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Epicurus and Voluptas in Late Antiquity: The Curious Testimony of Martianus Capella

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Emerson Brown Jr.
Emerson Brown Jr.*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Extract

For some years I have been working on a study of Epicureanism from its earliest appearances in Latin through the fourteenth century. Although Martianus Capella wrote his De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii several hundred years after the beginning of this period, this essay is the first part of that study I have sought to publish.

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Articles
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Traditio , Volume 38 , 1982 , pp. 75 - 106
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Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 I did most of the research for this essay while a Visiting Fellow at Cornell's Society for the Humanities in 1977–78. I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies and Vanderbilt University for financial support during that year, to the director of the Society for the Humanities, Michael Kammen, and his superb staff, for providing nearly perfect working conditions, and to Cornell's Telluride Society, where I was a faculty guest during the Spring Semester. I owe special thanks to five scholars who have aided my research immeasurably: Professors Kaske, R. E. and Hill, Thomas D. (English, Cornell), Giuseppe Mazzotta (Italian, Cornell), James, J. O'Donnell (Classics, University of Pennsylvania), and Race, William H. (Classics, Vanderbilt). Some of the material used here appeared in a shorter paper read at the Modern Language Association Convention in Houston, Texas, December 1980. Google Scholar

2 Since Martianus' Latin is known neither for its clarity nor for its classical purity, I have taken the liberty of citing him in English translation, while supplying the Latin for words and phrases at all important to the argument. The English translation is that of Harris Stahl, William and Johnson, Richard, with Burge, E. L., Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts , 1 [Introduction] and 2 [Translation] (Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 84; New York 1971, 1977), henceforth cited as MCSLA 1 and 2. Passages are identified by the traditional section numbers. The Latin text is that of Adolphus Dick with additions by Préaux, Jean (Stuttgart 1969). This edition, though an improvement over its predecessors, is still far from ideal (see MCSLA 1.72–79), and citations from it should be checked against the new Teubner edition being prepared by James, A. Willis.Google Scholar

3 The Allegory of Love (Oxford 1936) 78; for a review of opinion that the De nuptiis is ‘fantastic, bizarre, and strange to the point of grotesqueness,’ see Fanny LeMoine, John, ‘Judging the Beauty of Diversity: A Critical Approach to Martianus Capella,’ The Classical Journal 67 (1972) 209–10 n. 4.Google Scholar

4 Allegory of Love 79, 81. Obviously enjoying himself, he goes on: ‘The passages are tortuous, the rooms disfigured with senseless gilding, ill-ventilated, and horribly crowded with knick-knacks. But the knick-knacks are very curious, very strange; and who will say at what point strangeness begins to turn into beauty?’ (p. 81).Google Scholar

5 See especially Fanny LeMoine's 1968 Bryn Mawr doctoral dissertation, Martianus Capella: A Literary Re-evaluation (Munich 1972), and Luciano Lenaz's monumental introduction to his edition of the second book, ‘Motivi filosofico-religiosi nel ii libro delle Nuptiae,’ in Martiani Capellae De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii liber secundus (Padua 1975) 3–120. The characterization ‘grand attempt’ is Professor LeMoine's (p. 229). While acknowledging Martianus' limitations, she argues persuasively that De nuptiis ‘deserves to stand in the long tradition of works which are consciously designed to present a synthesis of the total pattern of the cosmos.’ With magisterial control of learning pertinent to his subject, Professor Lenaz further enriches our appreciation of Martianus' efforts. His entire introduction is indispensable, but one might note particularly his concluding section, ‘Ipotesi sul “significato” del mito,’ 101–20.Google Scholar

6 MCSLA 1.231.9–10. Professor Stahl is harsh on Martianus the ‘compiler’ and on compilers in general: ‘Men devoid of talent, who aspired to literary careers, pillaged the writings of their predecessors and passed themselves off as men of great learning. These men deserve our censure’ (MCSLA 1.232); ‘Martianus’ exposition of any of the four disciplines [of the quadrivium] bears comparison with a term paper written by a high school senior of good standing who has a knack of turning out papers with a minimum of effort’ (1.234), and so on. To Professor Johnson, discussing now Martianus the allegorist rather than Martianus the compiler, his work is still ‘a kind of sad classic in the history of didactic literature’ (1.84). One must sympathize with scholars who devote years of their lives to authors for whom they have so little respect, but authors may not receive ideal treatment under such conditions.Google Scholar

