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THE COLLECTION AND ITS COLLECTIVE: PACATUS AND THE XII PANEGYRICI LATINI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2021

Dennis Jussen
Dennis Jussen*
Affiliation:
Radboud Institute for Culture and History (RICH)
*
d.jussen@let.ru.nl
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Extract

Scholars of the ancient world are increasingly recognizing the importance of ancient collections for our understanding of antiquity. In his afterword to Museum Archetypes and Collecting in the Ancient World (2015), Jaś Elsner argues that much of our knowledge of antiquity is based on collections assembled within the ancient world, and that the study of these collections provides us with a unique opportunity to uncover the mentalities of the people whom they surrounded. Pointing out that they ‘packaged the past and the present for its own needs, much as modern museums do now’, Elsner argues that ancient collections may be approached as ‘significant engine[s] for social and cultural self-definition’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 871 - 883
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

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Footnotes

It is a pleasure to thank Roger Rees and Bruce Gibson for their careful reading and helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to the organizers and participants of the various workshops on ancient collections and collecting held at Rome, St. Andrews and Tübingen, at which earlier versions of this article were presented. This article forms part of the NWO-funded research project Constraints and Tradition: Roman Power in Changing Societies.

References

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3 On its manuscript tradition, see R.A.B. Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini (Oxford, 1964), v–xi (reprinted in R.D. Rees, Latin Panegyric [Oxford, 2012], 49–54).

4 These are: Galletier, E., Panégyriques Latins, 3 vols. (Paris, 1949, 1952, 1955)Google Scholar; Mynors (n. 3); Paladini, V. and Fedeli, P., Panegyrici Latini (Rome, 1976)Google Scholar; Lassandro, D., XII Panegyrici Latini (Turin, 1992)Google Scholar; Nixon, C.E.V. and Rodgers, B. Saylor, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini (Berkeley, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Müller-Rettig, B., Panegyrici Latini: Lobreden auf römische Kaiser, 2 vols. (Darmstadt, 2008, 2014)Google Scholar.

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6 R. Pichon, Les derniers ecrivain profanes (Paris, 1906), 285–91 (reprinted in Rees [n. 3], 55–74). See also Nixon and Saylor Rodgers (n. 4), 6–7; Turcan-Verkerk, A.-M., Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert: Latinius Pacatus Drepanius, panégyriste de Théodose (Brussels, 2003), 62–5Google Scholar; Lunn-Rockliffe, S., ‘Commemorating the usurper Magnus Maximus: ekphrasis, poetry, and history in Pacatus’ panegyric of Theodosius’, Journal of Late Antiquity 3 (2010), 316–36, at 316–17Google Scholar; Rees, R.D., ‘Afterwords of praise’, in Roche, P. (ed.), Pliny's Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2011), 175–88, at 178Google Scholar; Rees, R., ‘Bright lights, big city: Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini’, in Kelly, G. and Grig, L. (edd.), Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2012), 203–22, at 204–5Google Scholar; Rees, R., ‘Pacatus the poet doing Plinian prose’, Arethusa 46 (2013), 241–59, at 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rees, R., ‘Authorising freedom of speech under Theodosius’, in Burgersdijk, D.W.P. and Ross, A.J. (edd.), Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (Leiden, 2018), 289–309, at 303–4Google Scholar.

7 Rees (n. 6 [2012]), 205. Galletier (n. 4), 1.xv–xvi suggests Pacatus’ friend Ausonius.

8 On the diuersorum uii, see Nixon and Saylor Rodgers (n. 4), 5. On the addition of Pan. Lat. IV(10) and XII(9) by Nazarius, see Barnes, T., Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, 2014), 181–4Google Scholar; B. Gibson and R.D. Rees (edd.), Praising Constantine (forthcoming).

9 See Galletier (n. 4); Nixon and Saylor Rodgers (n. 4); Müller-Rettig (n. 4).

10 As noted by Vessey, M., ‘Reinventing history: Jerome's Chronicle and the writing of the post-Roman West’, in McGill, S., Sogno, C. and Watts, E. (edd.), From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 c.e. (Cambridge, 2010), 265–89, at 273Google Scholar.

11 These are the same editions that order the speeches chronologically. See n. 7 above.

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13 Rees (n. 6 [2011]); Garcia-Ruiz, M.P., ‘Rethinking the political role of Pliny's Panegyricus in the Panegyrici Latini’, Arethusa 46 (2013), 195–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Cicero has the lead role: see Klotz, A., ‘Studien zu den Panegyrici Latini’, RhM 66 (1911), 513–72Google Scholar.

