Wednesday, February 01, 2006

A Few Notes on Hilary of Poitiers

On pp. 204-6 of vol. VIII.4.1 of Schanz/Hosius there is a brief but helpful summary of the poetic work of Hilary of Poitiers, from which the following notes are taken.

Hilary was a writer of hymns--the oldest hymn-poet in the Latin church--yet, for a long time, his actual poetry was unknown. This changed when Gamurrini discovered, in a manuscript of Arezzo, three mutilated hymns attributed to Hilary. None of the three remains in entirety: the first is missing its last four strophes; the second is missing the first five strophes; for the last, the ending is lost, whose length is therefore unable to be determined.

While the first two have in common their abecedarian composition, no two of the three are alike in meter. The first is in Second Asclepiads, the second in iambic senarii, and the third in trochaic tetrameters.

In the second and third hymns the verse-ictus and the accent fall together almost always. The first, however, abides by a different principle, in which Hilary takes great license with quantities: short syllables become long on the beat and long syllables become short on the off-beat (in der Senkung--abatement, countersink, descent, fall).

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Numerological Redemption?

In his article 'Theory and Practice in the Vergilian Cento' (ICS 9, pp. 79-90), David F. Bright points out (p. 83 and n. 20) that, when the prologue is subtracted, Proba's cento (in which Vergil is Christianized) has exactly 666 lines. I had not noticed this fact; Bright remarks on it because it has bearing on his statistical analysis (the 29-line prologue is only partly centonic). This number, of course, has obvious Christian significance. Here is the Vulgate version of Revelation 13:18 (not the version Proba would have known, but it will at least give us some Latin):

hic sapientia est qui habet intellectum conputet numerum bestiae numerus enim hominis est et numerus eius est sescenti sexaginta sex

It is odd that the fully Vergilian part of the poem is exactly coterminous with the Number of the Beast. Coincidence? Or is Proba here attempting a poetic neutralization, appropration, and 'redemption' of more than just Vergil?

Monday, January 30, 2006

The Survival of Classical Texts (2)

Previously, we noted the importance of Carolingian strongholds in the revival of the copying of ancient texts. But what of England’s part? Reynolds observes that, due to wars and invasions, England had lost most of its collection of literature even as such collections were starting to grow on the Continent.. When England began to rebuild her libraries in the 10th century, it is a sign of the extent of the Continental revival that connoisseurs were aided by texts that had migrated across the water, probably as a result of the influx of Europeans caused by the invasions :

'But crossing the English Channel is always something of a bore, and the gradual restocking of English libraries is one indication of the vigour and success with which classical learning was able to expand its orbit’ (xxxi-xxxii).

Evidence indicates that much more ancient poetry than prose was acquired at this time. Moreover, classical learning continued to pick up steam and rapidly expanded in the century following the Norman Conquest (xxxiv).

As one moves into the 11th century, German and Italian contributions overshadow those of France (xxxii). This trend is especially noteworthy at the Italian monastery of Montecassino:

‘The most remarkable phenomenon is of course the copying at Montecassino within the course of a few decades [of the eleventh century] of a whole clutch of hitherto totally unknown texts’ (xxxiii).

The trend of the revival (though one must take some ups and downs into account) continued upward, especially as another sort of renaissance began in the 12th century. During this time, one may observe a great increase in the amount of books circulating (xxxv). France now again moves (probably) into a position of dominance, ‘though there is strenuous competition from the monasteries of Bavaria and Austria....The Cistercians were a vigorous order and their scriptoria were particularly busy’ (xxxv). The increased volume, however, brought problems of its own: textual corruption. Reynolds points out that

‘[e]ditors do not necessarily look upon the manuscripts of the later Middle Ages with any great enthusiasm. In the case of some authors they will have had a long copying tradition behind them, with its inevitable accumulation and compounding of error and conjecture, and there is now a marked propensity towards arbitrary alteration’ (xxxv).

And, remembering the Norman Conquest, one must not forget the increased activity in England. Reynolds illustrates this point by referring to ‘the breadth of reading of such a writer as William of Malmesbury, who was totally dependent on the books which he could obtain in England’ (xxxvi).

Naturally, such revivals gave birth to an increase in literacy, previously the province, for the most part, of clergy and the powerful (xxxvii). Reynolds states that

‘[t]he putting into circulation of newly discovered works of Latin literature could have a wider impact on taste and culture now that books were coming withing the reach of a reading public’ (xxxvii).

Finally, there are a couple of more things worth remarking upon in the run-up to the capital-r Renaissance. The first is the development of the convenient florilegium, which made a greater amount of Latin literature available in circulation; this occurred at the same time as Latin translations from Greek and Arabic gave access to Aristotelian philosophy and science (xxxvii-xxxviii).

Secondly, the importance of the development of printing cannot be overstated:

‘Although the change was gradual–some of our late manuscripts are copies of printed editions–most Latin authors were available in print by the end of the fifteenth century’ (xlii-xliii).

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Public Finance in 4th century Athens

We've received a request from a reader named George in the UK who is looking for some help with bibliography in the subject above. He would appreciate any help, and I'll direct him to any comments left here.

I can't say that I know a lot (or anything) about the subject, but I imagine a good place to start would be Robin Osborne & Simon Hornblower's Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts (OUP 1994).

I've recently run across a few articles and things that discuss public finance in 3rd century Delphi under the Aetolian league, and such things seem very specialized. I'd recommend doing some creative searches with L'Année philologique, which your university or (hopefully) one nearby will allow you to access. Off the top of my head I'd guess that BCH (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique) will end up being a good source for inscriptional evidence.

Good luck!

Numismatics again.

Guess what? This post isn't about coins. It's about someone who sells coins spamming our site with ads. I wanted you to know that I'll be deleting all of your disingenuous comments and that they will lead no one to your site. It's really pathetic that you'd take the time to post so many comments with security features in place.

I'll also be enabling comment moderation and promise to stay on top of it so that comments are not delayed.