7 Swift passage to Cicero's orbem lacteum (De re publica 6.16) was available only for all qui patriam conservaverint, adiuverint, auxerint (6.13) — in other words, for those who most resembled Cicero (as he liked to think of himself). Eventually, however, Cicero's rather exclusive meritocracy will open its membership even to sensualists and criminals — after they have undergone a sufficiently lengthy process of suffering (6.29). Cicero also mentions the deification of distinguished men in the Nat. deor. 2.62 and Leg. 2.19 (as noted in MCSLA 2.45 n. 65). Some fifty years later, Manilius finds a place in his lacteus orbis (Astronomica 1.753) for Socrates, Plato, and Cicero himself, though membership is still largely reserved for warriors and politicians (1.758–804). By the time Martianus wrote De nuptiis, belief in a special region for the immortal souls of outstanding men seems to have been widespread. See Lenaz's commentary on section 211 (227–28) and Pierre Courcelle, Les Lettres grecques en Occident, de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris 1948 2) 35, 199, 204, to which MCSLA 2 refers us (62 n. 151). Courcelle notes Jerome's comment on the whereabouts of the soul of Praetextatus: … non in lacteo coeli palatio, ut uxor mentitur infelix, sed in sordentibus tenebris continetur (Ep. 23.3; PL 22.426). Martianus' contemporary Macrobius wrote a lengthy commentary on the sixth book of Cicero's Republic, thus preserving Cicero's ideas on the orbis lacteus, while adding the ideas of other thinkers. Martianus himself has already explained the process by which outstanding mortals achieve immortality. The gods agree that ‘those mortals whose elevated lives and high deserts had raised them to desire heaven and to acquire a taste for celestial affairs, should be coopted into the number of the gods’ (94). Through philosophy, Jupiter permits ‘anyone to ascend to the heavens’ (131). To Professor LeMoine, ‘the tale to be unfolded in the entire work is … a cosmic myth of supreme and universal significance in which wisdom and the divine gift of intellect join to raise mankind to the stars’ (Martianus Capella 70). In what almost appears to be a conscious response to Martianus' deification of Epicurus, the Christian Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 432–c. 480) pointedly excludes Epicurus from the temple of philosophy. In his Epithalamium to Polemius and Araneola, a long list of philosophers culminates with ast Epicureos eliminat undique Virtus (C. 15.36–125). Somewhat more subtle is his treatment of Epicurus in two letters (Epp. 1.6.5 and 9.9.14).Google Scholar

8 How that crowd of Greeks can be perceived to be singing loudly and discordantly, yet simultaneously remaining unheard, is something Martianus does not feel compelled to explain. It seems clear enough that he wants to allow the largest possible range of philosophical opinion into his Paradise, without overlooking the incompatibility that may exist between tendentious argumentation and heavenly harmony. But this wedding reception is no open house. Discord, Strife, and the Manes had already been excluded from the guest list in the first book (47, 55, 57).Google Scholar

9 For Manilius, see above, n. 7. Martianus mentions the amplitudo of Socrates and Plato (330); and he describes the apotheoses of Demosthenes and Cicero in terms that clearly place them in the same region as the ancients who accompany Epicurus: … virtute astra conscenderent, immortalitate gloriae saecula superarent (429). Archimedes is also named again, and Euclid is added to the company of immortal philosophers (587).Google Scholar

10 An excellent introduction to Epicurus in antiquity and the early Christian centuries is Schmid, W., ‘Epikur,’ Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 5 (Stuttgart 1962) 681–819. Brief surveys of Epicurus in Rome can be found in Norman Wentworth Dewitt, Epicurus and his Philosophy (Minneapolis 1954; repr. Westport, Conn. 1973) 340–53; Benjamin Farrington, The Faith of Epicurus (New York 1967) 134–47; and Pierre Boyancé, ‘L'epicurisme dans la société et la litérature romaines,’ Bulletin Association Budé, Suppl. 19 (sér. 4, num. 4, 1960) 499–516. More expansive is Ettore Paratore, ‘La Problematica sull'epicureismo a Roma,’ Temporini, H. (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung 1.4 (Berlin 1973) 116–204. This paragraph summarizes material which I expect to treat at greater length elsewhere, and more nearly adequate reference to the formidable bibliography on Roman Epicureanism will accompany my own further work on the subject.Google Scholar

11 De rerum natura, 1.62–79, 3.1–30, 5.1–54 (deus ille fuit, deus, 5.8), 6.1–41.Google Scholar

12 The most obvious echo of (and, no doubt, allusion to) Lucretius is found in the Georgics: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas/atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum/subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari (2.290–92); for a brief introduction to Virgil and Epicureanism, see Luigi Alfonsi, ‘L'Epicureismo nella storia spirituale di Vergilio,’ Epicurea in Memoriam Hectoris Bignone (Genoa 1959) 167–78.Google Scholar

