprint of antiquity” (Months 4.2). A similar “imprint” of the non‐Christian ritual of libation is preserved in the eucharistic offerings of bread and wine (Months 4.31). But such blurring of the past and present was not always to be welcomed. Lydus concludes his description of the Brumalia, a festival held in early December, noting that the Church rejected these ancient traditions, in part because some of the celebrations were held at night and could be associated with the Underworld (Months 4.158).

  It is (and perhaps deliberately?) difficult to know how to take this last editorial comment on the sixth‐century Brumalia. Is it a sharp protest against a too rigorist Christianity, overeager to erase traces of antiquity; or is it a more gentle indication to the reader that what is at issue is precisely how a non‐Christian past should be read against a Christian present; or is it another reminder that what might seem a selection of recondite data from a safely distant past is, in fact, of immediate and pressing relevance? Of course, it is impossible here (as elsewhere) to separate with any certainty or security the aspects of Lydus’s account that might reflect something of contemporary practice from those that are part of his scholarly reconstruction. (And all the more so for his explanations of these elements, their meanings, and their origin.) Even so, it is worth noting that in the sixth century the Brumalia (at least in some form) was celebrated with imperial approval (Crawford 1919, pp. 370–374), and that, despite a long Mediterranean‐wide tradition of sermonizing against festivals, parades, games, and other public entertainments, the Eastern Church did not formalize its objections until the Quinisext Council held in Constantinople in 692 (Maas 1992, pp. 64–66, 69–70).

  The scatter of examples briefly surveyed above should not give any misleading impression of a strongly directed text. (From that point of view, Lydus’s authorial approach is the antithesis of t
he ideal contribution to a Blackwell Companion.) Reading On Celestial Signs or On Months is like wandering through a museum stripped of its labels (an experience only exaggerated by the fragmentary state of both texts). There is an overall sense of curatorial order, but is not always clear what should be made of individual items and how they might relate to each other. How far should Lydus’s observations on the contemporary relevance of his researches or the continuities between the ancient and the modern be pushed? How much of this information does the author himself credit: the descriptions of ancient Roman festivals; the 360 one‐line predictions in the Etruscan brontoscopic calendar; the complex cosmology or numerology? For the most part, the thick mass of data assembled in On Celestial Signs and On Months is presented in raw form. That is not much to the taste of twenty‐first‐century readers who may not so readily share Lydus’s unstinting enthusiasm for preserving the imprint of antiquity at the expense of any sustained analytical argument. But that division should not be pressed too hard. There is more in play here than the pedantic preservation of ancient wisdom. The difficulties encountered in understanding these texts, and their deep reservoirs of arcane information, are at the core of Lydus’s project. The collection and categorization of a wide variety of information and opinion resists any simple separation of the past – or knowledge of the past – into Christian and non‐Christian.

  33.2 Perspectives on the Past

  Nor have I haphazardly deployed these items that are worth remembering, as though in a heap. I have organized the diverse subjects, drawn from a range of authors and a mix of periods, as though in a body, so that the things I initially noted down all in a jumble, as an aide mémoire, might come together in a coherent, organic whole …. The work before you promises not a display of eloquence but an accumulation of things worth knowing.

  Macrobius, Saturnalia, Praef. 3–4

  Sometime in the 430 s (a century before John Lydus and on the other side of the Mediterranean), Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius dedicated to his young son Eustathius a “fund of knowledge,” the considered result of a lifetime’s study: “All that I have toiled through – in various books of Greek or Latin, both before and since you were born” (Praef. 2). Macrobius (as he is conventionally known) was one of the most distinguished senators of his generation in Rome, serving as Praetorian Prefect of Italy in 430 (PLRE II, 1101, 1102–1103; Cameron 2011, pp. 231–239). He presented his “fund of knowledge” as a dramatic dialogue (in Latin) explicitly modeled on Plato’s Symposium (1.1.3): the record of set‐piece discussions at a gathering of 12 “leading members of the Roman nobility and other learned men” (1.1.1). The scene was set 50 years earlier – most likely in 382 or 383 – at the preceding evening and three full days of the traditional festival of Saturnalia (16–19 December) (Cameron 2011, pp. 243–247; Kaster 2011, I pp. xxiv–xxv; Consolino 2013, pp. 89–91). (Previous scholarship argued for a closer coincidence of composition and dramatic date: for example, Flamant 1977, pp. 96–126; Bloch 1945, pp. 206–208; see, too, Goldlust 2010, pp. 11–14.) The group’s daytime discussions were devoted to serious subjects; the evenings, over dinner, to topics “more pleasurable and less austere” (1.1.2). In the surviving text of Macrobius’s Saturnalia – under two‐thirds of the original – the company covers (for example) the humanity of slaves; the wit of great men (including Cicero and the emperor Augustus); ancient luxury; the variety of nuts, fruits, and olives; baldness; seawater; optics; dietary regimes; the effects of moonlight; and (on the mornings of the second and third days) a lengthy discussion of Virgil (Kaster 2011, 1: pp. il–liii, with the topics conveniently catalogued at 3: pp. 428–454; Goldlust 2010, pp. 40–63). The parade of learning is impressive – as is the intimidating fiction that educated persons should have vast amounts of detailed information and a seemingly endless chain of quotations at their immediate recall (1.24.1, 5.2.3, 5.17.8, 6.6.1, but see 5.3.17).