15 Kelly, G., ‘Pliny and Symmachus’, Arethusa 46 (2013), 261–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gibson, B., ‘Gratitude to Gratian: Ausonius’ thanksgiving for his consulship’, in Burgersdijk, D.W.P. and Ross, A.J. (edd.), Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (Leiden, 2018), 270–88Google Scholar. That being said, Gibson has convincingly demonstrated that Plinian influences in Ausonius’ speech are stronger than have hitherto been acknowledged.

16 Or, as Pliny puts it in Ep. 3.18.2–3, ‘to encourage our emperor in his virtues through sincere praise’ (ut imperatori nostro uirtutes suae ueris laudibus commendarentur) and, in doing so, ‘to advise future emperors by means of example’ (ut futuri principes sub exemplo praemonerentur).

17 R.D. Rees, ‘A hall of mirrors: the Panegyricus and the Panegyrici’, in G. Roskam and S. Schorn (edd.), Concepts of Ideal Rulership from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Turnhout, 2018), 255–91. See also Formisano, M., ‘The desire to be you: the discourse of praise of the Roman emperor’, in Antonello, P. and Webb, H. (edd.), Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: René Girard and Literary Criticism (Michigan, 2015), 81–99Google Scholar, who argues that the collection as a whole provides the potential for ‘rivalry and subversion’.

18 Turcan-Verkerk (n. 6).

19 Rees (n. 6 [2012]). Cf. Rees (n. 12), 23.

20 M. Beard, ‘Ciceronian correspondences: making a book out of letters’, in T.P. Wiseman (ed.), Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford, 2002), 103–44, at 144.

21 Gibson, R., ‘On the nature of ancient letter collections’, JRS 102 (2012), 56–78, at 77Google Scholar.

22 Sogno, C., Storin, B.K. and Watts, E.J. (edd.), Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide (Oakland, 2017), 2Google Scholar.

23 For a history of the concept and its value for the study of ancient literature, see Formisano, M., ‘Reading dismemberment: Dinocrates, Vitruvius, and the macrotext’, Arethusa 49 (2016), 145–59, at 148–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Formisano (n. 17).

24 Grillo, L., ‘Reading Cicero's Ad familiares as a collection’, CQ 65 (2015), 655–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar reached a similar conclusion.

25 Sogno, Storin and Watts (n. 22), 4–7.

26 Salzman, M.R., The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 31–43Google Scholar.

27 Matthews, J.F., Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, a.d. 364–425 (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar.

28 Sogno, C., Q. Aurelius Symmachus: A Political Biography (Ann Arbor, 2006), 2–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 On Ausonius’ career, see Matthews (n. 27), 56–87; Sivan, H., Ausonius of Bordeaux: Genesis of a Gallic Aristocracy (London, 1993), 119–41Google Scholar.

30 Sivan (n. 29), 112–13; Humphries, M., ‘Roman senators and absent emperors in Late Antiquity’, AAAH 17 (2003), 27–46, at 36Google Scholar.

31 Symm. Ep. 9.88 lacks an addressee, but it has argued on the basis of internal evidence that its recipient is Ausonius. See Roda, S., ‘Una nuova lettera di Simmaco ad Ausonio’, REA 83 (1981), 273–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar contra Coşkun, A., ‘Symmachus, Ausonius und der senex olim Garumnae alumnus: auf der Suche nach dem Adressaten von Symm. Ep. 8.88’, RhM 145 (2002), 120–8Google Scholar.

32 On this identification, see Salzman, M.R. and Roberts, M., The Letters of Symmachus: Book 1 (Atlanta, 2011), xx–xxiGoogle Scholar.

33 Sivan (n. 29), 111.

34 Aull, C.N., ‘The letter collection of Ausonius’, in Sogno, C., Storin, B.K. and Watts, E.J. (edd.), Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide (Oakland, 2017), 131–45Google Scholar.

35 Sogno, C., ‘The letter collection of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus’, in Sogno, C., Storin, B.K. and Watts, E.J. (edd.), Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide (Oakland, 2017), 175–89, at 181Google Scholar.

36 Salzman and Roberts (n. 32), xiv, 38; Sogno (n. 35), 181.

37 Sogno (n. 35), 176, 183. Cf. Gibson (n. 21), 76: ‘the correspondence of Symmachus features letters with all the great power-brokers of the era.’

38 Symm. Ep. 8.12, 9.61, 9.64. See S. McGill, ‘Rewriting Ausonius’, in J.R. Elsner and J. Hernández Lobato (edd.), The Poetics of Late Latin Literature (Oxford, 2017), 252–77 on how the dedications to Pacatus in Ausonius’ Technopaegnion, Eclogues and Ludus Septem Sapientum enhanced his public image.