13 See, for example, Odes 3.16.39–44. The theory that Odes 1.34 represents a serious conversion from Epicurean denial of divine providence to devout religious belief is found in the scholia and is still vigorously disputed. For a recent (though surely not the last) word on this controversy, see Fredericksmeyer, E. A., ‘Horace C. 1.34. The Conversion,’ Transactions of the American Philological Association 106 (1976) 155–76.Google Scholar

14 The recent theory that Statius was a Stoic is not standing up very well (David Vessey, Statius and the Thebaid [Cambridge 1973]). A full response will be found in a forthcoming book on Statius by Frederick M. Ahl. A brief statement is available in his review of Statius and the Thebaid (Philological Quarterly 53 [1974] 141–44).Google Scholar

15 … mensura tamen quae / sufficiat census, si quis me consulat, edam: / in quantum sitis atque fames et frigora poscunt, / quantum, Epicure, tibi parvis suffecit in hortis, / quantum Socratici ceperunt ante penates; / numquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit (316–21). The theory that Juvenal was converted to Epicureanism in later life can be found in Gilbert Highet, ‘The Philosophy of Juvenal,’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Association 80 (1949) 254–70, and in his book Juvenal the Satirist: A Study (Oxford 1954; repr. New York 1961). Critical opinion concerning Professor Highet's book seems to be improving; see, for example, Michael Coffey, Roman Satire (London 1976) 242 n. 1.Google Scholar

16 In his old age, Diogenes of Oenoanda (fl. c. 200?) acknowledged his indebtedness to Epicurus by having a personal testimonial, and many of the master's writings, inscribed on a wall over a hundred yards long. All the fragments known until quite recently are now available in a new edition (Diogenes Oenoandensis, Fragmenta; Leipzig 1967) and in a translation with introduction and commentary (Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments; London 1971) both by Chilton, C. W. New fragments continue to be discovered. See Ferguson Smith, Martin, Thirteen New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Vienna 1974) and for brief comment on recent discoveries Diskin Clay's review of Smith's study in American Journal of Philology 97 (1976) 306–309. Diogenes Laertius (fl. 1st half 3rd c. ?), devoted the last and largest book of his Lives of the Philosophers to Epicurus, and this remains our principal source of information about Epicurus and of Epicurean texts.Google Scholar

17 Epistle 21.9. Seneca customarily included a bit of traditional wisdom in his letters to Lucilius, and he frequently used one of the multa bene dicta (8.8) of Epicurus for that purpose — maxims such as: Miser est, qui se non beatissimum iudicat, licet imperet mundo (9.20); Inmodica ira gignit insaniam (18.14); Si vis … Pythoclea divitem facere, non pecuniae adiciendum sed cupiditati detrahendum est (21.7); or Initium est salutis notitia peccati (28.9). Through Seneca, the association of Epicurus with such irreproachable wisdom was transmitted to the Middle Ages. Seneca's practice of quoting Epicurus in his earlier letters to Lucilius and then combatting Epicurean thought in later ones need not be taken as evidence of a change in his philosophical position. He is winning Lucilius over to the Stoic position by employing recognizable methodological principles. See Hadot, Ilsetraut, ‘Épicure et l'enseignement philosophique hellénistique et romain,’ Association Guillaume Budé: Actes du VIIIe Congrès (Paris 1969 [1970]) esp. 350–51. I owe this reference to Professor Peter Brown of the University of California.Google Scholar

18 In fairness it should be added that some of the sayings attributed to Epicurus himself are not totally incompatible with this view of his life and thought — for example, his assertion that he does not know how to think of the good apart from pleasures of taste, sex, sound, and beautiful form (D.L. 10.6).Google Scholar

19 As, for example, in the brilliant passage in De oratore 3.63–64.Google Scholar

20 In Pisonem 37. Harsh as Cicero's invective can be in his attacks on Piso's Epicureanism (also evident in Post Reditum in Senatu and Pro Sestio), he acknowledges that Piso had not studied Epicurean thought adequately. The word ‘pleasure’ is all he cares about: cuius et quo tempore et quo modo, non quaerebat, verbum ipsum [voluptas] omnibus animi et corporis partibus devorarat (Pro Sestio 23). Thus, in allowing that Epicurus' views on pleasure may have been other than what Piso chose to believe, Cicero dissociates, to some extent, the philosophy from the abuse of it. At the same time, he reveals a serious weakness in Epicurean ethics, for once a philosopher has sanctioned pleasure as the greatest good, he may not be able to ensure that his definition of pleasure (in Epicurus' case, a temperate and ultimately moral definition) will prevail. Piso became an Epicurean, but non penitus illi disciplinae quaecumque est deditus, sed captus uno verbo voluptas (Post Red. in Sen. 14).Google Scholar

21 Three of his ten essays on anti-Epicurean themes are extant: De latenter vivendo, Non posse suaviter, Adversus Coloten; and criticism of Epicurus is scattered throughout his works.Google Scholar