  The first full day of discussion was hosted by Praetextatus. As with other interlocutors, Macrobius’s Praetextatus is modeled on a well‐known historical figure: Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a powerful senator (Urban Prefect of Rome in 367–368, Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum and Africa in 384) and prominent supporter of traditional Roman religion (holding a number of priesthoods and the highest rank in the worship of Mithras) (PLRE I, 722–724). Like Praetextatus, the hosts of days two and three – Flavianus and Symmachus (respectively) – are also patterned on eminent late fourth‐century senators who had been appointed to high imperial offices and publicly defended traditional religion: Virius Nicomachus Flavianus (PLRE I, 347–349) and Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (PLRE I, 865–870). The opening discussions (the privilege of the host) survive only for the first day. In response to polite encouragement, Praetextatus delivers learned discourses on the meaning of his own name, on the origin of the Saturnalia, and on slaves as fully human, and he explains why the sun is worshipped under so many divine names. For some modern readers, Praetextatus – often portrayed as the poster‐boy for paganism in fourth‐century Rome (Kahlos 2002, pp. 12–15) – should be understood as offering a solid defense of traditional religion (see below). But his long monologue on solar deities (1.17–23) is without any significant theology or metaphysics. Rather, it is a detailed and scholarly compilation of (sometimes strained) etymology, iconography, mythology, history, and anecdote: it “sounds more like an academic dissertation than a confessio fidei” (Consolino 2013, p. 92; see, too, Liebeschuetz 1999, pp. 192–200; Cameron 2011, pp. 266–69; Goldlust 2010, pp. 284–287; Shanzer 1986, pp. 135–136; Van Nuffelen 2011, p. 107). Similarly, the lengthy exposition of archaic sacrificial and pontifical practice (offered on the morning of the second day) is bounded by a concern to explicate passages in Virgil (3.1–3.12, with Cameron 2011, pp. 256–257, 567–626). Praetextatus’s party pieces are applauded as virtuoso displays of erudition and memory (1.24.1), constructed by Macrobius as “an unbroken stream of citations from obscure monographs many centuries old” (Cameron 2011, p. 258). Perhaps the historical Vettius Agorius Praetextatus might have spoken very differently? Certainly, Macrobius’s literary Praetextatus is firmly focused on the “accumulation of things worth knowing.” In approaching his allocated subjects, he is not so much an advocate of paganism as a convert to antiquarianism.

  The mornings of the second and third days were entirely devoted to Virgil. The authority of the discussions is strengthened by the presence of Servius, the poet’s most influential late antique critic. Although, like Praetextatus, Macrobius’s Servius is not simply to be merged with the historical Servius and his surviving commentaries (Kaster 1980, especially pp. 252–260; 1988, pp. 171–175; Cameron 2011, pp. 247–252). The reader should be warned that this symposium’s scholarly exchanges fall somewhat short of the expectations of modern literary criticism. What really impresses this learned gathering are long lists of example after example cited to illustrate Virgil’s success (and a handful of shortcomings) in evoking emotions (book 4), in deploying conventional rhetorical styles, and in borrowing from his predecessors, notably Homer (5.2.6–5.17.4, with over 100 parallel passages quoted), Pindar, Sophocles, Ennius, and Lucretius. Most striking is the demonstration of the sheer amount of information contained in Virgil – as complex and diverse as nature itself (5.1.4, 5.1.19–20) – and correspondingly the fund of knowledge required by any serious reader to understand the text (5.18.1, 6.7.4–6.9.13). Virgil’s arcane material is dissected by Servius in long discussions (for example) on the custom of combat with one foot bare (5.18.13–21), or on the use of bronze blades in collecting herbs for magical purposes (5.19.7–13), or on the precise meaning of individual words: lituus, matura, uestibulum, bidentes (6.8.1–6.9.7). To the evident delight of the company, Virgil is firmly established as the most academic (studiosissimus) of poets (6.4.1) – to be appreciated by well‐read readers with (unsurprisingly) a similar antiquarian turn of mind.

  The courteous camaraderie of this cultivated table ronde is most frequently fractured by Evangelus (also a lei
sured member of the Roman elite with an estate at Tibur), who unashamedly crashes the party at the beginning of the first day (1.7.1–11). Evangelus is poorly behaved: aggressive (1.7.2), argumentative (7.5.1–3), a bully (2.2.12), and a boor. In the brief discussions that bookend individual presentations, he offers the crudest challenges to Virgil’s authority, claiming that a “peasant boy” from rural Mantua could not have known Greek (5.2.1) and doubting Virgil’s expertise in ancient Roman religion (3.10.1–3.12.10). To think otherwise, he needles, seems “more a display of favoritism than of good judgment” (1.24.2). It may be, too, that “Evangelus” (the name is the giveaway?) should be understood as interjecting a Christian point of view, or at least as suggesting the sort of questions that might be posed by some Christians (but see the reservations of Kaster 2011, 1: pp. xxxii–xxxiv; Cameron 2011, pp. 253–254, 595–598; Gerth 2013, pp. 85–90). (And, of course, it is not exclusively a Christian critical stance to doubt the Saturnalia’s reverent elevation of Virgil.) Whatever its potential Christian overtones, Evangelus’s conspicuous lack of convivial cooperation is certainly a reflection of his literary pedigree. The cynic at the feast plays a key role in sympotic texts: a sharp reminder to the reader not to get too caught up in the fun. After all, it is Evangelus’s disruptive dialogue that prevents the Saturnalia from seeming (too much) like a complacent conversation among clubbable companions.