39 All translations of the Pan. Lat. are taken from Nixon and Saylor Rodgers (n. 4).

40 Plin. Pan. 4.1. Cf. Ep. 3.18.2–3.

41 Set out by Rees (n. 6 [2011]), 179 and (n. 6 [2013]), 242.

42 Pan. Lat. II(12).2 ≈ Plin. Pan. 2.2–3. See Garcia-Ruiz (n. 13), 211–12; C. Kelly, ‘Pliny and Pacatus: past and present in imperial panegyric’, in J. Wienand (ed.), Contested Monarchy: Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century a.d. (Oxford, 2015), 215–38, at 226–30; Rees (n. 6 [2018]), 300–2.

43 Sogno (n. 28), 68–76; Rees (n. 6 [2018]), 301–2.

44 On Pacatus’ treatment of Maximus as a tyrannus, see Lunn-Rockliffe (n. 6).

45 While Pacatus devotes an entire chapter of his panegyric to Theodosius to the virtues of Spain, Pliny makes no reference to Trajan's home country. See Rees, R.D., ‘Adopting the emperor: Pliny's praise-giving as cultural appropriation’, in Madsen, J.M. and Rees, R.D. (edd.), Roman Rule in Greek and Latin Writing (Leiden, 2014), 105–23, at 107–9Google Scholar. On Trajan's status as a model emperor in Late Antiquity, see Gibson, B. and Rees, R.D., ‘Introduction: Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity’, Arethusa 46 (2013), 141–65, at 155–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E.M. Thienes, ‘Remembering Trajan in fourth-century Rome: memory and identity in spatial, artistic, and textual narratives’ (Diss., University of Missouri, 2015).

46 Rees (n. 6 [2012]), 211; Garcia Ruiz (n. 13), 213–14.

47 On the emperor who moves like a senator, see D.J.H. Jussen, ‘Following in the footsteps of Trajan: a note on traditional emperorship in late fourth-century panegyric’, CPh (forthcoming).

48 On self-fashioning in Pliny's Panegyricus, see C.F. Noreña, ‘Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus’, in P. Roche (ed.), Pliny's Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2011), 29–44.

49 R.D. Rees, ‘The private lives of public figures in Latin prose panegyric’, in M. Whitby (ed.), The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 1998), 77–103, at 93; Rees (n. 6 [2012]), 214–15.

50 Pan. Lat. III(11).28–30. The same behaviour is criticized in Amm. Marc. 22.7.1. See Jussen (n. 47).

51 Amm. Marc. 25.4.21. Rees (n. 6 [2012]), 215 suggests that Claudius Mamertinus’ emphasis on Julian's ciuilitas constituted ‘a lesson in appropriate imperial deportment’.

52 Pan. Lat. III(12).1.4–5, 22.2; Amm. Marc. 21.8.1, 12.25.

53 Rees (n. 6 [2012]), 212.

54 Auson. Prof. Burd. 14.9; Jer. Chron. 324.

55 Nixon and Saylor Rodgers (n. 4), 5. On the importance of Autun and its school in later Roman Gaul, see Sivan (n. 29), 74–83; A. Hostein, La cité et l'empereur: les Éduens dans l'empire romain d'après les Panégyriques Latins (Paris, 2012). That Autun looms large in the diuersorum uii is taken to indicate that the earlier collection was formed there, perhaps by Eumenius. See Brandt, S., Eumenius und die ihm zugeschriebenen Reden (Fribourg, 1882)Google Scholar; Seeck, O., ‘Studien zur Geschichte Diocletians und Constantins: die Reden des Eumenius’, Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Pädagogik 137 (1888), 713–28Google Scholar; Baehrens, W.A., ‘Zur quaestio Eumeniana’, RhM 67 (1912), 312–16Google Scholar.

56 Nixon (n. 5); A. Omissi, ‘Rhetoric and power: how imperial panegyric allowed civilian elites to access power in the fourth century’, in E. Manders and D. Slootjes (edd.), Leadership, Ideology and Crowds in the Roman Empire of the 4th Century a.d. (Stuttgart, 2020), 35–48.

57 It has long been assumed that Pan. Lat. X(2) and XI(3) were by the same orator, identified as one Mamertinus (see e.g. Galletier [n. 4], 1.xviii–xix). For a more sceptical take on this issue of shared authorship, however, see Rees (n. 12), 70, 193–204.

58 R.D. Rees, ‘From alterity to unity in Pacatus Drepanius’ panegyric to Theodosius’, Talanta 45 (2013), 41–53, at 53.

59 Matthews, J.F., ‘Gallic supporters of Theodosius’, Latomus 30 (1975), 1073–99, at 1078–82Google Scholar.