22 Although omitting Dionysius of Alexandria and Lactantius (on reasonable grounds: see Preface, pp. iv–v), Richard Paul Jungkutz' doctoral dissertation, ‘Epicureanism and the Church Fathers’ (Univ. of Wisconsin 1961), is a useful survey; a good summary of the anti-Epicurean tradition is available in the same author's ‘Fathers, Heretics and Epicureans,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 17 (1966) 3–10, and of the more positive tradition in his ‘Christian Approval of Epicureanism,’ Church History 31 (1962) 279–93.Google Scholar

23 Homes Dudden, F., The Life and Times of St. Ambrose (Oxford 1935) 397.Google Scholar

24 When it is to his advantage, Jerome is capable of acknowledging good things (as he sees them) about Epicurus: Epicurus, as the patron of pleasure, says that a wise man can seldom marry (1.48); Epicurus is in favor of a simple diet (2.11). Also it should be said that in comparison with Theophilus of Antioch Jerome seems rather restrained. Theophilus accuses Epicurus not only of teaching atheism (a standard charge) but also of recommending homosexuality and intercourse with mothers and sisters (Ad Autolycum 3.6).Google Scholar

25 The emperor Julian, while taking the trouble to forbid his priests to read the Epicureans, noted that the gods had already destroyed their works, leaving few of their books (301cd); Augustine declares that the ashes of Stoicism and Epicureanism are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them against Christianity (Ep. 118.12).Google Scholar

26 Franz Cumont: ‘Lorsque le mysticisme et la théologie triomphèrent dans le monde romain, l’épicurisme cessa d'exister. II avait disparu au milieu du ive siècle’ (Lux Perpetua [Paris 1949] 127); Emile Bréhier: ‘This epoch [the third century] witnessed the final and irreparable overthrow of the dogmatic philosophies, Stoicism and Epicureanism’ (The Philosophy of Plotinus, trans. Thomas, Joseph [Chicago 1958] 14); Alan Cameron: ‘Long since despised by Christians, Epicureanism was despised too by all pagan thinkers of whom we have any information in the fourth century’ (Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius [Oxford 1970] 328); Chilton, C. W.: ‘By the middle of the fourth century [the Epicurean sect] was dying or dead…; the school itself was quite finished by the end of the fourth century’ (Diogenes of Oenoanda xxvii). Now, if being ‘alive’ means that self-conscious communities were reading the works, openly and actively proselytizing, and celebrating the master's birthday on the 20th of each month — as the Elder Pliny described contemporary practice — then there is little evidence that Epicurus was ‘alive’ in the early fifth century. On the other hand, if it means that Epicurean ideas were available and discussed seriously in intellectual circles, then this announcement of Epicurus' death may be premature. A recent study states confidently that ‘Epicureanism was decidedly a live religious option throughout the Empire’ (Ferguson, John, The Religions of the Roman Empire [Ithaca 1970] 193), a view which my own research now seems likely to confirm.Google Scholar

27 This epistle is often presented as strong evidence against the continued vitality of Epicurean thought in the early fifth century. Its value as evidence to support the opposite contention should not be overlooked.Google Scholar

28 The date of De nuptiis remains controversial. Until quite recently, the consensus of scholars seemed to favor a date of c. 410–439 (see MCSLA 1.12–16, where Professor Stahl can claim that ‘to assign the work to a date after 439 calls for extravagant assumptions’). Now Willis, J. A. would place Martianus ‘under the Vandal occupation of Carthage,’ that is, after 439; see his review of Lenaz, Gnomon 49 (1977) 626, where he refers to his own statement of the case for that dating (in ‘Martianus Capella und die mittelalterliche Schulbildung,’ Das Altertum 19 [1973] 165) and asserts that ‘a forthcoming article of Préaux's will place this dating beyond doubt.’ The only chronological certainty important to my argument is that Martianus wrote after Prudentius, and there no longer appears to be any substantial doubt about that.Google Scholar

29 Martiani Capellae De nuptiis 229.Google Scholar

30 In his last illness, Epicurus put into practice his theory concerning the capacity of the wise man to endure physical suffering cheerfully (D.L. 10.22). Reflecting on that ‘last and most fortunate day’ led Seneca to his greatest praise of Epicurus: Beatum autem [diem] agere, nisi qui est in summo bono, non potest (Ep. 66.47).Google Scholar

31 As in Ovid, rosae fulgent inter sua lilia mixtae (Am. 2.5.37), and Prudentius, intertexta rosis candentia lilia miscet (Psych. 882).Google Scholar

32 See Pavlovskis, Zoja, ‘Statius and the Late Latin Epithalamia,’ Classical Philology 60 (1965) 164–77. I owe this reference to Professor Race, William H., who in conversation and correspondence provided ample evidence that it is within the later epithalamial tradition that the fictive form of De nuptiis must be understood.Google Scholar

33 Lilies appear frequently in Canticles and function as emblems of uncomplaining trust and innocence in Matthew 6.28 and Luke 12.27; note also Augustine's lilia virginum (Sermo 304.2, PL 38.1396) and Petrus Chrysologus' liliae castitatis (Sermo 22, PL 52.262). Martianus makes clear the role of lilies as emblems of innocence in section 902, as discussed below. That the three flowers still seemed appropriate for epithalamia in Martianus' day is evident from passages in two epithalamia of Dracontius, both of which echo Statius' tu modo fronte rosas, violas modo lilia mixta / excipis: et violis ornate comas, dent alba coronas / lilia mixta rosis (Romulea 6.7–8), and lilia mixta rosis socians violasque hyacinthis (Rom. 7.45), discussed in Pavlovskis 175. Genuine Epicurean thought shows little enthusiasm for sexuality. The wise man does not fall in love; one is not improved by sexual indulgence and is fortunate not to be harmed by it (D.L. 10.118; see also 131–32 and Lucretius 4.1058–1287).Google Scholar

34 See, for example, Horace, Odes 1.5.1–3, 1.38.1–4, 2.3.13–16, 3.15.13–15, and Herrick's source for ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds’ in the ps.-Ausonius ‘De Rosis Nascentibus’: collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes / et memor esto aevum sic properare, tuum (49–50).Google Scholar

35 Horace, Odes 2.11.13–17; Martial 5.64 and 2.59.Google Scholar

36 Augustine, for example, uses Wisdom 2.8, along with the manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur of 1 Cor. 15.32, to characterize the Epicurean response to human mortality (Sermo 150.5, PL 38.811).Google Scholar

37 See also, for example, Ovid, Am. 1.2.39–40, Fasti 4.138–39, and Prudentius, Symm. 2.524. In Fasti 4.865–70, Ovid exhorts prostitutes to praise Venus, who aids ladies of their profession by giving them (among other things) tectaque composita iuncea vincla rosa. Google Scholar

38 Servius, citing Horace, summarizes this tradition neatly in his commentary on Eclogues 2.47, pallentis violas: ‘Amantium tinctas colore: Horatius et tinctus viola pallor amantium [Odes 3.10.14]: unde non praeter affectionem amantis eos flores nymphas dicit offerre, qui sunt amantibus similes. sane Papaver, Narcissus, Anethus pulcherrimi pueri fuerunt quique in flores suorum nominum versi sunt: quos ei offerendo quasi admonet, nequid etiam hic tale aliquid unquam ex amore patiatur’ (Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Bucolica et Georgica Commentarii, ed. Georgius Thilo [Leipzig 1887] 25).Google Scholar

39 This is not to insist that roses and violets invariably have the same symbolic overtones. Martianus himself, for example, has Calliope sing quite innocently of the seaport of Cirrha preparing violets, and he presents the Graces garlanded with roses (119, 132). But the particular ambiguity of violets in the middle of this spectrum of symbolic flowers seems well established in the classical period and has been recognized and exploited by subsequent poets. One supects that Chaucer knew what he was doing when he decided not to include among his descriptions of Criseyde this passage, where Boccaccio describes his more openly sensual heroine: ‘La qual [Criseida], quanto la rosa la viola / di bilta vince, cotanto era questa / più ch'altra donna bella’ (Filostrato 1.19.3–5); and that Keats did too, when he wrote what may be the most subtle description of sexual union in our literature: ‘Into her dream he melted, as the rose / Blendeth its odor with the violet — / Solution sweet …’ (Eve of St, Agnes 320–22). And the hauntingly elusive character of Wordsworth's Lucy might have lost some of its exquisite ambivalence has she been either a rose or a lily, ‘half hidden from the eye.’

40 As in Prudentius, Amart. 314–15 and the Mulier stulta et clamosa, plenaque illecebris of Prov. 9.13–18.Google Scholar

41 Ad fam. 15.16.1, 3, cited by Lenaz, p. 229, glossing section 213.Google Scholar

42 For other appearances of illecebra in Cicero, see, e.g., Cat. 2.8, Mil. 43, Rep. 2.8.Google Scholar

43 Of course, voluptas alone is not always a negative term in Prudentius' moral vocabulary (see, e.g., Cath. 6.21–24, 8.16, Apoth. 396, Symm. 2.909); even in Prudentius, Christianity can be a religion of joy as well as of righteousness.Google Scholar

44 Jonathan Culler: ‘Literary works are to be considered not as autonomous entities, “organic wholes” as American New Criticism put it for so long, but as intertextual constructs: sequences which have meaning in relation to other texts which they take up, cite, parody, refute, or generally transform. A text can be read only in relation to other texts, and it is made possible by the codes which animate the discursive space of a culture’ (‘In Pursuit of Signs,’ Daedalus 106.4 [1977] 107–108). See also his Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, N.Y. 1975) 139–40; and see now The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (Ithaca, N.Y. 1981), in which Culler reprints ‘In Pursuit of Signs’ and develops his analysis of intertextuality in greater detail, esp. in chapter 5, ‘Presupposition and Intertextuality’ (100–18). His assertion that poetics should relate ‘a literary work to a whole series of other works, treating them not as sources but as constituents of a genre’ (117) seems particularly apropriate to this study of Martianus. The demands on (and opportunities for) the reader are great. If the literary text is like a musical score requiring a skilled performer (i.e., reader or listener) to transform it from a series of signs into a full aesthetic experience, this sort of complex allusion might be thought of as a cadenza in the midst of that score — a moment where the creative individuality of the performer is especially solicited. Intertextuality, then, challenges the reader to participate in the creation of the literary work by deciding which elements in the rich tradition called up through allusion are relevant to the intention of the work. This process (though not the term ‘intertextuality’) is admirably set forth in Earl R. Wasserman's ‘The Limits of Allusion in The Rape of the Lock,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966) 425–44. For a particularly telling application to a medieval text, see Kaske, R. E., ‘The Canticum Canticorum in the Miller's Tale,’ Studies in Philology 59 (1962) 479–500; and for a more theoretical statement of how awareness of one type of medieval lore may aid the reader in this process, see the same writer's ‘Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Defense,’ in Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958–1959, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (New York 1960) 27–60. I trust that my reference to the ‘intention of the work’ will not be misunderstood. For the role of authorial intention in the critical process Hirsch, E. D., Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven 1967) is particularly helpful. Perhaps I should admit that taking Martianus' use of his sources this seriously is not common among students of De nuptiis. Willis, J. A. goes so far as to say that ‘our author is capable of such stupidity in use of his sources it is a credible assumption that Martianus was not a “sanus homo”’ (‘Martianus Capella and His Early Commentators,’ unpublished dissertation [London 1952], cited by LeMoine, ‘Judging the Beauty of Diversity,’ 209 n. 3, and quoted from there).Google Scholar

45 Of course, in urging the rejection of costly pleasures Horace is in perfect harmony with authentic Epicurean thought (see D.L. 10.130–32).Google Scholar

46 See now James O'Donnell, J., ‘The Demise of Paganism,’ Traditio 35 (1979) 45–88, which the author kindly allowed me to read in typescript.Google Scholar

47 Barnes, T. D., ‘The Historical Setting of Prudentius’ Contra Symmachum, American Journal of Philology 97 (1976) 381; Barnes concludes: ‘The recently dead Symmachus of the Contra Symmachum was intended to act as a safe and dignified target, and his speech of 384 was far easier to refute and ridicule than what living pagans said when Alaric invaded Italy’ (386). And see now James J. O'Donnell, ‘The Career of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus,’ Phoenix 32 (1978) 129–43.Google Scholar

48 In the speech of Pausanias, 180d–182a. In light of subsequent developments of this tradition, it may be worth recalling that Pausanias does not distinguish between heavenly love () and common love (‘ Πáνδημoς) by the simple dichotomy of sexuality/non-sexuality (pace MCSLA 2, 30n: ‘Plato in his Symposium regarded the first as representing spiritual love; the second, physical love’). True, common lovers (oί ϕaῦλoί) are apt to love the body more than the soul. But heavenly lovers, although they are more noble and although their love of youths involves an appreciation of their goodness and intelligence, should not be mistaken for prefigurations of Pauline sexual abstinence. It is the sexual love of women that Pausanias abjures.Google Scholar

49 Discussed briefly by Arthur Groos, ‘“Amor and His Brother Cupid”: The “Two Loves” in Heinrich von Veldeke's Eneit,’ Traditio 32 (1976) 245.Google Scholar

50 Apuleius, Apol. 31: illex animi Venus; in Cassian, Inst. 6.13.1, the devil is inlex malorum. Google Scholar

51 This meaning of apporto is seen most clearly in De nuptiis at the end of section 729: ‘tum illa [Arithmetica] antequam iuberetur, quid adportet…’ Lenaz translates the apportabat of 213 not by its exact Italian cognate but as ‘offriva.’Google Scholar

52 Why Voluptas turns on Geometry with such harsh personal abuse seems inexplicable. At the end of her treatise Martianus describes her as doctissima cunctarum et benignissima (724).Google Scholar

53 The gloss ‘Priapus was a minor fertility god’ (MCSLA 2.273n) may not quite do justice to this magnificent comic deity. For Priapus in the classical tradition see Herter, Hans, De Priapo (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 23; Breslau, and Tübingen, 1932). Christians attributed the particular tendency in male anatomy and psychology that Priapus represents, and the manifold opportunities for sin, frustration, and embarrassment that he provides, to the Fall (see Augustine, Civ. Dei. 14.17). My study of Priapus in medieval literature continues. Published to date are ‘Hortus Inconclusus: The Significance of Priapus and Pyramus and Thisbe in the Merchant's Tale,’ Chaucer Review 4 (1969–70) 31–40, and ‘Priapus and the Parlement of Foulys,’ Studies in Philology 72 (1975) 258–74.Google Scholar

54 The apparent inconsistency involved in equipping Philology simutaneously with emblems of chastity (lilies) and sexual fulfillment (roses) may not be insurmountable. The visual imagery is clear enough. And a wedding night can be one occasion when chastity and sexual fulfillment come together. Hymen repeats and makes explicit the sexual connotations of lilies and roses in section 902.Google Scholar

55 Cinnama, often associated with the death and rebirth of the phoenix, may contribute to the atmosphere of joy and renewal here in a way not fully conveyed by the ‘fragrant garlands’ of our translation; see Ovid, Met. 15.391–407, Statius, Silvae 2.6.87–88, and Claudian, Stil. 2.420.Google Scholar

56 Pitho (varr. pyto, peta) or πεθω, as substantive, appears in the list of hapax legomena and rariora in Appendix B, MCSLA 1.252.Google Scholar

57 Martianus Capella 59.Google Scholar

58 Ibid. 14.Google Scholar

59 See above, n. 53; and for the importance of the castration of Saturn and the loss of the Golden Age to later discussions of human sexuality, see Hill, Thomas D., ‘Narcissus, Pygmalion, and the Castration of Saturn: Two Mythographical Themes in the Roman de la Rose,’ Studies in Philology 71 (1974) 404–26.Google Scholar

60 Martianus had some knowledge, at least, of De rerum natura; see refs. in the edition of Dick–Préaux, 567, s.v. Lucretius.Google Scholar

61 Epicurus devoted a whole work to love (, D.L. 10.27); Lucretius and Diogenes Laertius may give us some idea of its contents (see above, n. 33).Google Scholar

62 Coemesis (, a lying down to sleep) is recorded in Latin only, apparently, in this passage. MCSLA's ‘lullaby’ is more felicitous than Lewis and Short's ‘a somniferous song’ and superior to Souter's grammatically curious ‘sleeping.’ Yet even a lullaby seems rather out of place here. Surely sleeping is the activity farthest from the plans of the bride and groom or the thoughts of the assembled gods and heroes. The verb can mean not only ‘put to sleep’ but ‘lie with’ in the sexual sense (cf. ‘to sleep with’), and it is surely not straining things to suggest that Martianus would have us infer that this is a song not about going to sleep but about going to bed. ‘Bedding-song’ might accurately, if awkwardly, capture the delicacy of Martianus' coemesis. The last word of the allegory, pervenit — perhaps not simply ‘came to’ or ‘arrived at’ but ‘attained’ — almost makes it seem as though reaching the thalamum virginis magna cunctorum voluptate had been Harmony's ultimate goal.Google Scholar

63 Concerning , see Leo Spitzer, ‘Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word “Stimmung”,’ Part 1, Traditio 2 (1944) 409–64; Part 2, Traditio 3 (1945) 307–64; Spitzer mentions Martianus, however, only in passing (1.440, 441, 2.325, 340), and does not treat the theme of harmony in the allegory of De nuptiis at all.Google Scholar

64 That the pagan point of view remained unchanged may be seen in the words of the good physician Disarms in Macrobius' Saturnalia: quid enim tam contrarium quam virtus et voluptas? (7.4.32); or, more moderately, in the words given Symmachus in the same work: nec voluptas nobis ut Stoicis tamquam hostis repudianda est, nec ut Epicure is summum bonum in voluptate ponendum, excogitemus alacritatem lascivia carentem (2.1.8).Google Scholar

65 Allegory of Love 78. By adding that ‘the distinction scarcely applies to him; such men do not have beliefs,’ Lewis makes his uncertainty less incomprehensible. It is true that late antiquity does not lack examples of ‘figures who, while offering a nominal allegiance to Christianity, betrayed by their attitude and outlook an utter failure to understand it’ (Charles Norris Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine [London 1944] 312). Ausonius is an excellent example (ibid. 313). But concerning Christianity Martianus gives no hint I can perceive of even a nominal allegiance.Google Scholar

66 Martiani Capellae De nuptiis 119.Google Scholar

67 To Lenaz's acceptance of the theory that section 206 ‘introduce inaspettamente un teologema di sapore … inequivocabilmente cristiano’ (p. 42), one might add another passage: hanc igitur trigeminam feminam sive tres in unius nominis vocabulum conspirantes (895), a passage that may gently mock the doctrinal disputes that Augustine was then writing (or had recently written) the De Trinitate to settle. Such a possibility should not preclude other meanings for the passage, such as that Lenaz himself suggests (pp. 107–108).Google Scholar

68 Christianity and Classical Culture 355. Study and re-evaluation of ‘Antike und Christentum’ is flourishing. See now Judge, E. A., ‘“Antike und Christentum”: Towards a Definition of the Field, A Bibliographical Survey,’ Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 23.1 (1979) 3–58.Google Scholar

69 Life of Julius, Saints and Julianus, of Orta, quoted from Daniélou, Jean and Marrou, Henri, The Christian Centuries , I: The First Six Hundred Years (New York 1964) 296; the Vita, of course, depicts such activity as being entirely exemplary, and The Christian Centuries chronicles it in a chapter titled ‘The Progress of Christianity within the Empire,’ a chapter in which non-Christians are described as ‘a handful of die-hards’ (291). Around 400–410 ‘we still find a more or less numerous [sic] minority of pagans strongly resisting the new religion’ (295).Google Scholar

70 Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750 (New York 1971) 103–104.Google Scholar

71 The Christian Centuries, I 295; she appears in the De nuptiis at 58 (caelestis Iuno) and 168 (aetheria Iuno).Google Scholar

72 A hundred years earlier, a letter of Constantine I stated that Porphyry's ‘impious compositions have been destroyed,’ and Theodosius II condemned them in 448 and again in 449 or 450; see Coleman-Norton, P. R., Roman State and Christian Church: A Collection of Legal Documents to A.D. 535 , 3 vols. (London 1966), Documents Nos. 66, 422, 446, and 459. Nor was Porphyry alone; see Coleman-Norton's subject index s.v. ‘book–burning.’ Christians were not the first to consign offensive writings to the flames, however. The tradition reaches back to the first Roman emperor. See Coleman-Norton, , Document 382 n. 1 (below, n. 74).Google Scholar

73 ‘Religious Coercion in the Later Roman Empire: The Case of North Africa,’ History 48 (1963), 283–305, repr. in Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (New York 1972), and quoted from there, p. 319.Google Scholar

74 ‘Contrary to later practice of ecclesiastical persecution in Europe, only acts are prohibited and … Jewish or pagan opinion as such is tolerated’ (Coleman-Norton 627, concerning Document 382: Mandate of Honorius and Theodosius II on Penalties for Heretics and for Christian Plunderers of Non-Christians, 423 [CT 16.10.24]).Google Scholar

75 ‘The Demise of Paganism' 51, et pass. Google Scholar

76 You hear the same voice, what John Ferguson calls ‘the highest creed of paganism,’ in Augustine's correspondent Maximus of Madaura: ‘Equidem unum esse Deum summum, sine initio, sine prole naturae, ceu patrem magnum atque magnificum, quis tam demens, tam mente captus neget esse certissimum ? Hujus nos virtutes per mundanum opus diffusas, multis vocabulis invocamus, quoniam nomen ejus cuncti proprium videlicet ignoramus. Nam Deus omnibus religionibus commune nomen est. Ita fit ut dum ejus quasi quaedam membra carptim, variis supplicationibus prosequimur, totum colere profecto videamur’ (Ep. 16; PL 33.82); as Ferguson notes, ‘To Jews and Christians this was blasphemy’ (The Religions of the Roman Empire [Ithaca 1970] 242).Google Scholar

77 ‘The missions of the higher religions are not competitive; they are complementary. We can believe in our own religion without having to feel that it is the sole repository of truth. We can love it without having to feel that it is the sole means of salvation. We can take Symmachus's words to heart without being disloyal to Christianity. We cannot harden our hearts against Symmachus without hardening them against Christ. For what Symmachus is preaching is Christian charity’ (An Historian's Approach to Religion [London 1956] 298–99).Google Scholar

78 Religions of the Roman Empire 242. Ferguson concludes: ‘Christianity won, but it had changed in the winning. For one thing the refusal of Christians to betray their master, itself wholly commendable, led to an unloving intolerance of other people which was not at all commendable. For another the rejection of compromise was, as we have seen, not as absolute as might at first sight appear. For a third the very achievement of power brought with it spiritual peril. The uneasy question remained. When Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but by me,” did he mean that only the professed Christian could find God, or that all those who come to God are led by the Divine Logos, whether they know it or not? The question still remains.’Google Scholar

79 ‘The Demise of Paganism’ 53.Google Scholar